The Beatles 1963: A Year in the Life

By Dafydd Rees

At the start of 1963, The Beatles were a successful local Liverpool band with one hit single; twelve months, two albums and the arrival of Beatlemania later, they were on the cusp of world domination.

Featuring daily entries covering every pivotal event, The Beatles – 1963 draws on hundreds of new eyewitness accounts and provides numerous unseen photographs.

Meticulously researched, this is the definitive account of the momentous year that sent John, Paul, George and Ringo to stratospheric heights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Omnibus Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781787592469

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

The idea for this book began as long ago as 2008. I was commuting to Boston from my home on Cape Cod, 150 miles a day, five days a week. I hadn’t had a book published for a while and thought it was high time I worked on another one. I chose the Beatles in 1963 because the group started out the year virtually unknown and ended the year six weeks away from being seen on the ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ before an audience of some 73 million. I initially wrote to as many local newspapers as I could find, asking them to print a letter for people who had seen them in 1963, to get in touch with me. A steady stream of replies arrived and I soon realised that maybe I was on to something. It also dawned on me that talking to people elicited a better response than the written word, so I contacted an old friend, Jan Gammie, and asked whether she would be willing to call people and ask them to recall their 1963 Beatles memories. While she got on with finding stories I worked on the research to find as much as I could about what the group did that year. I wasn’t expecting to find that much new information. After fifty years or so I thought little was left to discover - but I was wrong. I hopefully have put to rest some errors that have been out there for years and I will probably be castigated for making some new ones. (Please let me know if I have [e-mail]). I made several visits to the UK and travelled the length and breadth of England, Scotland and Wales in the process, retracing the short Scottish tour at the beginning of 1963, visiting all the seaside resorts where they had week-long residencies, and the location of several smaller venues, many of which are no more. Countless hours were spent at the British Newspaper Library and the British Library, finding articles in local papers. In all it took about ten years to finish the project and then COVID struck, which put everything on hold.

This is a book for those who remember the 1960s and can wallow in its nostalgia and for the younger generation, who will - hopefully - get a glimpse of what life was like before credit cards, when owning a camera was out of reach for many and making a phone call meant traipsing to the phone box at the end of the road. It’s hard to believe that teenagers would sleep on pavements, sometimes in the pouring rain, sometimes for days on end, to buy a ticket to see their favourite pop stars, and an era when people could tell you the first record they bought. All of us, with the passage of time, have memories that fade or change. In Ben MacIntyre’s wonderful book A Foreign Field, he writes: ‘Recollections of a remote time can never be perfectly accurate, but they were offered with simple honesty, and I have tried to record them faithfully.’ Close to 300 people provided stories for this book - I cannot thank them enough.

JANUARY

From Hamburg to Birkenhead

TUESDAY 1 JANUARY

Snow had begun falling in the capital on Boxing Day, A weather system had started its move south on Christmas Eve and by New Year’s Day, Britain was in the grip of a winter that would turn out to be the worst since 1740. Performers up and down the country were falling foul of the conditions. Nearly 500 miles away and already an hour into the New Year in Hamburg, West Germany, the weather wasn’t much better. All New Year’s Eve flights from the city had been cancelled. In the midst of all this, the Beatles were playing the last night of a thirteen-night engagement at the Star-Club, sharing a bill with American instrumental act Johnny and the Hurricanes, Tony Sheridan with the Star-Combo, the Strangers, Carol Elvin and fellow Liverpudlians Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes. This visit to Hamburg, the Beatles’ fifth and last, had been taken under much duress. They had signed with EMI’s Parlophone label the previous May and had already recorded their first two singles at EMI studios in Abbey Road with producer George Martin. John [Lennon] later said, ‘If we’d had our way, we’d have just copped out on the engagement.’

When they had left for Hamburg on 18 December 1962, their first single ‘Love Me Do’ had risen to number 19 in the New Record Mirror (NRM) chart, but now stood at number 17. Paul [McCartney] later disparaged the single, saying it was not very good - but ‘only a little bit worse than the kind of thing on the hit parade then.’ The Beatles were staying in the Hotel Pacific on Neuer Pferdemarkt. Their legacy at the hotel was immortalised in a handwritten message on the wall in one of the rooms, with an arrow pointing to the bed below that read ‘John Lennon caught the crabs in this bed.’ After snatching a few hours’ sleep, the group checked out of the hotel and were driven the 15 miles north to the airport by their friend Icke Braun - appropriately in his VW Beetle, accompanied by Astrid Kirchherr. Although weather conditions had improved overnight, the 12.50pm BEA flight to London was delayed several hours. They spent the night at the Royal Court Hotel in Sloane Square, where they had first stayed the previous June, when they were in London to record at Abbey Road. With a short tour of Scotland scheduled for the coming week, plans were changed and arrangements made for them to fly to Edinburgh the following morning. Thus 1963 began for the Beatles.

inline-Image I was working in a group in Toledo, when the original Johnny and the Hurricanes broke up. They had a difference of opinion as to who was going to run it and how it was going to be run, so the group fell apart, and John had a lot of contracts to fulfil and he needed people to go on the road with him. I had already been playing with a couple of the Hurricanes so I knew he was looking for people. So I went down to his basement, played the chord organ, and went on the road with him. So we went over there in December of 1962. The Star-Club went almost 24/7 - they closed for an hour every day just to clean up. The groups played at different times, running continuously and alternating. Sometimes we weren’t even in the club at the same time and sometimes the groups would be out front drinking beer and watching the other groups play. The waitresses were looking up and down those Beatles somethin’ else. You could tell somethin’ was going on. Waitresses are sometimes pretty smart when it comes to spotting talent.

We stayed at the same hotel. I liked the guys. Paul was very straight, very clean dressed, well mannered. He didn’t like German tea. He said it was too weak. So he’d put the tea bag on a spoon and twist the string around to hasten the steeping of the tea. I wonder whether he still does it that way. George [Harrison] liked to party and we’d go down into the basement to drink. John was very much the leader and the straight one, and Ringo [Starr] was just enjoying the fact he was with the group.

After we finished our two weeks at the club we went on to Wiesbaden and played US bases for a while, then I think we went back for another week or so and then we took the train across to the Hook of Holland and went to London for a short tour of England. We stayed in a hotel opposite the Science Museum. Mickey Spillane was making a movie and was staying at the same hotel and I had some fun with him. There was a night club in the hotel and I used to go down there to unwind, being out all night, and one time I was down there and the door flew open and there he was with a valet with some beer and he came up on the stage with me and we partied all night long. He had some of his heavies drive us round England. I remember the weather was really bad.

When we came back to the States we were always talking about the Beatles. I left Johnny and the Hurricanes in January 1964. The following month I watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show with my wife and kids. The Beatles went on to become millionaires and, basically, I just came home, working with local groups. I gave up playing in 1996 when I did my last gig with a group called the Helmsmen. When I talk about what I did and my acquaintance with the Beatles, most of the people round me even to this day don’t believe it. That’s the way it goes. I do know we were making more money than them at the Star-Club. inline-Image

EDDIE WAGANFEALD, MUSICIAN, OREGON, OHIO, USA

WEDNESDAY 2 JANUARY

Stepping out into Sloane Square, the group were greeted by more snow before trudging back to London Airport to catch the 1.20pm BEA flight to Edinburgh - where they would meet their ever-reliable roadie Neil Aspinall in the band’s Ford Thames 800 Express bus, laden with John and George’s Vox amplifiers and Paul’s bass cabinet, which had been overhauled and re-covered at Barratt’s music shop in Manchester while they were away. After arriving at the airport, the group were informed that their flight was being re-routed to Aberdeen’s Dyce Airport because of the bad weather. With the group diverted and Aspinall driving to Edinburgh unaware of the flight change, there was no choice but to cancel their appearance at the Longmore Hall in Keith, Banff.

After they landed in Aberdeen, which was experiencing its coldest temperatures since 1895, the group checked into the Gloucester Hotel in Union Street. John took advantage of the night off and flew back to Liverpool, much to the surprise of his wife Cynthia. In the meantime, Aspinall, discovering that his charges weren’t at Edinburgh Airport, was making his way north through the appalling weather to meet up with them. The RAC warned drivers that all roads were treacherous; drizzling rain froze as soon as it hit the ground. Ten roads in Scotland were impassable. Despite snowdrifts preventing travel into Keith from either north or south, the show went ahead with support act Johnny and the Copycats performing throughout the evening. Disappointed fans hoping to see the Beatles could at least enjoy watching Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis in The Vikings at the Keith Playhouse. Two days later, a local teenager attending a 21st birthday party encountered knee-high snow, and rather than ruin her boots, walked home in her stockinged feet.

inline-Image I was the bass guitarist with Johnny and the Copycats. We were all 16, except rhythm guitarist Ali Ewan, who was 15. We walked through deep snow in Buckie to get to W.F. Johnson (Photographers and Printers) where we stored our equipment in a spare darkroom at the rear of the business. We were picked up by a taxi hired from Gray’s Taxis, Portsoy in a two-tone Vauxhall Cresta, with a roof rack. The 12-mile journey took almost an hour due to snowbound roads, but we arrived at the hall at about eight o’clock. A path had been dug from the road to the door by the hall keeper and we started taking in our equipment when we met the dance manager, Ian Falconer, who told us the Beatles weren’t going to be able to make it because of the weather. It wasn’t unusual for groups coming from the south to be delayed, but we were disappointed with the news as we had heard them on the radio and really liked them, and we were looking forward to seeing them playing live. We set up our equipment, changed into our ‘playing suits’ (black trousers, white shirts, red cummerbunds and black ‘bolero’-style jackets). As John was our lead singer, he wore a white jacket. We started playing at nine o’clock as the buses arrived, had a fifteen-minute tea break at eleven o’clock then played the Beatles’ set as well as ours till 1am. It took us a couple of hours to pack up the equipment and drive home that night. inline-Image

BILL CAMERON, PHOTOGRAPHER, BUCKIE, SCOTLAND

THURSDAY 3 JANUARY

The first editions of Disc and NRM of 1963 hit the streets. Disc wished Elvis Presley a Happy Birthday on its cover, while page two headlined its Post Bag ‘We’re Raving Over The Beatles’ and gave its Prize Letter to David Smith from Preston, who wondered whether ‘the nation’s reaction [to the Beatles] will be as enthusiastic as that of the Merseyside public.’ The NRM featured pictures of Adam Faith, Cliff Richard and Helen Shapiro on its front cover. In the paper’s Top 50, Cliff and Elvis took the top two spots. ‘Love Me Do’ dropped seven places to number 24, sandwiched between hits by Joe Loss and Bernard Cribbins. The Daily Herald reported that the first pop discs of 1963 were the ‘shabbiest batch for a long time’.

Flights from London to Scotland were getting back on track, albeit delayed. John was up at 5am to catch the 8.15 flight to Glasgow and then to Aberdeen. Even though parts of the A939, A941 and A3 were blocked, Aspinall drove the group to Dyce Airport to pick up John and then on the 60-mile journey to Elgin in Morayshire, heading north-west on the A96, for the evening’s show at the Two Red Shoes Ballroom.

The now four-date Scottish tour earned the group £42 per concert between them (they were on a salary of £30 a week at the time). They were contracted to perform two twenty-minute sets at each venue, but because it had been a block booking of five shows, the initial fee of £250 was reduced to £210. Promoter Albert Bonici had negotiated the Scottish tour with manager Brian Epstein in November 1962 through Jack Fallon at the Cana Variety Agency. Bonici would lose money on the tour, but had a clause in his contract that allowed him first refusal on any further Scottish dates during the year. A canny move that bore fruit later in the year.

The group checked into their lodgings, Myrtle House at 27 Lossie Wynd, a five-minute walk from the venue. The house was owned by ‘Ciss’ and Jimmy McBean, who regularly boarded groups who performed at the Two Red Shoes. As student nurses Adeline Smith and Joan Allan set off for their shift at Dr Gray’s Hospital from their digs next door, they were greeted by John leaning out of a window. ‘Nurse, oh nurse,’ he called out, ‘will you take my pulse, nurse, I’m feeling all faint for having seen you’ Their landlady, Mrs Grossart, appeared at the front door and told him to behave himself.

The weather continued to be a problem, with the temperature close to freezing. Fewer than a hundred people managed to brave the snow and make it to the dance. A complaint about the noise the group were making came from a neighbour. During a break, Bonici took John aside to ask him. ‘Can I have a quick word?’ John, brushing by to get some coffee, replied, ‘Velocity’. The group sat down in the dining area next to the kitchen to have refreshments at Table 1, reserved for all the acts who performed at the club. After the show, they chatted with the Alex Sutherland Sextet’s singer Eithne Alexander over a few drinks and some food, before making their way back to Mrs McBean’s for the night.

inline-Image It was a night like any other of my nights as vocalist with the Alex Sutherland Sextet. As the resident group, we backed artists that visited and entertained the huge crowds, which regularly attended the Two Red Shoes - at times stretching four or more deep down the street. I had been in a room over the Two Red Shoes all week after work listening to Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, etc. No music was read, just my ear and the unfailing faith my mentor and agent Albert Bonici had in my unique quality of tone. Albert cornered me. ‘Eithne. The Beatles are the guest group tonight, you’ll like them, they’re from Liverpool and I have heard great things about them. I want you to listen to what they have to say and what they sing and play - you might pick up some interesting musical tips.’ Though Elgin was really a backwoods farming and whisky-distilling town, many new groups who wanted to make it threw themselves into Albert’s arms. ‘I haven’t heard of them, Albert - what is their line-up?’ His reply did not fill me with excitement. The Two Red Shoes’ biggest crowds turned up for the likes of Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball - clarinets and trumpets, not four guys with just guitars and drums!

No one, it seemed, had been particularly keen to turn out that freezing evening to hear a ‘beat group’. The night was bitterly cold I remember - as were relations between the West and the Soviet Union. Everyone had just been traumatised by the Cuban crisis and was still reeling from the possibility that we might be plunged into a Third World War. Talk at home was all related to this and I recall the feeling of fear clouding my teenage brain and heart. Finishing our first stint, Albert burst onto the stage puffing from climbing the five steps from the cafe. ‘They’re here.’ I don’t know what I expected. I was hustled towards the cafe and introduced to the Beatles who, to give them their due, jumped up from their haze of smoke and motioned for me to sit with them, commenting on how they liked my singing. I shyly thanked them. I was painfully ill-equipped as a small-town teenager to take on these supremely confident and streetwise individuals determined to enfold me into their company. There was no protestation accepted; I had to sit in the back of the booth, wedged in a Beatle ‘bosy’ (Scottish word for hug) unable to escape. Thinking back now - how many girls in a few weeks’ time would have given their bras and bouffants to be in my position! I did not think this though, and thought them scruffy, loud and overfamiliar. The smoke was heavy and the chat was mainly about Hamburg. Paul, who could see my blushes, deflected some of John’s pushy advances towards me and every now and then would raise those soon-to-be familiar eyebrows and widen those boyish eyes.

When they went on the stage to do their stint, the crowd, apart from one or two, viewed them with apathy and disinterest. There was something that excited me about the chords and the harmonies -perhaps also their unkempt appearance, the boyish vulnerability, the devil-may-care attitude to their less than riotous reception. At the end of their slot Albert was full of praise and encouragement and a tad apologetic about the crowd. Back to the cafe, again squashed into the seat and my Beatle bosy. No surreptitious slithering off for coffee and sandwiches for me. I listened with open mouth and innocent disbelief to some of their tales of exploits in Germany and, following some seat rearrangement, made my exit. I had to get home as Mother, I knew, always stayed awake until I was in. Walking home across the railway bridge to where I lived, I felt strangely optimistic about the future. inline-Image

EITHNE KNEALE, EDUCATIONAL MENTOR, ANDALUSIA, SPAIN

FRIDAY 4 JANUARY

The still jazz-focused Melody Maker published its first edition of the year, running the headline ‘No Biz Like Snow Biz’ with reports of the many artists unable to travel the country because of the severe weather, love Me Do’ climbed one place to number 21 in the paper’s Top 50. Cliff Richard and the Shadows hit number one with the double A-sided ‘The Next Time’ and ‘Bachelor Boy’. The paper also announced a series of one-nighters for Helen Shapiro, starting in Bradford on 2 February. Danny Williams, Kenny Lynch, the Beatles, the Kestrels and the Red Price Band were to be her support acts. The New Musical Express, by far the biggest selling of the four weekly pop newspapers, also put out its first issue of 1963, revealing dates for a forthcoming nationwide UK tour featuring American singers Tommy Roe and Chris Montez, with the Beatles also on the bill, beginning on 9 March at the Granada in East Ham.

The group set off from Elgin on the A96 west to Inverness and then took the A9 to Dingwall in Ross and Cromarty. The 56-mile trip, which typically took an hour and a half, was considerably longer due to the continuing atrocious weather. The A941, which ran through Elgin north to south, was blocked by snow and stayed that way for another month and a half. Arriving late in the afternoon, the group checked into the National Hotel in the town’s High Street. Later they stopped off for a pint at the Commercial Bar, a three-minute walk to their show at the Town Hall, a former Carnegie Library opened in 1903.

Fewer than two dozen turned up to see them, and they performed wearing their coats and scarves because it was so cold inside the hall. Alan Scott, the guitar player for support act the Drumbeats, recalled, ‘Over the whole night there were about sixty people who came to the dance. When we were setting up, I went up and asked the Beatles if it would be all right to use their amplification, and in their thick Liverpool accents they said it would be OK. The amplification was very powerful in comparison to what we used. The rest of my group went off to the pub. I was the only one who stayed to listen to them. I thought they were great. Very slick and professional.’

Just 5 miles away, a reported twelve hundred people made their way to the Strathpeffer Pavilion to see local favourites the Melotones open for Irish showband the Chessmen. Part of what meagre proceeds there were from the Beatles’ show went to the local fire brigade Old Folks’ Appeal.

inline-Image I was 17 at the time and a live-in waitress from the Black Isle working at the National. I was on a date with my boyfriend Wavell (now my husband). The weather was very cold, not a nice night, and one or two feet of snow lay on the ground. As I was on an early shift the next morning, Wavell dropped me back at the hotel just after ten that evening. As we were arriving, the Beatles’ van drew up outside the hotel. I went inside, and shortly afterwards, the boys appeared in the kitchen looking for a cuppa. My fellow waitress, Anne MacAngus, known as ‘Big Anne’ - I was known as ‘Wee Anne’ - was also there. We chatted to Paul, George, Ringo and John for over an hour, having a good blether about their music and families. ‘Big Anne’ was sitting on Paul’s knee. She was a huge Beatles fan. However, the cook appeared eventually, and shooed them out and off to their respective rooms. The next morning, I served them a cooked breakfast of bacon and eggs. My sister Jeanette, who also worked at the hotel, remembers the head waitress referring to them as ‘scruffs’. Shortly afterwards, they set off on their journey, but not before seeking us out in the reception area to say, ‘Cheerio girls, see you soon!’ inline-Image

ANNE GUNN, HOTELIER, DINGWALL, SCOTLAND

SATURDAY 5 JANUARY

After a hearty cooked breakfast, the group left Dingwall to play their third date of the tour at the Museum Hall on Henderson Street in the Victorian spa town of Bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire. Facing the possibility that parts of the A9 were blocked, they decided to return to Aberdeen and drive to the Bridge of Allan from there. On arriving in Aberdeen, they made a stop at J. T. Forbes on George Street, a music shop that sold guitars, amplifiers and PA systems. Local musician Hamilton Harwood was there at the time and recalled: ‘It seems that George Harrison was having problems with his guitar, so he went into the shop to either get a replacement or whatever. I was popping into the shop as I had just left the Strollers to form a new group, the Jaguars, and was meeting the other guys in my new group there, and also my mates from the Strollers. The Strollers were the first group in Scotland to have three white Fenders from America - two Fender Stratocasters and a Fender bass. When I arrived in the shop, the Beatles were there, and although I’d heard of them because they’d been on the radio, I didn’t recognise them. I asked who they were, and my rhythm guitarist said, Oh, they’re the Beatles, they’re playing at the Beach Ballroom tomorrow Anyway, they were sitting down playing different instruments, and as I was buying a new guitar, a Fender Jaguar, we all sat jamming together. I did notice that George’s fingernails were a wee bit dirty. When you play guitar, your fingernails on your left hand get a bit grubby.’ The manager, Harry Lord, didn’t think much of the four young men, but before the end of the year, his shop proudly displayed a banner declaring The Beatles shopped here’

The 120-mile trip south-west on the A90 to Perth and then on the A9 through the towns of Auchterarder and Dunblane was a slow process, but the group finally reached the Bridge of Allan where they checked into the Royal Hotel, a short walk from the hall.

inline-Image I had moved back to Bridge of Allan after spending the summer of 1962 working at my cousin’s hotel in Llandudno, the Clovelly. I became friends with one of the waitresses, a Liverpool girl called Valerie McCrimmon, who had a fabulous beehive hairdo, jet black. I was born in Liverpool and had lived there until the family moved north of the border when I was 8. She raved about the group she had seen at the Cavern and was in love with Pete Best.

A few months later, I am back home in Bridge of Allan with no job. The moment I saw that the ‘Love Me Do Boys’ were to play at the regular Saturday dance at the Museum Hall, I knew I had to go. I reckon I was the only one there who had actually gone to see the Beatles. The Saturday dances were always well attended, and this one was no exception. Possibly 150-200 young people were in the hall, a 50/50 mix of male and female. At the time I was living in Avenue Park, off Henderson Street, the main street that runs through the town. I walked to the hall, over the bridge and down to the other end of Henderson Street. The Museum Hall was laid out as a dance hall. The stage was quite high, and a balcony ran round three sides of the hall, allowing a good view of the stage and the dance floor below. I remember them doing mostly cover versions. The reception when the group came onstage was fabulous. John Lennon in particular had great stage presence - I remember him clearly, holding his guitar high on his chest, parallel to the ground. They were different, exciting and very tight. Everyone had a great time. I joined the Bridge of Allan Holy Trinity Church Youth Club and later in the year when the Beatles were playing in Dundee, the club arranged a coach party trip to see them. I stood on the back balcony. What a difference a few months made. You couldn’t hear them play, just the screaming. My cousin’s family sold the hotel in Llandudno and moved to Australia and I never did get in touch with Valerie to tell her that I’d seen them. inline-Image

IAN AINSWORTH, MAINTENANCE ENGINEER, NATIONAL COAL BOARD, CAUSEWAYHEAD, SCOTLAND

SUNDAY 6 JANUARY

The group set off back up the A9 and A90 to play the tour’s final date at the Beach Ballroom on the Esplanade in Aberdeen, where they had unexpectedly spent the night four days earlier. The local council had just voted to allow alcoholic drinks to be served at the venue, despite the objections of the St Mark’s vicar A. A. Bowyer, who claimed that one of the greatest evils of the present time was drinking. Sundays also meant there was after an avalanche blocked the railway line between Edinburgh and Carlisle near Galashiels. The night was the coldest yet. Glenlivet, 65 miles to the west of Aberdeen, recorded 34 degrees of frost. Some householders found that when they picked up their milk bottles from their front doorstep, the bottoms remained stuck to the ground. On a far more serious note, there were reports of beer bottles bursting. Roderick Stuart of Westholme Avenue, Aberdeen had too much time on his hands, building a 17 ft 2 in snowman.

When the group arrived at the ballroom in the late afternoon, they found a queue outside the locked doors already lining up to get in. Unaware there was a back door; they chatted with several people in the queue until staff arrived with the keys to open up. Once inside, the group spent time in the upstairs coffee bar, drinking tea and smoking. Introduced by Alfie Wood, they played two forty-five-minute sets and, during their break, they were treated to tea and biscuits by waitresses wearing old-style black-and-white council uniforms. They played ‘Love Me Do’ and a selection of rock’n’roll classics in the first set, adding ‘Please Please Me’ for their second. When they asked for requests, audience member Donnie Fraser shouted out ‘A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues’ which the group duly sang. After the show, they returned to the Gloucester Hotel to spend the night. Gordon Hardie, one of Bonici’s assistants, revealed that the box-office take had been just £45, with all but £3 going to the Beatles.

inline-Image For me, the Beach Ballroom was the best music venue in Aberdeen in the ’60s. As a young musician in a local group called the Falcons, the experience was immense. I saw many fabulous groups and singers throughout the decade. In 1962, at the age of 15, I started my first group at the Beehive Youth Club. The club had a Wurlitzer juke box and in it was an exciting new record, ‘Love Me Do’ by the Beatles, which I played all the time when I was at the club. When I saw the advert in the Evening Express for the concert featuring the Johnny Scott Orchestra with special guest group, the Beatles, I just had to go and see this new group I really liked. Tickets were 3/- and it was an all-seated concert. I went with my brother Mike and, as we arrived early, had an opportunity to chat with the Beatles before the show about music, Hamburg and the Liverpool scene. In those days there was no group security so we knocked on the stage door and were invited in to meet them. They were tuning their guitars and discussing their playlist.

Being a musician myself I was interested in their guitars. John played a Rickenbacker, bought from a GI in Hamburg; George was using a Gretsch Country Gent, on loan from Hessy’s Guitar Shop in Liverpool as his own was in for repair; and Paul handed me his Hofner Bass. I noticed their playlist taped to Paul’s guitar. I asked whether they would play Chuck Berry’s ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ as it was a favourite with my group. John dedicated the song especially to the ‘lads in the front row’. During the second half of the show they announced their new single, ‘Please Please Me’. The audience were enjoying their music very much, judging by their applause and reaction. But there was no screaming, so I could hear every song. I could see how talented and destined for stardom they were. As I was leaving, I asked Tucker Donald, the resident singer with the Johnny Scott Band, what he thought of them. He said ‘they were OK’ but was not that impressed! Six months later my group the Falcons appeared at the Ballroom on the same stage as the Beatles had. inline-Image

BILL COWIE, ROV/PILOT TECHNICIAN, ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND

MONDAY 7 JANUARY

Overnight temperatures in parts of north-east Scotland dropped to 19 degrees of frost. The Moray town of Grantown-on-Spey reached 6 below zero. In the morning, the group made the ten-minute walk from the Gloucester Hotel for breakfast at the Chivas Restaurant. Later in the day, when Bonici and Gordon Hardie were having lunch at the Chivas, they were asked by waitresses, still in a dither from meeting the group, ‘Who are these Beatles?’ Bonici didn’t seem too concerned to have lost money on this short tour; he more than made it back later in the year, even though he had to pay £500 per night for the group’s services. Hardie subsequently recalled his memories of the tour. ‘I’ve heard it said they were booed at the Beach Ballroom. That’s rubbish. They got a fantastic reception at the Beach Ballroom and at Bridge of Allan. The girls who were there went wild for them. They were a young group trying to make their way in the industry and they were prepared to go to far-flung places and put in the hours.’

The group travelled down the by-now familiar A90 on the 145-mile journey to Glasgow, arriving in the late afternoon for the following day’s appearance on Scottish Television. With news that another freeze was on the way, and as several more inches of snow fell in parts of the country, the city was enjoying its first white Christmas since before the Second World War.

TUESDAY 8 JANUARY

The tedium of the weather continued. More than twenty main roads throughout Britain remained blocked because of snow and increasing freezing winds. The forecast was predicting that a thaw might set in in southern parts of England, but for people in Scotland there would be no respite. A further twenty FA Cup ties were called off because of frozen pitches. Some of Blackpool’s team took advantage of the conditions at their Bloomfield Road ground and skated instead of playing football.

The group appeared on Scottish Television’s children’s programme Roundup at the Theatre Royal in Hope Street, Glasgow, miming to their forthcoming single ‘Please Please Me’. Sound recordist Len Southam was responsible for placing the disc, which the group brought with them, on the turntable. In an effort to get a little extra payment for their appearance, in part because their van - not for the first time, nor the last - was having mechanical troubles, John had asked Southam for more money, but was turned down with a stern No They were also interviewed by the hosts, Paul Young and Morag Hood. The programme aired at 5pm.

inline-Image I was at George Heriot’s School when I began co-presenting Roundup with Morag Hood. The first six were pre-recorded on a Sunday and transmitted the following Tuesday during May 1962, then the first live series started in September. Scottish Television had bought the Theatre Royal back in 1957 and turned it into television studios. The theatre’s main studio was basically from the back stalls to the back of the stage. Roundup was a magazine-type programme… careers advice, how to look after pets, a schools quiz, a pop spot where young people voted on new releases… a guest star interview and a guest group or singer. We had many famous people on over the years.

In my 1963 diary, I entered the names of the guests who appeared on the show. I had been told in advance that we were to host a group called ‘The Beetles’. During the afternoon rehearsal, four neatly dressed young men plus their road manager came quietly into the studio and at the next break were introduced to Morag and myself. ‘I’m Paul, that’s George, the one with the rings is Ringo and that’s John.’ So we chatted a bit and they talked about the Scottish dates they had just played. Paul and I chatted about our first names, which were not common in those days, and I remember commenting on the small bass guitar he was using and the fact that he was left-handed and he told me it meant he had to string the guitar differently from the norm. ‘My job is to go bdum, bdum, bdom, bdom in the background and John and me have written a few songs.’ Masterly understatement!

They rehearsed the song they were going to end our programme with, ‘Please Please Me’. They mimed to the track as live music was difficult to balance in those days and there wasn’t time to do it properly. The programme was transmitted live and I wonder if the other guests on the programme realised they were in at the beginning of the huge global phenomenon that was about to follow. My diary for the next time they were on the programme in June said simply ‘Beatles again’. I had learned how to spell the group’s name properly! inline-Image

PAUL YOUNG, ACTOR, WRITER, BROADCASTER, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND

WEDNESDAY 9 JANUARY

After staying a second night in Glasgow, the group drove back to Liverpool. The trip on the A7 took more than six hours. Weather conditions were as bad as they had been north of the border - the highest temperature for the day was 2.2 degrees Celsius. The Liverpool race meeting was abandoned because of frost and snow, but the third-round Cup tie between Liverpool and Wrexham, postponed from Saturday, went ahead. Liverpool came out 3-0 winners. The day’s Liverpool Echo reported that there was ‘No sign of a thaw yet.’ Overnight temperatures dropped to minus 4.4 - certainly better than Aberdeen, which had plummeted to minus 11. The AA described driving conditions as ‘varied, from treacherous to difficult. When they finally made it back home, local cinemas were showing The Bridge On The River Kwai, Hatari and Five Weeks In A Balloon, while David Whitfield and Morecambe and Wise were starring in The Sleeping Beauty at the Empire Theatre.

After three weeks away from home, the group finally got to sleep in their own beds. Later in the year, George recalled the trip to Scotland. ‘It was terrible touring in the snow and the ice. We had some pretty long journeys to cope with and it was darned cold. But we were still hearing ‘Love Me Do’ on our portable radio - and that warmed us up.’

THURSDAY 10 JANUARY

Disc declared that the week had probably gone down ‘as one of the greatest-ever in Cliff Richard’s career.’ Tucked away at the bottom of page nine, below four-star reviews for new singles by Hugo Montenegro and Paula Watson, the Beatles’ new record, released the following day, received a three-star review. ‘‘Please Please Me’ will undoubtedly please the growing band of fans who are following the Beatles. The boys chant this one briskly to a dark twangy background’

The NRM, which had ‘Love Me Do’ climbing back up seven places to number 17, rated the new single as a ‘Top 20 Tip’ giving it four stars. ‘From the oh-so-successful Beatles comes this follow-up. It’s a high-pitched number with plenty of guts, and good tune, vocalising and some off-beat sounds on the disc. The backing verges on great, while the singing is taken by various members of the team. We reckon its chart chances - it would probably make it as even their first disc. Rather bluesy, fast tempo.’

Transglobal Music Co. Inc., acting on behalf of EMI Records in the US, signed a licensing agreement with Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records giving them the rights to release ‘Please Please Me’ which had already been rejected by Capitol Records’ executive Dave Dexter. (EMI had acquired 96 per cent of Capitol’s stock in 1955. Dexter, who thought rock’n’roll was ‘juvenile and maddeningly repetitive’, famously told label president Alan Livingston, ‘Alan, they’re a bunch of long-haired kids. They’re nothing. Forget it’.) The licence was for five years and gave Vee-Jay first refusal on all future recordings.

The Beatles played their first hometown gig of the year at the Grafton Ballroom, where fans queued for two hours before the show. They were supported by Gerry and the Pacemakers, Sonny Webb and the Cascades (Sunday night residents at the Black Cat Club), the Johnny Hilton Show Band and the Billy Ellis Trio with master of ceremonies Bob Wooler. Tickets for the five-hour show, beginning at 7.30pm, cost 7/-, although most had been sold in advance for 6/-. Tickets numbered 504 to 606 had been stolen and weren’t valid. The venue issued a stern warning that the police had been notified.

Following their performance, the Beatles were interviewed by the Evening Standard’s Maureen Cleave, who had been urged by Liverpool journalist Gillian Reynolds to see them. ‘The Beatles made me laugh immediately,’ she wrote, ‘their wit was just so keen and sharp - John Lennon, especially. They all had this wonderful quality. It wasn’t innocent, but everything was new to them’

By the time the group returned to their respective homes, temperatures were dropping to their lowest in Liverpool since 29 December, falling to minus 5 with 9 degrees of frost.

inline-Image The first time I heard the Beatles was when they were doing a show at Hambleton Hall, in what was considered a rough area of Liverpool in those days. They were wearing leather jackets with their hair brushed back and it was definitely once seen, never forgotten. We then started investigating other clubs they played at, and that’s how we heard of the Cavern. I was an apprentice hairdresser at Ellison Lea’s, a salon over the original NEMS shop and Mike McCartney [Paul’s brother] worked in the Andre Bernard shop opposite. None of us had any money and so we’d nip downstairs to the record shop and go into the booths and listen to the records.

My friends and I were regular Cavern dwellers. Practically everyone had their own seats as it were. I always used to sit in the corner, in the alcove to the left of the stage. The Beatles at that stage were known to chat to all the girls. We used to hang about at the coffee bar at the back hoping that one of them would come and chat with us. They used to occasionally give the girls lifts home - a lot of the groups did in those days - and on one particular night we got a lift home from Paul. He’d just got his car - a green classic. I was dropped off last and as I was about to get out of the car John suddenly said, ‘Paul will be round to pick you up tomorrow night.’ I said something like, ‘That’ll be no good. I work until 6 o’clock.’ He came out with the classic line, ‘He’s not asking you to marry him.’ Paul, being the gentleman that he was, got out and walked me up to the door and made a proper arrangement.

So, the next night we had a date. I remember it was just before they left for Hamburg for the final time. We went to the Forum cinema on the corner of Lime Street. After the film he took me back to Rory Storm’s house. When I got there George was there. Paul vanished for a while and George got very chatty. Then it was time to go and I remember it was a very snowy night. I was walking down the path and George came running up behind me as if to pick me up for some reason. He slipped and fell flat on his back. Paul stood there looking a bit more grown-up, and then he drove me home. I didn’t go out with Paul again, but soon began dating George. I got home one night and found a note he had put through my door saying, ‘Please ring me’. He had been giving me the odd lift home from the Cavern so he knew where I lived. I remember when they got a silver disc for ‘Please Please Me’ and he brought it round to show me; my mum asked whether she could play it.

After that was a hit, things really began to change. I arranged to meet him at the Floral Hall in Southport when they were doing a show. Tony Bramwell, who had just started working for them, got George out of the back of the theatre and into his car with George’s mother and me. That was the first experience I had of Beatlemania. It was rather frightening. George picked me up from the salon a couple of times. I had to do night school on Tuesday nights so he came round to pick me up in his Ford Anglia. One time a hairstyle I had became fashionable and my boss made me go and have a photograph taken to go outside the shop. Bill Harry saw it and asked if he could use it in Mersey Beat. They were doing this series every month called ‘The Face of Beauty’. One day George came back from somewhere a little earlier than I had expected and I was getting ready with rollers in my hair and a dressing gown. He walked in and said, ‘So this is the Face of Beauty!’

I met my husband Mike in the Kardomah coffee bar. At this point I swore I wouldn’t go out with any more musicians. I thought they were a load of layabouts! Anyway, we got married in 1967 and I continued hairdressing until the ’70s. Then I became a Beatles tour guide. Mike and I opened The Beatles Story in 1990. I thought it could last up to ten years because there were always going to be anniversaries every year. We foresaw how the market could develop. I don’t think we ever thought that it would be the success it has become though! The last time I saw George was when he came to Liverpool with the Delaney and Bonnie tour. We were having a drink in the Lord Nelson when he came in with his entourage. He summoned me over with a crook of his finger and we engaged in some small talk. I met Paul at LIPA in the 1990s and more recently had a nice surprise from him. My daughter is a friend of the DJ Matt Everitt who was interviewing Paul on his radio show when she celebrated her birthday and he asked whether Paul would do him a favour and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ for her. He said, ‘You might know her mum. Her name was Bernadette Farrell.’ Paul said, ‘Yeah, I remember her. I often say that but I do remember her.’ He then sang ‘Happy Birthday’ for her and sent me his best wishes. inline-Image

BERNADETTE BYRNE, TOUR GUIDE AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE BEATLES STORY LIVERPOOL, FORMBY, MERSEYSIDE

FRIDAY 11 JANUARY

‘Please Please Me’ was released. The EMI press release accompanying the new single trumpeted, ‘Here’s the first big chart-bustin’ bombshell of ‘63!!!! The Beatles have made The Record of the Year’ In the NME, DJ Keith Fordyce wrote, ‘This vocal and instrumental quartet has turned out a really enjoyable platter, full of beat, vigour and vitality - and what’s more, it’s different. I can’t think of any other group currently recording in this style.’ The trade paper Record Retailer felt that the single had ‘chart written all over it and seems sure to do well’. Saturday Club host Brian Matthew said, ‘Visually and musically the Beatles are the most exciting and accomplished group to emerge since the Shadows. In the next few months, they will become one of the hottest properties in the music industry’. Melody Maker featured a cover story on Duke Ellington’s forthcoming UK tour and was the one paper not to review the single. ‘Love Me Do’ stayed at number 21 in the paper’s Top 50.

With the Liverpool Daily Post blasting the headline ‘Another Ice Age Week-End Ahead’ the group played a lunchtime show at the Cavern Club, for which they were paid £20, with Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes in support. The show’s ad stated: ‘This date coincides with the release of the Beatles’ record ‘Please Please Me. COME AND HEAR THEM PLAY IT’ They then drove to Halesowen Road in Old Hill, near Dudley, Staffordshire, for a show at the Plaza Ballroom. It was one of four Black Country venues run by Mary and Joe Regan, affectionately known as Ma and Pa Regan. Seventeen-year-old Carol Law, for whom Friday night was Plaza night, recalled: ‘Dad would drop me and my boyfriend Alan off on the way to his fishing club, and pick us up on the way home. I got such a surprise when the Beatles came onstage. I knew who they were, but didn’t know they were playing that evening. I can still remember them vividly, standing on the stage, Paul on the right, with all of them wearing dark suits. It was a wonderful evening and at the end, there was Dad, waiting in the foyer. He never let me go home on my own, even if I was with Alan! He would stand chatting to Mrs Regan’s husband while he waited. Mr Regan was always dressed in a dinner jacket with a black bow tie. The Plaza was a fantastic venue, a great place for young people to go. Refreshments were sold downstairs, and there was a staircase leading up to the ballroom, with the stage on the right. They used to have this alcove where you could sit. In those days, you would have several groups playing in one evening. The great thing about the Plaza was that it had a revolving stage, so as each group finished their set, it would go round, and the next group would appear, already playing.’ A later show that evening at the Ritz Ballroom (formerly a snooker hall) in King’s Heath, Birmingham, a little over 10 miles away, was postponed until 15 February. The unrelenting weather made it impossible for the group to get to the venue. They spent the night at the Regans’ in Woodbourne Road, Edgbaston, where they were greeted by the couple’s three Alsatians.

inline-Image I grew up in Liverpool, and when I left school in the early ’60s I went to work as a typist for a shipping company down by the docks. The office was in the Tower Building in Water Street, only a five-minute walk to Mathew Street. I can’t remember exactly when we started to go to the Cavern, but it was very early on. We had two lunch hours - one was from ten to twelve until one, and the second from ten to one until two. The girls on the first lunch break would dive down to get front-row seats when the Beatles were on, then would take it in turns to go out one by one, holding the seats for the girls on the second lunch break, and dash back to work. The Beatles were on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then they would do Tuesday and Thursday the following week. Once we had some photographs of them and took them into the little side room by the stage which they used as a dressing room and got them to sign them for us. They were actually quite shy about it! John put ‘From John Lennon’, he didn’t bother with ‘Lennon’ later on. When we got back to work - we were sometimes a little late and would smell absolutely awful. The boss used to say, ‘You’ve been there again, haven’t you?’ It was a dead giveaway! It was a very strong disinfectant-y smell, oh it was horrible, but we thought it was fantastic.

Most of the people who went there were the same age as me - about 16 or 17. All the girls from the office would go, and I used to meet up with my friend Margaret, who worked in a photographer’s up the road. We knew each other through our boyfriends who were friends and did everything together. Four of us went to the Cavern the day the group were filmed for television - it was the only day they were ever filmed there. We were standing by the arches at the side, it was packed and the television people were telling us what to do. They said one thing we mustn’t do is whistle, and of course we all did. They did things over and over again with the cameras and the Beatles were very excited, they were brilliant, it was a fabulous day! We wanted them to be famous and do well, but we wanted to keep them as well. We knew we were losing them about that time, but it was good to have been there that day.

We used to go to the Aintree Institute on a Saturday night, all the Liverpool groups would be on, but it was the Beatles we all went to see. I remember once going there and George was on the same bus! His car must have broken down. He had an old Ford Anglia and used to park it by my husband Arthur’s car (who was my boyfriend at that time). One night Arthur and his friend Eric helped the group unload their kit from their old van. That’s their claim to fame - they were the Beatles’ roadie for one night! Pete Best was still in the line-up, and we all just loved him, just loved him. My favourite was always George though. He didn’t sing very much though; all he would sing was ‘I’m Henry The Eighth I Am’ and ‘The Sheik Of Araby’. I remember he used to call Brian Epstein ‘Mr Frankenstein!’ We were very upset when Pete left. People would say he was too quiet, but he was so nice. He was also gorgeous and would look down his eyes at you.

It was a great time to be young in Liverpool. Everyone seemed to have a few bob spare in those days. I earned £4 10s a week as a typist, but we had money to spare. I was clothes mad, shoes mad, music mad. Margaret and I are still great friends. Recently we went to the fiftieth anniversary of the Cavern. Margaret was invited as a guest for all the help she had given the guys who took it over. It was a brilliant evening, and the club is very like the original. The original was a death trap to be honest. All the stone steps were very worn, no such thing as Health and Safety! I have three grown-up sons now, and they say, ‘Mum, you were so lucky to have been in Liverpool at that time.’ They live all over the world, but I tell them all the stories. They think Liverpool is the centre of the universe! inline-Image

PAT PETERS, TYPIST AND HOUSEWIFE, BILLINGE, MERSEYSIDE

SATURDAY 12 JANUARY

The group set off on the nearly 200-mile drive south to play their southernmost gig yet at the Invicta Ballroom in Fullagers Yard, just off the High Street next to Woolworth’s in Chatham, Kent. Once again, they had to drive through fog (visibility at Liverpool Airport was down to 10 yards), heavy snow and gale-force winds. The docks in the Chatham harbour were frozen and the Royal Navy was called upon to use an icebreaker to keep them open; the River Medway to Rochester froze for the first time ever with ice 2 inches thick, and on the south coast of Kent, the Channel froze from Dover to Eastbourne. The Chatham Observer & Kent Messenger reported that the weather conditions were the worst in eighty years.

As a warm welcome that night, the group played to a ballroom packed to the rafters with adoring fans and maybe a few souls simply looking to shelter from the cold. The Jaybirds opened and the Beatles were introduced by the hall’s manager and bingo caller, Ray Wade. One audience member, Alan Cackett, recalled the evening. ‘At the time we weren’t into groups - except for the Shadows. Apart from school concerts, I’d never seen a live pop music show and had no idea what to expect. To be brutally honest, the sound that night was awful. It was muddy and far removed from the clear-cut sound of the pop records of the time. But from the opening strains of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ I was mesmerised’

It was the last time Ringo used his bass-drum head with his own name on it - the following day when they made their Thank Your Lucky Stars appearance it had been removed. On their return to Liverpool, they got in touch with artist Terry ‘Tex’ O’Hara, whose brother Brian was a member of the Fourmost. They asked him to take a drawing Paul had made the previous year and fashion a logo for the group. ‘I did about five to ten drawings, which I’ve still got, and showed them to the group,’ he recalled. ‘They settled on one logo, which was put on a piece of linen and stretched across the front of the drum’

inline-Image I had my 16th birthday in November of 1962 and the same weekend met my boyfriend. He was in the Royal Navy and on leave before going to sea the following week for a year. I wrote to him and kept him informed about all the news from home. He was sorry to have missed the opportunity of actually seeing the Beatles perform in Chatham, the only time they ever came to our little corner of Kent. The weather was so bad that winter, the snow started late Boxing Day afternoon and didn’t disappear until March. I went to a friend’s party that night but caught a bus as it was so cold. By the time the party finished there was at least 6 inches of snow and a crowd of us all