David Rollo (politician)
Scottish nationalist politician and pirate radio broadcaster
David Rollo (July 1919 – 18 September 2006) was a Scottish nationalist political activist.
Born in Springburn, North Glasgow, Rollo studied at Lenzie Academy and played for Lenzie Rugby Club. During World War II, he joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers attached to the 6th Airborne Division, and rose to become a sergeant. They reached Wismar, which fell on 1 May 1945. In 1947, he gained admittance to the University of Glasgow to study electrical engineering and, although his time was interrupted by a year recuperating from tuberculosis, he eventually graduated BSc and spent the remainder of his career in the industry.
Rollo joined the Scottish National Party (SNP) and was elected as its treasurer in 1953/4, serving until 1967. This was a difficult time for the party's finances, and he often used his personal funds to pay the office secretary.
Believing that the BBC was biased against Scottish nationalism, Rollo used his electrical engineering experience worked with Alvaro Rossi to build a radio transmitter which broadcast sound on the BBC Television frequency. In 1956, they used this to launch "Radio Free Scotland", based in Rollo's home town of Kirkintilloch. It broadcast a mix of political comedy and patriotic music after the BBC finished at 11 p.m.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20713794. The first chronological checks are 1919, 2006, 1945 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “David Rollo (politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.