A Nation Without Land: The Eccentric Story of Sealand

In 1966, Paddy Roy Bates clambered aboard a former UK naval fort. What followed is a swashbuckling story of English eccentricity.

The Principality of Sealand doesn’t look like much from the outside — or from the inside — occupying as it does an area of 25 square metres. Sealand’s name is an exaggeration, because it possesses no land. Despite this, it has its own royal family, constitution, national anthem, flag, coinage, stamps, football team and — until 1997 — passports. Its history and struggle for independence is as dramatic as that of any internationally recognised country.

In 1966, Major Paddy Roy Bates turned up in a small boat and clambered aboard a former UK naval fort called HM Fort Roughs, about 12 kilometres from the coast of Suffolk. Having fought in Italy and Africa during the war, Bates was then a pirate radio broadcaster. It was the mid-1960s, the golden age of pirate radio. Stations like Radio Caroline broadcast from international waters to circumvent UK music piracy laws and provide young people with the pop music they pined for but could not hear on the BBC. Bates settled himself on Fort Rough, stocked up on radio equipment and supplies, and began to broadcast.