Like John Peel, Johnnie Walker was an unhappy public school pupil who looked to pop music and radio as a relief from his school's culture of bullying and enforced conformity, as he described in the early chapters of his autobiography. Like Peel he made (and was given) his name on pirate radio - in Walker's case, on Radio Caroline, which he joined in 1966 after a short period with the American-owned (and very American-sounding) pirate station, "Swinging" Radio England, where he had been told to adopt the name Johnnie Walker. He became popular as host of an evening show on Radio Caroline, in which, like Peel, he communicated with his audience in a more personal way than the typical smooth-talking DJs of the era. His choice of music differed from that of most of his colleagues, with a concent