LAST UPDATE OF THIS INFORMATION WAS ON
FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2004 FROM A PREVIOUS UPDATE
ON THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1998
Public Notice Warning
Regarding Theft of Copyrights:
"THE WONDERFUL RADIO LONDON STORY"
and related documentation and audio recordings
previously offered for unauthorized sale to the public
and Wonderful Radio London based upon the authentic copyrights owned by MPLX-BBC
and included as a chapter in his recent book (above right).
This new web site began construction on Friday, April 23, 2004 for the sole purpose of showing that the continuing attempts to both promote and to sell published works and audio recordings under the title of "The Wonderful Radio London Story" and related media material, is without permission from the original copyright owners. The work on this web site is both a continuation and an expansion of the documentation that originally appeared as a site identified as "Copyright Notice from Radlon (Sales) Ltd." via the Internet Web Host company originally located at "freeyellow.com", that was last updated on Thursday, August 27, 1998.
The primary focus of this new notice concerns the activities of Ray Anderson of Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, England, who is and has been trading under the name of East Anglian Productions and variations thereof in which he has a financial interest, as well as other entities which include but are not limited to Radlon Media and Radio London International.
The current format of this theft of copyright concerns a book known as "The Wonderful Radio London Story" for which Chris Elliot claims credit as author, and a companion three volume CD set of the same name which is narrated by Keith Skues, and for which in both instances Ray Anderson claims ownership.
Original Source
The original source of this material was a British journalist known as John England who emigrated from the UK to the USA and formed both a friendship and then a working relationship with Don Pierson. It was Don Pierson who originally created "Wonderful Radio London" and all of its related ventures, during 1964. In 1980 John England created a series of franchised publications for which Genie Baskir became editor, and of which Don Pierson was the original figurehead. Concurrent but separate from that venture Don Pierson created yet another local broadcasting station in Texas which resulted in John England and Genie Baskir creating programs featuring his earlier offshore radio stations. Don Pierson then began to promote these programs for syndication at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and other venues. At about the same time John England wrote a cover feature about Don Pierson and the history of his offshore radio stations for the franchised publications.
From these beginnings in the early 1980s came a series of new ventures which were heavily promoted at the time: "WRLI" (Wonderful Radio London International), and "Pop Go The Pirates (The Rock n' Roll Motion Picture".) As a result of these ventures Don Pierson gave John England all of his earlier files and materials relating to his earlier offshore radio stations.
At about the same time Dr. Eric Gilder was working on his first thesis concerning a history of offshore commercial radio, and as a result he came into contact with Don Pierson, John England and Genie Baskir. Later, Paul John Lilburne-Byford joined the group which became known as "MPLX-BBC", as various projects related to the same subject material continued in development.
When Don Pierson commenced his new local station in Texas, he asked John England to produce programs which eventually became known as the "Wonderful Radio London Top 40 Show". Because of difficulties at the time in gaining immediate access in Texas to British recordings, and because Don Pierson has initiated a series of contacts to regain use of the original PAMS jingles used by his original stations, John England came into contact with the company then trading as PAMS Jingles, which was at that time based in the state of New York.
PAMS Jingles
A working trade-out relationship developed in which legal research was performed by John England for the PAMS company, and in return, the UK agent for this PAMS company began making programs for the new syndicated shows. This research relationship between John England and the NY PAMS company continued for some considerable time, and it eventually included the services of Eric Gilder who wrote the actual check on his own personal account reserving the PAMS name for use as a Texas corporation on behalf of the NY PAMS company.
In turn, the UK agent for PAMS in NY brought in Christopher Gaydon, who is also known as Chris Elliot, to host these shows (which were originally hosted by John England and then promoted with Genie Baskir as "Lady Di".) Unlike the UK agent, Chris Elliot had a fan attraction to the entire story of "Wonderful Radio London", and so he requested to see some of the original material that John England had both been given by Don Pierson, as well as notes and interpretations and written material that John England had originated about the history of "Wonderful Radio London". John England complied with this request by sending the UK agent some of this material on the strict understanding that it could be made available to Chris Elliot, but that it could not be taken home, nor copied in any way, since John England claimed strict copyright control and intended to use this same material with his main collection for a series of new publications. For a time Chris Elliot produced shows which were heard nightly over XERF from Mexico, as well as a handful of mainly Texas local radio stations.
Meanwhile another plan was developing which went through many stages, to relaunch "Wonderful Radio London" as a new UK offshore radio station known as "WRLI" ("Wonderful Radio London International".) At one time the head of this new offshore project was Ben Toney, the original Program Station Manager acting for Don Pierson on the original offshore station.
Don Pierson Interview
When "WRLI" failed to financially succeed as a planned new top 40 offshore station, Chris Elliot quit making syndicated programs and began making demands which could not be met, and he then took the documents sent to the PAMS UK agent and claimed them for himself. His first action was in contacting Howard Rose who had a photocopy-stapled digest called "Radio Now", and Chris Elliot then began publishing a series of articles called the "Wonderful Radio London Files" in each issue which were taken from the pen, research and files of John England to which he expressly claimed his own copyright. This theft continued for several issues.
Meanwhile Steve England (no relation to John England), produced cassette tapes which he advertised and marketed as "The Story of Swinging Radio England" (which included the story of sister-station "Britain Radio".) On these tapes were some vintage recordings along with very positive words from former "SRE" dj Roger Day, about both of the stations and Don Pierson, and Roger has continued to maintain this same opinion during the many interviews in which he has been asked about the stations and Don Pierson. However, such was not the case with fellow "SRE" dj Johnnie Walker. He took a very negative view and added various tales which included an item of ridicule concerning the day that Don Pierson was alleged to have brought his mother on board the SRE/BRship.
At this time the only person who had access to the story about all of the stations created by Don Pierson was John England. So John took Steve's recording to Don and asked for his comments. Don brushed off Johnnie Walker's comments as being ridiculous because Don's mother had died when he was 13 years old, and he also made comments about other views being expressed. So John England decided to interview Don Pierson on tape about his offshore stations, with a view to editing the tape later on.
One Sunday afternoon, John, his wife and Don and his wife, all gathered in the Pierson living room where John switched on a tape recorder and began an informal conversation to solicit comments and observations from Don. Because Don died a few years later, this taped interview is the only such interview that exists. The recording was made in the very quiet environment of Don's home, but John took brief excerpts of that interview, mixed in the sound of seagulls from a sound effects record, and sent it to Steve England for comment. The result was a rerelease of the "Radio England Story" by Steve England, but with additional material added to the conclusion. In that segment Steve England announced that he had now received new material from John England about Don Pierson and edited in only the voice of Don Pierson with the added background of seagulls. The segment was primarily added in response to the original comments that Johnnie Walker had made earlier on during this program.
The complete recorded interview of Don Pierson has never been authorized for use by anyone to date, although part of this material was later authorized for use within a four hour documentary radio program about Don Pierson and the offshore stations. This program was produced and broadcast "live" with George Gimarc and John England from the studios of KRQX in Dallas, Texas. In the year 2000 Dr. Eric Gilder was also authorized to use portions of this recorded interview as well as the original files during his original presentation of "London" My Hometown" about Don Pierson and his offshore radio stations. This presentation was part of a "live" audio-visual symposium sponsored by the British Council, and held at the University of Sibiu in Romania during 2001.
However, over a period of time various complaints were made to British authorities about the unauthorized use of this same material, which began with the partnership of Howard Rose and Chris Elliot. The continued theft of these copyrights, accompanied by the unauthorized commercial release of property belonging to John England and MPLX-BBC, has continued unabated to the present day.
Radio Ship Fiasco
In 1990 Paul John Lilburne-Byford became entangled with the UK authorities in London and in Essex over his registration and promotion of two new British companies: Radlon Sales, Ltd., and Worldwide Community Radio London (WCRL), Ltd. This phase also involved the bogus ship which had been fraudulently misrepresented and sold by Allan Weiner and as being the "MV Sarah". The radio ship was alleged to have been registered in the bogus state of "Sealand", which in reality was nothing but a sunken barge sitting on a sandbank. All of this created box loads of legal paperwork and court records, while it devoured the time and resources of the MPLX-BBC group.
In 1994 Keith Skues published his book with the unoriginal title of "Pop Went The Pirates". That self-publication incorporated the "Wonderful Radio London Files" material that had originally been unlawfully published by Howard Rose and for which Chris Elliot claimed stolen copyrights. Keith Skues merely continued the trend by claiming his own copyright for this theft of property.
In 1987 Robert Chapman began work on his own thesis towards a Master's degree (MA) and he wrote to John England in Texas asking for help in writing that document. When help was not forthcoming Robert Chapman also turned to Chris Elliot. When Robert Chapman later published his own book in 1992 ("Selling the Sixties"), he attributed work by John England to "PAMS Productions (UK)", dated 1984. This is the same company that Chris Elliot had been working for and the interview credited to that company is in reality the same interview that was conducted by John England.
Meanwhile the "Sealand" issues dragged on and they also dragged MPLX-BBC further into a time and money wasting hole. This phase of MPLX-BBC in trying to halt the continuing theft of money and property from MPLX-BBC took many high profile turns, but it finally was stopped dead in its tracks when Paul John Lilburne-Byford was almost killed by a speeding motorist while performing work as a contractor employed by Essex County Council. All claims for compensation by Paul were denied through a series of very strange, highly unethical and probably illegal court actions. To this day he has never been compensated for his disabilities. At the same time high level communications between the Essex Police; Suffolk Constabulary; Essex courts of law; the Home Office; Treasury Solicitor; Crown Estates and the office of Barry Maxwell at the RIS division of the DTI concerning the squatters on Rough Tower ("Sealand") at Rough Sands and the fraudulent sale of a radio broadcasting ship, led to a nightmare of legal entanglement and financial loss for MPLX-BBC.
Ray Anderson
It was about this moment in time when Chris Elliot teamed up with Ray Anderson, and through a spectacular series of fraudulent "con jobs", Ray Anderson was issued with a license for a fifteen day micro-watt station called "Wonderful Radio London" came on the air from a rented ship anchored close to Anderson's own backyard, so to speak, while at the same time he managed to publish both a book and a three set CD narrated by Keith Skues called "The Wonderful Radio London Story". The book was edited by Chris Elliot using new material which he added to the original material that he had originally stolen and published with the help of Howard Rose. The Skues' recordings featured the same squawking seagulls that had been reissued by Steve England without permission from John England.
Many complaints have been lodged with the UK Government about these thefts, but for political reasons none have resulted in any form of action to halt the thefts or in compensation to MPLX-BBC. The reverse has been true. Anderson has thumbed his nose at his creditors after going bankrupt, after of course he had thumbed his nose at MPLX-BBC. Ray Anderson is now currently selling this same stolen copyright material under the banner of his new venture called "Radio London International" and trading as "Radlon Media". None of the published works and recordings of MPLX-BBC have been authorized for use by Ray Anderson at any time, and MPLX-BBC continues to consider these properties to have been stolen by Ray Anderson and those associated with him in his theft of MPLX-BBC property.
British Council
As mentioned earlier, in the year 2001, Dr. Eric Gilder presented an audio-visual presentation in Romania called "London: My Hometown". In 2003 he expanded this material into a chapter which he included in his own anthology of academic writings. Both the symposium and the book by Dr. Gilder do make legitimate use of the copyright interview with Don Pierson, and a full version of that interview will be released on CD in the near future. Dr. Gilder's chapter called "London: My Hometown" is also being expanded into a full length book. Both the new forthcoming book and CD by Dr. Gilder will have access to the entire copyright files and original recordings, which to this day have only been used in the unauthorized versions outlined herein, with the exceptions of use by John England as noted above.
If you have further questions or if you would like to obtain a copy of Dr. Gilder's recently published work called "Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA." (published by the “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu Press, Romania 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6), which contains the short version of "London: My Hometown" as one of its chapters (pages 69-109), then please send an email with your request to Paul John Lilburne-Byford in Chelmsford, Essex, using the email link below:
Also check out these other Internet rescources on other web sites about this same subject. Although the basis for some of these articles originated within the MPLX-BBC group, some editorial work has been performed upon them and therefore these articles are not endorsed as being the completely authentic work product of the MPLX-BBC group. [Note: "MPLX" originally stood for Multiplex World Radio, and "BBC" for Baskir-Byford Communications. All group projects then became identified by the letters "MPLX-BBC"] Click any of the arrows to read the following articles:
The biography of Don Pierson (1936-1966), a UK broadcasting pioneer from Eastland, Texas. The story of "WRLI" and "WCRL" on the Offshore Radio Guide. The Soundscapes version in Dutch of the original "WRLI" and related ventures. The accuracy of some of the content and context which was taken from other Dutch publications, is disputed by the MPLX-BBC group. A 1985 press clipping taken from the London "Sunday Times" about one of the latter phases of the "WRLI" project. As with many newspaper stories the details are not entirely accurate. The last attempt by the MPLX-BBC group to revive the offshore radio station with two British companies and a radio ship that had once served as home for the short lived "Radio Newyork International". A response by John England to an earlier article on Soundscapes which includes basic details of how and why he recorded his interview with Don Pierson. The story of "WCRL" and related projects on the Offshore Radio Guide. How the same DTI Insolvency Service which refused to assist Paul John Lilburne-Byford protect his copyrights from theft by Ray Anderson, then declared that it had made Paul John Lilburne-Byford "bankrupt for life"! A subject that is covered in the chapter "London: My Hometown" by Dr. Gilder in his book, is Herbert W. Armstrong and his radio broadcasts called "The World Tomorrow", which both financed the offshore stations and carried a political message that were contained within the cloak of religion. This link takes you to a research page with a request for further information about this subject.Other articles by John England about Don Pierson which have also served other writers, include: ”The Real Don Pierson” Offshore Echo’s Magazine (OEM) 57 June, 1985, and “Much More Music” Offshore Echo’s Magazine (OEM) 82 August 1990.
Dr. Eric Gilder is Professor of American Studies at the "C. Peter Magrath" Center for Romanian-American Interaction, which was founded as an independent unit within the "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu in Romania.A footnote to "Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA" (published by the “Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu Press, Romania 2003 ISBN 973-651-596-6.) by Dr. Eric Gilder (front cover shown at the top of this page.)
This work was published as a limited circulation academic anthology, and as such it also contains the original thesis about offshore "pirate" radio that Eric Gilder wrote as a university student in Texas many years ago. It should be noted that this thesis was written at a time when little was known in the academic world of Texas about offshore radio, even though Don Pierson and his investors lived in Texas.
When Eric Gilder originally met Don Pierson in his home to ask him questions about his offshore stations, he discovered that John England already had the documents about these stations and he had also recorded the interview with Don Pierson, and it was Don Pierson who referred Eric Gilder to John England. Consequently a lot of material was not available to Eric Gilder because of the potential for commercial rivalry over the same material. At the time, John England was writing a cover story about Don Pierson and offshore radio for the franchised publication that he had started with Don Pierson.
Few sources and even fewer books with the exception of "Broadcasting from the High Seas" by Paul Harris were available to Eric Gilder with information about the earlier commercial offshore stations such as "Radio Merkur". Consequently errors found their way into his thesis and Dr. Gilder readily admits that these errors do exist. However, Dr. Gilder believed that for his limited academic purposes that he should included his original thesis in his book, without making editorial changes to a document that had already been published many years ago in its own right.
Therefore if you wish to purchase this book because of your interest in the offshore stations created by Don Pierson, then you should note that the main interest in the current book is found between pages 69 and 109 in the recently written chapter called "London: My Hometown". This chapter originated and grew out of work performed at the British Council sponsored symposium in Romania during the year 2001 and published as "Infinite Londons: Proceedings of the International Meta-conference 'Representations of London in Literature and the Arts', Sibiu 19-21 October, 2001. The British Council, "Lucian Blaga" University of Sibiu, Anglophone Academic Society, Romania - American, British and Canadian Studies - ISBN 973-98280-8-6. See dialogues; "London: My Hometown" by Eric Gilder.
Only a limited quantity of the book (illustrated at the top of this page and which followed publication of both the earlier written version and the symposium upon which it was based), is still available for purchase. Email Paul John Lilburne-Byford using the link above and ask if this book is still available. He will notify you by return of the total price including shipping to your location. This present book is not being promoted as a commercial venture, only as a public service to students and fans who are interested in the subject of Don Pierson and offshore radio.
This web site is a copyright co-production by Paul John Lilburne-Byford, John England and Genie Baskir under the style of MPLX-BBC, as an endorsement of "London: My Hometown", which has been published as a part of the book "Mass Media Moments" by Dr. Eric Gilder.
