Captain Garry Lee takes to the airwaves at 2:00 pm, followed by The Black Widow when he was too drunk to sit in his chair any longer.

Both were very cautious about revealing their identities in those days coz pirate radio was a criminal offence under the 1990 Broadcasting Act!

No, seriously, Freedom Overflow is a great station, plays some cool sounds, trust me, I’m a spaceman. Finally, at the end of a hard day’s broadcasting, we all relaxed to watch Mad Max 2 on television. We didn’t enjoy it... but tomorrow was the day of the May Fair and we were too busy looking forward to that to care (it was either that or we were too pissed to get up and turn the television off). So Monday morning came... unusually for a public holiday, it was bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky, 90 degrees hot, very hot, and the May Fair awaited the Overflow Posse. We hopped into the Taxitron, stuck William in the boot, and trekked off towards Wivenhoe for the fun... The May Fair at Wivenhoe is a great event. It’s set in a fair sized park, a big stage at one end where the bands play, this year introduced by home taper legend (and he knows it), Martin Newell, aka The Cleaners From Venus. There were some good sounds coming from down that way. All round the edge of the fair were stalls selling food, tapes, hippy stuff, all sorts. I bought a Lydia Lunch tape. And some nice vegetarian chilli. And some drinks coz it was very very very hot. I also decided never to say another bad word about Essex girls... wow... I had never seen so many gorgeous women in one place before.

I wanted to bring them home with me, but Sensemillia wouldn’t have fallen for “they followed me home, can I keep them?” C'est la vie. Also got to meet another Overflow DJ there in the shape (ovular with limbs and a head sticking out of it) of Tim Rice (not the one that writes crappy lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s crappy music). I forgot to mention that I’d met David Lee the day before. Don’t know how I forgot him coz he has hair like a Jamaican pensioner from 1972 and wears very loud shirts. The cover of Mmattland Community Radio features him, get the idea? We shan’t mention Zippy The Hippy. They wouldn’t tell me who he was and I think that was very smelly of them. Anyway, it was a great weekend and I thank Garry Lee and The Black Widow for their hospitality, lots, enjoyed myself mucho. I didn’t want to leave, but they made me. Well, Overflow has gone beyond 90.9 FM and Colchester now... there is also Overflow International, broadcasting on 6300 KHz shortwave, all over Europe, so check that one out. Garry is a great believer in the pirate radio scene and let’s face it, with the state of mainstream radio in the U.K., we need people like him to brighten up our weekends.

Mick Magic (July 1992)

Some might say foolishly, they left yours truly on the decks for 10 minutes...

The May Fair at Wivenhoe in Essex, where a fantastic day was had by all...

*Keep the kids quiet this Christmas with your very own Freedom Overflow colouring page; click on the graphic, save it, print it, and enjoy getting rat-arsed in peace!

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