The farce that is the storyline in Rusling's 'bible' ....

UPDATED: One glaring problem that Paul Rusling faces, along with all of the other nonsense writers have published their false stories about the start-up of 'Radio Caroline' in 1964, has to do with the source of its financing. So Rusling, and others, all rely upon the novel written by Ian Cowper Ross for information. But since Ian Cowper Ross' book is a novel, it is also a work of fiction.

We know now that the father of Ian Cowper Ross was in the dry-cleaning business and that he later became attached to an automated car wash business managed by his son, the older step-brother of Ian Cowper Ross.

Now supposedly, according to the novel written by Ian Cowper Ross, the money to finance 'Radio Caroline' came from a visit by Ronan O'Rahilly to Ian's father, and Ian's father made some telephone calls. Exactly who he is supposed to have called varies according to the version of this bogus story that is being told. It could have been to John Sheffield of Norcros says Rusling, because Sheffield's daughter was married Jocelyn Stevens, but Rusling is not sure.

But for that to work Ian's father would also have had an existing relationship with John Sheffield, or a relationship with Jocelyn Stevens. This is why the mythical link is added that turns Ian's dad into a City financier, with the implication that he had a hand in financing Sheffield's Norcros, or Stevens' Press that published 'Queen' magazine. But Ian's dad was not a City financier, he was in the dry-cleaning business!

Why Ian's father in the dry-cleaning and car wash businesses would have a connection with either John Sheffield or Jocelyn Stevens is not explained by Rusling. Well, apart that is, from stating that Ian's father was a "well-known City financier", which he was not. Ian's father was in the business of franchising a dry-cleaning business and a car wash business.

Now John Sheffield who had created Norcros, did have the only dry-cleaning equipment manufacturer in the United Kingdom in its group. But, Sheffield also had two other subsidiary companies tied to Norcros, and the dry-cleaning manufacturer was tied to Norcros. But as far back as 1960, Jocelyn Stevens had been a director of Southcros, which was a separate entity spun-off from Norcros. Of course Stevens knew Sheffield before that because he had already 'acquired' his wife from her father, John Sheffield.

But if we look at Stevens we discover that both he and his wife were already being acknowledged as the 'Duke and Duchess of Caroline', according to a home movie made in 1964 by Peter Sellers. That film was then shown to Queen Elizabeth II in Buckingham Palace, because Elizabeth's sister Princess Margaret is seen cavorting around Stevens' garden in that film.

Now while Sheffield does not show up on any 'Radio Caroline' documents, Stevens does! More than this, when Stevens decided to take down his target magazine readership from the older aristocracy to a younger 'hip' audience, his editor Beatrix Miller quit!

When Stevens redefined Beatrix Miller's 'Caroline' style sheet, she left his employment on the very same day that Planet Productions Limited was registered in Ireland. Beatrix Miller did not want to a part of an operation that downgraded 'Caroline' from aristocrat to slut! Guess who else wanted to distance himself from this person called 'Caroline'? Mick Jagger! He sued when his picture appeared twice in 'Queen' magazine as part of a full page advertisement for 'Radio Caroline'!

Aside from some of Crawford's people managing the 'Caroline' sales operation called Planet Productions of which Jocelyn Stevens became a director, there was no other company in the UK or Ireland behind the start-up of 'Radio Caroline'. That is, aside from Project Atlanta Limited.

So how did Barry Ainley and Close Brothers get into the 'Radio Caroline' story?

The answer is that the dry-cleaning business (which had its headquarters in Scotland, and moved to Chelsea), was floated by Close Brothers whose headquarters was in the Shell Oil building in London. The grandson of the founder of Shell Oil  was on the board of directors of Project Atlanta Limited. One reason for moving the dry-cleaning head office to Chelsea, was because Ian's step-brother was running a restaurant and car-wash business at that location, and Ian Cowper Ross was born there! There were other ties as well. The dry-cleaners of which Ian's father was a director, was an end-user of the dry-cleaning equipment manufacturer that was part of the Norcros group.

According to the silly stories out there, Ian Cowper Ross' father brought in Barry Ainley to run 'Radio Caroline', but in fact the connection to Close Brothers was already established with a northern branch of Close Brothers of which Geoffrey Hirst, MP became a director. Hirst was tied to the 1959 beginnings of the interests who who were behind the movement to get licenses for commercial radio, and that storyline does not run through 'Radio Caroline', but it connects directly to the formation of the IBA which was created out of  the ITA!

You see, what Rusling has fed the gullible anoraks is a story that is far removed from reality. Rusling stole our research and tried to reconcile it with the mythology manufactured by Ian Cowper Ross who also fooled Ray Clark and many others. But while there is a lot of information that Rusling became aware of from us, he could not reconcile all of it with the mythology tied to Ronan O'Rahilly, so Rusling just made stuff up.

However, we discovered the business background of Charles Edward Ross, father of Ian, long after Paul Rusling stole from us, so Rusling never knew who Ian's father was, and for the most part he had no idea of how the real story came together. Therefore if you bought his first book (since the second edition seems to be a non-starter), you should demand your money back from Paul Rusling who sold you a story under false pretenses. What you bought as the true story of 'Radio Caroline' turns out to be a jumbled mess created in the head of a man with a boy-like pudding-bowl haircut. In other words Paul Rusling is a fraud!