A FISHERMAN with links to the pirate radio movement was signed up to ferry actors out to sea for hit movie The Boat That Rocked.

Walton fisherman Tony Haggis is more used to ferrying nature and wildlife lovers around the backwaters of Horsley Island on seal-searching trips, but more recently his passengers have included British actress Emma Thompson.

Tony, 57, was signed up to the new movie by award-winning writer and director Richard Curtis while he was boatsitting in Weymouth, Dorset, off the coast of which the movie was filmed.

And it was his links to the pirate radio movement that could have had a hand in him getting a part as an extra.

In the Eighties, he became skipper of the Ross Revenge, the second incarnation of Radio Caroline, on which the film is based.

He said: “I was with her on and off throughout the Eighties and Nineties and she is in Kent now and still looked after by the Caroline organisation.

“It was a privilege and honour for me to be part of the Radio Caroline era.”

In the film, Tony can be seen ferrying Emma Thompson out to the pop pirate ship in a 38ft tender vessel with the likes of Oscar-winner Phillip Seymour-Hoffman and Rhys Ifans.

Despite his big screen debut, Tony is yet to see the film as he has just returned from a two-month trip to Australia.

The pop pirate ships, including Radio Caroline, broadcast off Frinton and launched careers for such well known DJs as Tony Blackburn, John Peel and and Johnnie Walker.

It was an era Tony grew up in and loved. He loved the music and remembers, as a fisherman, dropping off fish for the crew and pirates.

He also remembers lifeboat rescues when sick or injured crew were taken off by the town’s lifeboatmen, which included his dad Kenneth Haggis and grandfather Jonas Oxley.

Putting the movie behind him, he said: “My priority at the moment is getting my boat ready for the season, the 11th year of the seal trips into the backwaters.”