Â鶹Éç

Back by popular demand, the award-winning Pirate Â鶹Éç Essex returns to the airwaves this Easter (10-13 April) for a four-day broadcast.

The Â鶹Éç Essex team will be on board the LV18 which will be moored in Harwich. Legendary DJs Tony Blackburn and Johnnie Walker are just two of the original sixties offshore presenters who will be teaming up with the Â鶹Éç Essex hosts to celebrate the unique sound of pirate radio.

"In 2007 we told listeners it could be the last time for Pirate Â鶹Éç Essex," said Â鶹Éç Essex Managing Editor Gerald Main. "Ever since, fans from Essex and across the world have been asking us to do it one more time. We've been swayed by their wishes and their ship is literally coming in."

In 2007 and in the first broadcast in 2004, Pirate Â鶹Éç Essex came from the LV18 half a mile off the Essex coast. This year, the vessel will be moored alongside the Harwich Ha'penny Pier.

The vessel's bridge will be converted into a radio studio from where Pirate Â鶹Éç Essex will broadcast on 729, 765 and 1530 MW and on bbc.co.uk/essex from 7am on Good Friday (10 April).

"Thousands of sixties pirate radio fans will be able to get within a few feet of the fun and action," said Pirate Â鶹Éç Essex creator Steve Scruton.

The vessel that hosts the four-day broadcast is a star in its own right as it is featured in the new film The Boat That Rocked, written and directed by Richard Curtis and starring Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans and Kenneth Branagh.

Â鶹Éç Norwich Press Office