Radio Caroline In 1964, Dee joined
Radio Caroline, a
pirate radio station broadcasting pop music from a ship moored outside UK territorial waters. He witnessed the station's construction (and that of its rival station
Radio Atlanta) at the Irish port of
Greenore, and sailed with the ship to its anchorage off the coast of
Essex. On 28 March, his was the first live voice on the radio station, welcoming listeners and handing over to the only other DJ on the ship at the time,
Chris Moore, for the opening programme (the first voice heard on the station, in pre-recorded promotions, was allegedly that of
John Junkin). In August 1964, Radio Atlanta merged with Caroline and became Radio Caroline South. Dee transferred to the former Atlanta ship when the original ship sailed to an anchorage off the
Isle of Man to become Radio Caroline North. He left in 1965 to go freelance, but had fallen out with directors of the station beforehand, having refused to play certain records and another occasion when he disobeyed the ship captain's orders.
BBC In 1965, Dee was given a job on the
BBC Light Programme, firstly introducing the station's 'Swing into Summer' slot and 'Stay Late' show on a Sunday evening, before taking over a late-night show on Saturdays. He also worked on
Radio Luxembourg. He told a reporter at the time that he left Caroline "while the going was good". He joined the team presenting
Top of the Pops in 1966, replacing
David Jacobs, and the following year introduced the Monday edition of
Midday Spin on the Light Programme and then
Radio 1 from September 1967. He fell into early disfavour on
Radio 1 after twice playing
Scott Walker's recording of
Jacques Brel's song "
Jackie", which had been banned by the BBC. He quit
Radio 1 in December 1967 to concentrate on his TV career. In 1967, Dee began his early evening chat show
Dee Time on
BBC1. The show became very popular, with up to 18 million viewers. It opened with sports announcer
Len Martin announcing "It's Siiiiimon Dee!", imitating
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and closed with a film sequence of Dee driving off in an
E-type Jaguar with blonde model Lorna McDonough. McDonough appeared anonymously at the time, dressed in a
mini-skirt and "kinky"-style boots. The opening sequence has been described as both "iconic" of the times and a "visual cliché" that lent itself to parody (for example, by comedian
Benny Hill). Dee's biographer Richard Wiseman, who was associate producer of a "one-off" revival of
Dee Time for
Channel 4 in 2003, considered that the scene was what "most people who lived in Britain during the Sixties will remember him for". Only two complete editions of
Dee Time survive in the
BBC Archives; the programmes were transmitted live and the BBC seldom
retained recordings at the time. Dee became very successful and adopted an extravagant lifestyle. Also in 1967, he was the host of the
Miss World contest transmitted live on BBC1 from the
Lyceum Ballroom, London. He also had cameo roles in films, including
The Italian Job (1969) and
Doctor in Trouble (1970). In the 2004
Channel 4 TV programme
Dee Construction, fellow DJ
Tony Blackburn recalled, "He used to drive up and down the
King's Road in an Aston Martin driven by his secretary. To be honest, I thought that was a bit of a waste of money". He was offered £100,000 for a two-year contract with the ITV contractor
London Weekend Television and commenced a new series,
The Simon Dee Show, on Sunday evenings, beginning in January 1970. It proved a ratings disaster as it was broadcast late in the evening after
David Frost's programme. This was coupled with the show only being part-networked, with
Granada Television screening each edition a week later on a Saturday and
Yorkshire Television not transmitting the show at all. Dee fell out with the station management and after only a few months on the air his contract was terminated. There was friction between Dee and David Frost, who was part-owner of LWT. Dee's programme was broadcast immediately following Frost's; both were talk shows, and Frost thought that some of Dee's items would make the shows too similar. Dee charged that Frost was deliberately sabotaging his programme. After a bizarre interview with actor
George Lazenby, who discussed at length his theories about the assassination of US President
John F. Kennedy, Dee's show was dropped by LWT. of Prime Minister
Harold Wilson dressed as Chinese dictator
Mao Tse-tung. Pirate radio remained a political issue and, in the run up to the
1970 general election that summer, Radio Caroline International launched a campaign in support of the
Conservative Party, which supported commercial radio. Dee later said that there was an "
Establishment plot" against him because of his open opposition to Wilson: government files were later released showing that he was being monitored by the
Security Service. Dee also believed that his phone had been tapped because of his opposition to Britain's mooted membership of the
Common Market. Dee officially opened the
Northside Shopping Centre in
Dublin,
Ireland on . Having alienated both the BBC and ITV, Dee disappeared from the airwaves. He signed on for
unemployment benefit at the
Fulham labour exchange, giving rise to considerable press coverage. Unable to revive his show business career, he took a job as a
bus driver.
Later career Dee later found a few broadcasting jobs. In 1972 he was very briefly heard on
BBC Radio Kent (which was then known as
BBC Radio Medway), where he presented the Saturday afternoon sports show, mixing music with sport. In the late 1970s, he was signed to appear as holiday cover on the
Reading-based
Radio 210 but never made it to air. In December 1987 Dee joined
BBC Radio 2. His first broadcast for the station was on Boxing Day that year when he hosted a listeners' all-time-favourite Top 20. In early 1988 he became a guest presenter on the station's
Sounds of the 60s programme on a Saturday morning. He then began hosting the show on a temporary basis between April and July. His success led him to host the show on a permanent basis in September the same year, but this engagement came to an end in March 1989 amid disputes with the BBC about the show's location in
Bristol and his wish for it to be transmitted live. In 2003,
Victor Lewis-Smith arranged for a one-off new live edition of
Dee Time to be broadcast on Channel 4, following
Dee Construction, which covered Dee's career. ==Legal issues==