ED MORENO
He went to America in his teens & in 1951 whilst at University studying medicine, first worked on radio in America. Severe diabetes forced him to return home to the UK where he continued Deejaying at dances held in Wembley Town Hall.
In 1962 he was approached by a man called Arnold Swanson. Ed had made money from inventing a car seat belt and had plans to use it to launch Britain's first offshore station, to be called GBOK. Ed recorded programmes in readiness but GBOK never made it on to the air.
Instead in 1964 he joined the fledgling Radio Caroline. Unfortunately Ed became extremely ill and soon had to leave the ship. After a prolonged hospital stay he became Programme Controller on Radio Invicta, the early sweet music station based on Red Sands Fort. When Invicta closed down there was a slight pause in Ed's career although the Thank Your Luck Stars web site reports that Ed was the guest DJ on this legendary Saturday evening ITV pop music television show on February 13, 1965.
Ed joined Radio City where, because of his continuing poor health, he recorded his What's New and Late Date programmes on land. He stayed with City until September 1966 when he moved to Britain Radio.
In 1967 he became joint Programme Director of Radio 270 and he stayed with the station almost until its close-down.
He was involved in the initial planning for Radio Northsea International. His only time on air (and I think his only time on the Mebo II) was in the early hours of March 1st, 1970. He had gone out to the station with "a tender full of reporters, friends of RNI & celebrities" for the stations opening & most of the guests who had DJ experience took a stint during RNI's initial 24 hours. Ed's final output was an interview with singer Dorothy Squires, a week later, on March 8th. The interview was advertised as "a live broadcast" but it has long been believed it was pre-recorded. Andy Archer and Rodney Collins (the latter being a Record Mirror & Music Echoes reporter who actually did the interview) recently confirmed what happened: "Dorothy Squires was due out to the boat for a live interview with Ed Moreno. It has been decided to pre-record a stand-by interview in case of travel problems or bad weather. In the event the weather forecast was poor and Dot Squires decided against the journey. However, it continued to be billed as a live interview as it got a fair amount of pre-publicity."
Terry Williams, a family friend of Dorothy Squires adds to the story: "She did go to Holland to give the interview and was intending to visit the MEBO 2. However the couple of days she had in Holland coincided with rough sea conditions and they could not take her to the ship. She recorded the interview on land. She knew her music was not the style of RNI, but it was the mere fact she could get her record played on it would upset the BBC......She had argued over something with someone at the BBC and they refused to play her record. It was not the Payola scandal. (That was a case she did actually win and was proved innocent).
Dorothy Squires is best known as Roger Moore's wife. They were married between 1953 & 1968)
Her August 1970 release (her 5th & final hit). It only made No.25.
In Feb 1970, she had released "'Till", again on the President label.
