Britt Wadner (16 January 16, 1915 – 13 March 1987
Båstad
Båstad () is a Urban areas in Sweden, locality and the seat of Båstad Municipality, Scania County, Sweden, with approximately 5,000 permanent residents. It is however one of Sweden's most typical summer resorts. The population is presumably mor ...
) was a Swedish
pirate radio
Pirate radio is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license, whether an invalid license or no license at all. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are rec ...
manager.
Early life
Britt Wadner was born on 16 January 1915 in
Linköping
Linköping ( , ) is a city in southern Sweden, with around 167,000 inhabitants as of 2024. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...
to Tyra and Martin Wadner, the oldest of five daughters. Her family were well-off, her father was in the military, a second lieutenant in
Första livgrenadjärregementet, when her parents married. Wadner grew up in Östermalm in Stockholm and attended the French school there. Her mother,
Tyra Wadner
Tyra Elisabet Wadner (7 June 1891 - 7 June 1967) was a Swedish defence volunteer who founded the Swedish Swedish Women's Voluntary Defence Organization, ''Svenska Lottakåren'' (''SLK''), the Swedish Women's Voluntary Defence Organization.
Earl ...
, founded the ‘lotta’
Swedish Women’s Voluntary Defence Organisation movement in the 1920s. Wadner modelled the very first ‘lotta’ uniform, made for her by her mother, in the Swedish press. When Wadner was in her teens, her family relocated to
Växjö
Växjö () is a city and the seat of Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden. It had 71,282 inhabitants (2020) out of a Municipalities of Sweden, municipal population of 97,349 (2024). It is the administrative, cultural, and industrial ce ...
, but she missed Stockholm, moving back at age 17 and working as an office clerk for
Postgirot.
Career
Britt Wadner was hired as an ad salesperson in 1959 for
Skånes Radio Mercur, the first commercial "pirat" radio station in Sweden that Nils-Eric Svensson had started in December 1958. Svensson left management and sold his interest to Britt Wadner in 1961. She changed the name to Radio Syd in 1962, the same year the Pirate Radio Act (also called "Lex Radio Nord") was introduced in Sweden, which banned ownership of radio transmitters and also prohibited broadcasts from international waters if they disrupted Swedish Radio. She purchased the boat ''Cheeta I'' from the Danish Radio Mercur, and continued broadcasting violating the new law. Radio Syd continued broadcasting until 1966.
In 1966, she moved to
the Gambia
The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...
, where she was involved in radio and tourism and was also allowed to broadcast from land.
Imprisonment
Wadner was sentenced three times for violation of the law, the last time being given three months in prison. The sentence was served at the
Hinseberg women's prison.
Further reading
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See also
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Pirate radio in Europe
Pirate radio in Europe emerged as unlicensed radio broadcasting stations, often operating from offshore vessels or undisclosed land-based locations. The phenomenon began in the mid-20th century and became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s, gai ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wadner, Britt
1987 deaths
1915 births
Swedish models
People from Linköping