ROB EDEN
He has been a D.J. since leaving school, but even then he was not new to the world of show business, for as a child he appeared on several TV commercials.
Robbie considers that the best advice he was ever given came from his headmaster. It was to leave school - and he took it. Yet it was at school where he became interested in his greatest love, the Theatre. He confesses that if he were not working in radio, an actor at Stratford is what he would
most like to be. In fact he feels that Stratford-upon-Avon, world famous as the home of Britain's best-known playwrite, William Shakespeare, is the most interesting place that he's ever visited.
After an appearance on Radio One, Rob joined Radio Northsea International, via "Bumpers Discotheque" in Piccadilly in London. He had four "stints". The first was between August 7, 1970 to August 31, 1970. Rob describes his first experiences of RNI:
"It was way back in August 1970, in fact the 5th of that month, that I left Scheveningen harbour and for the first time to work aboard the infamous Mebo II. At that time I didn’t know anyone on board, although Larry Tremaine had come out with us. It was a dark foggy day and when the Mebo I finally berthed alongside the radio ship we were greeted by the crew and the DJ’s on board, namely, Spangles Maldoon, wearing his famous yellow shirt (the only one he seemed to have), Michael Lindsay, who I noticed was younger than I thought, and Mark Wesley. Also on board at that time were John Denny and Dave Gregory. Andy Archer I had seen earlier in the week at Beacon Records in London and I mentioned to him that I would be on the Mebo the following week. I met Andy in Scheveningen in the Grand Hotel and we came out to the boat after having a vegetable fight in the harbour.
After settling down and after the Mebo I had left with all the photographers and everyone else I was shown the boat and told about the programme schedule etc., and told I was doing 12-2 that night, although that day we added an hour and it became 12-3 a.m. At midnight I noticed everyone had gone to bed as it was getting a little rough. Spangles showed me how to operate the panel and I was left on my own until three in the morning, and then closed down the station which I thought at the time was a big job, but it seemed to pass over without incident. Still I thought everyone would be listening upstairs, but it seems the boys were all very tired and only (as I found out the following day) tuned in to see how many mistakes I made in the first half hour and gave up. It wasn’t really a great programme, but I think it wasn’t bad for the first time "on the air", especially from a rocking boat. The next few days I spent getting to know the boat and most important the people on board the boat. At first all the DJ’s seemed to be happy and to get on well together, but I soon found out that most of the DJ’s either hated each other or wanted to be Programme Director. I just got on with my job and tried to he as friendly as possible with everyone. At that time Captain Tom started to bring his boat "The Redder" out to the Mebo most days, and so we had a regular flow of mail and papers, and constant contact with land. Every Sunday Larry
Tremaine came out in the afternoon and interrupted normal programming to do his own "American style" show. Because Larry couldn’t operate a panel properly, I used to sit at the panel while he shouted at the microphone. We had some really good sunny days when someone would decide to start playing about with water and we’d end up running round the deck in the sun hosing each other down, or chasing one another with buckets of water. One thing I think most people will remember is one Sunday when Larry, Andy, Carl, Michael and myself went over to the Nordeney, Veronica’s boat, with Captain Tom in the Redder and decided to stay and have some fish with them. Suddenly it became very foggy and we left the Nordeney at ten o’clock to make our way back a mile to the Mebo. At that time the fog was thick and we realised we had lost our way. Captain Tom tried to tune into a harmonic of R.N.I. and guide us to the boat, there was only one problem (and this will surprise all the DXers and amateurs), we had no decisive harmonics except the norm which were too loud to beam on, and so realising that if anybody accused us of putting out harmonics and interfering with shipping, then they really must be crazy, as we couldn’t find one on the Short Wave half a mile from the boat. At that time Chicago came on the air in Spangle’s Show to say that they had us on radar and we were heading towards the beach. Captain Tom turned the boat ninety degrees, but, alas, the boys didn’t give us any more radar checks. Carl (who usually did the progressive show on Sunday) wondered if Spangles would compere the show, but at midnight we tuned in (still drifting) and heard Spangles say "I don’t know much about progressive music so I’ll hand over to Chicago our Engineer". Chicago carried on with the show and played some really good tracks, including a couple of tracks from "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" by "Pink Floyd". At two o’clock we were still drifting and we heard the close down (as then we were closing again at two), finally we saw a light at half past and made our way towards it. There it was and we certainly were happy to see the dim lights, as we made our way toward it of the colourful Mebo II.After a month I came off the boat and stayed in the Grand Hotel in Scheveningen. On the Saturday afternoon we were sitting on the patio when we heard a radio nearby and were surprised to hear Andy Archer’s voice giving out the Zurich office number, and that of the Grand Hotel. We ran upstairs to Mr.Meister’s room and Larry came running to 'phone the harbour. Bruno came out of the room, and we ran downstairs to his car and proceeded (I must admit far exceeding the limit) to the harbour to find Captain Tom or the Trip Tender. We were told that Captain Tom was at a marriage in the south of Holland and so went up to the home of the owner of the Trip Tender. After about ten minutes the Trip Tender was on its way, leaving myself and Steven Ladd on the harbour with many photographers, newsmen and onlookers, as Mr. Meister had told us to stay at the harbour in case of violence on the boat. After about ten minutes a press boat was ready to go out and we hopped aboard. About twenty minutes later we approached the Mebo, noticing the two tugboats, the Husky and Viking, which were threatening to tow the Mebo away had vanished into the mist. Steve and myself climbed aboard and stayed on for a few hours while everything was sorted out, then we climbed aboard the "Trip" Tender and as we were making our way to Scheveningen out of the fog came a huge Dutch Navy vessel who had come off NATO trials near Rotterdam to protect the Mebo for the night.
I went back to England and stayed there for two weeks. Larry came in the office on the morning of Tuesday September 22 and asked me to go back to the boat on Thursday. I prepared for going back to the boat, and in the office on Wednesday lunchtime, Mr. Meister phoned from Holland to ask Larry to go there as the boat would close down the next day at 11 o’clock. Mark Wesley was prepared to go out immediately, and I followed him a couple of hours later. R.N.I. that night went 24 hours and even Captain Tom did a program at 3 o’clock in the morning. After the closedown we arrived and everyone except the crew, Mike Ross, Chicago and myself went off. We stayed aboard making sure everything was clean and left in working order. On Monday afternoon Carl, Michael and Spangles came on board and we all went off together to stay in Amsterdam. Mike, however, decided to go home to England. I stayed in Holland for about two weeks and I decided to go to see what was happening in England.
Rob's second spell on the Mebo II was between September 1, 1971 and August 23, 1972. Leaving RNI, he joined Radio Caroline, but on November 30, 1972 be was back with RNI, but after December 28, 1972, he wasn't heard again until August 1973, as the following magazine extract explains: "On August 3rd we heard another familiar voice, Robbie Eden. Although Robbie, who has for some time been the Mebo company's representative in London, has been on board the "Mebo II" several times this year, that was his first programme since December 28th, 1972. A second article quotes: "Since October 29th (1973) we have been able to listen to a "Contemporary Music" programme each Monday morning from 02:00 CET until closedown. Presented by Robbie Eden, this show is usually recorded on land and contains interviews & features of the musicians in the programme. Complete LP's are played at listeners' request, and Robbie is always interested to hear of new and unusual talent to bring to us".
Robbie's final show on RNI was broadcast between 2000-2200, CET, on April 25, 1974.
From RNI, he joined again Radio Caroline, his first show for them going out on May 3rd.
Later in 1974, he joined Radio City, an IRL station in Liverpool, as production manager. Around 1977/78, he was running Radio Caroline clandestinely and also operating the very successful Caroline Road Shows in the South-East/East Anglia. This continued until around 1981. In 1978 he also had his own record label R2 Records, issuing "We Love The Pirate Stations", by "Trinity", a disco version of the Roaring Sixties classic, which was much played on "Mi Amigo". He spent much of the 1980s working as a record promoter and in 1988 was working on Chris Carey's "Radio Nova" satellite service on ad sales & promotions. The 90s again saw Rob largely involved in promotional work.
In early December 2002, Hans Knot, wrote: Former Caroline & RNI deejay Rob Eden wrote in to tell me that he's back into music. It was him, of course, who was responsible for the success of Dutch bands like Golden Earring, Earth & Fire, Focus and Kayak (managing the latter). He mentioned in his email that he's now heavily promoting a new group: "Surefire" from Dunstable in Bedfordshire.
Rob, who has been married for around 20 years, is currently based in Moreton-inMarsh, in Gloucestershire.
