RADIO Caroline makes a triumphant return to the airwaves this week with the blessing of the authorities which once banned it.

On Friday, the pirate music station will broadcast on the Medium Wave/AM band live from studios on the Ross Revenge ship.

In an ironic twist, it has been allocated the 648kHz frequency, formerly used by BBC World Service.

Caroline’s signal will radiate from a huge mast at Orford Ness on the Suffolk Coast, once home to the top-secret Cobra Mist radar site.

Peter Moore, station manager, said: "The unlikely return of Caroline to regular radio opens the latest chapter in its extraordinary 53-year history.

"Caroline was the first of many pirate stations to broadcast from ships and abandoned war-time forts off the British coast, opening at Easter 1964.

"The BBC frowned upon the developing music culture of the time and gave almost no airplay to emerging bands.

"And the government of the day was content to maintain the BBC monopoly. Yet there was an eager audience which wanted to hear music it could listen to in pubs, clubs and dance halls, but not on the radio."

Now an online and DAB broadcaster, presenters from days gone by will entertain listeners from the Blackwater Estuary, where the Ross Revenge is anchored.

Mr Moore says the team is trading on Radio Caroline's "history and nostalgia" by welcoming back popular voices from decades ago.

Legislation introduced by the Harold Wilson Labour government in 1967 made everything to do with offshore stations illegal.

But Radio Caroline soldiered on until its final broadcast in 1990, before reinventing itself in recent years.

Listen live from 12pm for the action.