The front page of the NME featured an ad for Dora Bryan’s All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle, voted a hit on the previous Saturday’s “Juke Box Jury,” as was the Fourmost’s I’m In Love. Bryan later said, “I didn’t even know what a Beatle was until we started rehearsing this show last summer ... I think they’re marvellous. So with it, but I don’t even know which Beatle is which ... When I tried to talk to them at a ball where they were in the cabaret a security man pulled me away. I felt such a fool.
At that stage in their careers I found them very bright, unspoilt, and friendly boys. I don’t think any Christmas goes by without the record being played on the radio.” Paul later said in The Beatles Book monthly, “I love the record and I think it’s extremely funny. Let’s face it, Dora is funny, isn’t she? I went to see her show in London and it knocked me out.” Lennon commented, “I enjoy people making fun of us. It makes a change from nasty comment.”
A telegram from the group was delivered to her dressing room shortly thereafter. It read, “We think the record is fab. All We Want For Beatmas Is A Crystal. But seriously - we hope it is a big hit. Signed John, Paul, George, Ringo.”
In the paper’s Top 30, She Loves You returned to the top of the chart after seven weeks, which had seen it drop to number 4 and climb back up again. The Beatles Hits EP re-entered the chart at number 30 as The Beatles (No. 1) climbed three places to number 24. Twist And Shout EP also re-entered at number 29.
Derek Johnson reviewed I Want To Hold Your Hand in the NME, writing, “Worth every single one of its fantastic advance orders - that’s my judgement on the Beatles’ new single. It’s repetitious almost to the point of hypnosis, has an easily-memorised melody, and some built-in hand-clapping to help along the infectious broken beat. And there’s a plaintive and much quieter middle eight, which proves a mighty effective buffer to the remainder of this power-packed disc.” “Beatles TV Sensation” read the headline with news of the group appearing on “Juke Box Jury,” as well as She Loves You passing sales of 975,000 two days earlier, a Boxing Day radio show called “Beatle Time,” a series on Radio Luxembourg starting on December 22nd and the rescheduling of the group’s Portsmouth shows.
In the Melody Maker, She Loves You also returned to the top, after a six-week break. Twist And Shout and The Beatles Hits climbed back into the Top Twenty to numbers 15 and 18 respectively, while The Beatles (No. 1) climbed to number 22. Bob Dawbarn, the paper’s modern jazz expert, wrote, “I like the Beatles! There will now be a short pause while jazz club proprietors tear up my membership forms, my landlord prepares notice to quit and Dave Brubeck fans cry ‘I thought as much.’ ... On reflection I think my main reason for liking the Beatles is that they are genuine.”
Several DJs were asked what they thought about the single. David Jacobs commented, “I think the new Beatles single sounds very good. However, I do think that they should have issued one track from the LP, All My Loving as a single. I think this is wonderful,” while Pete Murray said, “There’s no doubt the future of the record - it’s a certain No. 1. But somehow, to me, the Beatles’ records do not improve. I find their record From Me To You far more musical than this new one. As an older member of the public who admires the Beatles, I prefer their more melodic treatments. But that doesn’t necessarily apply to younger people,” and Alan Freeman opined, “I don’t think the new one by the Beatles will have the impact of She Loves You. Of course, I Want To Hold Your Hand will go to the top. But the B Side This Boy is a revelation and shows off their talents much greater than the songs they aim to hit parade success.” Mercifully this time around the paper didn’t ask for Jimmy Savile’s opinion.
With advance orders of 300,000, With The Beatles was released. Melody Maker commented, “A great album, with variety of tempo and a raw style that puts the Beatles unmistakably at the top of the beat tree,” while Jane Gaskell in the Daily Express wrote, “The new Beatles LP With The Beatles is going to be one huge smash hit whether or not it deserves to be.”
Demand was such that EMI had forty presses on the go at its Hayes record factory. Production manager George Manning said that since the start of Beatlemania the factory had taken on an extra one hundred workers. “We are working just about as many hours as we can, 24 hours a day seven days a week,” he said. “Production resources are stretched to the limit.”
Overrun by customers, NEMS record store in Liverpool had to call in the police. In all 530,000 copies were sold nationwide by the end of the day. Faulty copies of the LP found their way into stores, requiring an EMI official to offer the statement, “It could not have happened with a more important record. It is very serious. We have traced the trouble. We pressed this L.P. from several master plates and we find that one of these plates was faulty. This has now been thrown out and replaced, and the trouble should cease. We regret it very much, and we will readily replace any record which is the subject of a genuine complaint. We would emphasise that only a small percentage of the copies issued was affected.”
An unhappy fifteen-year-old Linda Wilks of Leeds said, “My enthusiasm for the record was beyond control. But after three vain attempts to buy a record which would play correctly my patience is getting frayed.” The Leeds record store she bought it from added, “We have had nearly 100 complaints up to now. It seems that the trouble is on one track and involves a number called Roll Over Beethoven. Certain types of record players cope with the flaw and the record sounds all right. So we are continuing to sell the disc and accepting returns if customers find their players do not play correctly. This sort of flaw is most unusual and very unfortunate.”
Even when it was obvious America was going to succumb to Beatlemania as well, New York Times television writer Jack Gould would write as seeing a clip of the Beatles on January 3rd, “It would not seem quite so likely that the accompanying fever known as Beatlemania will also be successfully exported. On this side of the Atlantic it is dated stuff.”
At 7.00am, cleaning staff at Carlisle’s ABC cinema began the task of picking up 1 cwt of Jelly Babies, which had been thrown onstage the night before. They finished three hours later. American boxing champion Rocky Marciano arrived at Ringway Airport in Manchester and gave an impromptu press conference on the tarmac by the side of plane. He said, “Where can I get a ticket for a Beatles show? I hear they’re the greatest.” He was in town for a bout between his protégé Mike Pusateri and Terry Downes at the Belle Vue the following Tuesday.
The Bournemouth Times ran a story headlined “Stamp out Beatles” - “Not surprisingly, there was some heated debate when the Bournemouth branch of NALGO held a tongue-in-cheek debate. The motion was ‘That this house considers the Beatles are a menace’.” A strong case for the motion was put forward by Doug Fincher, Vice-Chairman of the branch and seconded by branch magazine editor Len Russell. A prize of two tickets for the Beatles’ show at the Winter Gardens was won by Peter Hibbert, of the Architects’ Department, while Margery Spencer won a consolation prize. The awards were given to those the judges decided had given the best speeches against the motion. Only two of the forty there voted in favour of it and the debate centred on the undoubted right of young people to choose their entertainment - just as the older generation does.
The group woke up late, had a quick snack around midday and left the Crown and Mitre the way they came. Just three fans were on hand to see them go. They drove south on the A6 to Penrith before turning west on the A66 for the two-hour journey to Stockton-on-Tees, where they played two shows at the Globe Cinema at 6.15pm and 8.30pm. With fans waiting for them at the stage door, the group arrived at the front and walked unencumbered through the foyer. They had cheese sandwiches backstage and posed for photographers and talked with reporters.
During the first show theatre worker Alan Day broke the news to them of President Kennedy’s assassination. Vernons Girl Jean Owen remembered, “We were just about to go on stage, and John came down and was standing at the side. He said ‘Eh, did yer know, Kennedy’s just been shot?’ We looked at him in disbelief. Mo said, ‘Oh don’t be so bloody sick!’, and he said, ‘I’m telling yer, he’s just been shot!’ Just as he said that we were announced, and had to go on. It wasn’t until we came off-stage that we heard it was true.”
A few hours earlier, the segment recorded in Bournemouth aired on the “CBS Morning News With Mike Wallace” in the US. It had been scheduled to be repeated in the evening on the “CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite,” but was preempted by news of the assassination. The report by Alexander Kendrick, who had preceded Dan Rather as the network’s London bureau chief, and who had covered the Russian front in the Second World War, was only slightly less condescending than Edwin Newman’s earlier in the week. “Yeah yeah yeah, those are the Beatles those are and this is Beatleland formerly known as Britain where an epidemic called Beatlemania has seized the teenage population especially female. Some of the girls can write and they belong to the Beatle fan club. The Beatles sound like insect life but it’s spelled B-E-A-T Beat and these four boys from Liverpool with their dish-mopped hairstyles are Britain’s latest musical and in fact sociological phenomenon. They have introduced what their press agents calls ‘the Mersey Sound’ after the River Mersey on which Liverpool stands and though musicologists say it is no different than any other rock and roll except maybe louder, it has carried the Beatles to the top of the heap. In fact they have met royalty, and royalty is appreciative and impressed. Wherever the Beatles go they are pursued by hordes of screaming swinging juveniles. They and their press agents have to think up all sorts of ways to evade their adoring fans. Thousands of teenagers in every city and town stand in line all night to get tickets for their touring show. Girls faint when the tickets run out. The other night the Beatles played Bournemouth, the south coast family resort, and Bournemouth will never be the same ... They’re also credited with having saved the sagging British corduroy industry. And besides being merely the latest objects of adolescent adulation and culturally the modern manifestation of compulsive tribal singing and dancing the Beatles are said by sociologists to have a deeper meaning. Some say they are the authentic voice of the proletariat. Some say they are the authentic heart of Britain in revolt against the American cult of pop singers represented by Elvis Presley and the long line of his British imitators. Some say the Beatles represent authentic British youth, or British youth as it would like to be - self confident, natural, direct, decent, vital, throbbing. The Beatles themselves seem to have no illusions. They symbolise the 20th-century non hero, as they make non music, wear non haircuts, give non Mersey.”
During Twist And Shout at their second set, two girls managed to get onstage and make a beeline for George and hugged him before making their way over to John. As stewards grabbed hold of the girls, the curtain came down and the group made a quick exit through a back door and into a waiting police car, which then drove a half-an-hour north to the Eden Arms Hotel in nearby Rushyford. A crowd of more than one hundred had gathered outside the Staincliffe Hotel in Seaton Carew, following rumours that the group were staying there. A hotel official said, “I have no idea how the rumour that the Beatles were coming here started. But it was completely untrue ... One of our chefs, who looks a little like one of the Beatles, appeared at a window and the crowd screamed. He had to keep out of sight from then on.” Six girls were treated at Stockton and Thornaby Hospital for fainting and hysteria.
The Stockton Express commented, under the headline, “I couldn’t hear the Beatles for the din” that, “Despite rumours to the contrary, the roof of the Globe Theatre, Stockton, is still in good shape after last Friday’s Beatle-blasting. The screams of the 5,000 fans who crammed in the theatre for the two performances did nothing worse, in fact, than temporarily deafen the group of usherettes, first-aid men, and the police who were on hand in case of trouble. Dutifully, I went along to the Globe to record my impressions of these Liverpool lads. And (dare I admit it?) I left the theatre mid-way through their act. It’s not that I don’t like them - I do. But the piercing screams of a couple of thousand girls was too much for the old eardrums. The effort of trying not to listen to the din in order to catch what the Beatles were singing could not be sustained. Nor was I alone in my plight! At least one other person left - a little girl aged about six, who was crying because the noise gave her a headache. I met the Beatles before the show, and they struck me as being an extremely modest quartet. In fact, many a local rhythm group have higher opinions of themselves. Drummer Ringo Starr, nattily attired in a dark suit with a black velvet collar, told me: ‘Naturally we think about the time when we will not be popular, but we don’t worry about it. We could be here today, gone tomorrow.’ How much money do the Beatles earn? ‘We don’t really know’, said Ringo. ‘Most of the cash goes into an account, and we only get a wage to last us the week. What’s the wage? Well, let’s say it keeps us happy.’ Ringo added that all the Liverpool groups were ‘big mates.’ Then he went off with Paul, John and George to prepare to inflame their Teeside fans. Before they departed, however, I secured their autographs. Any offers…?” The Evening Gazette headlined its coverage, “It’s Beatlecstasy!”
“I was nine years old living with my Mum and Dad and my brother Laurence in a flat in Nunhead, south London. My Dad was the manager of G & S Roseman’s, a tailor’s shop in the Old Kent Road, and on the day ‘With The Beatles’ was released he went to Jones & Higgins, a department store in Rye Lane, Peckham, and bought me a copy. The family used to shop there all the time and there was a mynah bird in there that used to say ‘Look out boys. Here come the cops.’ It had the premier record department in the area and you had to go past the mynah bird to get to it.
I used to listen to the BBC Light Programme, the forerunner of the very station I work at now and remember hearing the Beatles for the first time on ‘Saturday Club.’ My Mum used to tune into the Light Programme so we could listen to ‘Listen With Mother’ and so at the weekend it was still tuned into the same station. I also remember watching ‘Juke Box Jury’ once when David Jacobs said, ‘young people love the Beatles. They are revolting’ and Pete Murray, who was one of the panellists that week said, ‘Yes, young people are revolting.’ But when I heard them the excitement quotient was off the scale. I hadn’t heard anything so exciting. So my Dad knew I was crazy about them.
The only records I had in my collection at that time were several Buddy Holly singles, most of Russ Conway’s work and a copy of ‘Me And My Shadows.’ That was the extent of my record collection. My Dad bought it especially for me. My brother Laurence, who was four years younger than me, was into his catapult, which he used to fire into the adjoining flats. That evening, I was watching television. In those days, ITV would switch at 7pm from Associated Rediffusion to ATV, and I remember an announcer by the name of Redvers Kyle doing the hand over into ‘Take Your Pick’ and during the show news came through of Kennedy’s assassination.
Shortly afterwards my Dad walked through the door and said, ‘Here’s something that might cheer us all up’, holding a copy of ‘With The Beatles.’ The first track I listened to was ‘Don’t Bother Me.’ I was never very good at getting the needle to land in the right place on the record. I was allowed to stay up late that night to listen to the album. I played the whole album over and over again until it was worn out. This is a terrible admission, but I’ve never been much of a carer of records. I respect the music but not the system. I remember scratching ‘All My Loving’ until it jumped. So Paul goes ‘I’ll pretend ... missing.’ I’m not sure how aware I was that I was getting it on the first day of release, but I did know I wanted to get it before my friends Graham Keech, who lived in Hollydale Road, and Michael Griffin, who was quite a fast runner as I recall. That was the only record my Dad ever bought me.
Afterwards I bought everything by the Beatles with my 2/6 weekly pocket money. Every Saturday my Uncle Jack would come round and he had a Norton motorbike with a sidecar and on that particular Saturday I wanted to stay indoors and listen to the album, so my Mum, brother Laurence and Auntie Maureen all went out, got in the sidecar and went for a drive. They were driving down Pepys Road in New Cross and the sidecar came loose as they were going down the hill. The sidecar slid into the bus depot across the other side of the road. However, if it had kept going to the intersection of the New Cross Road, they certainly would have been killed. My Uncle Jack never drove it again. Years later, the bosses at BBC Radio 2, wanted to do a photo for the front cover of the Radio Times with Terry Wogan, Jonathan Ross, who had just joined Radio 2, Mark Lamarr and me. They asked me whether I was up for it and I said “Yes, absolutely.” “What do you want to do?” they asked me. ‘Well I’d like to do the cover of With The Beatles and recreate it. So on the front of the Radio Times it said, ‘Radio 2 and the new Beatles’.”
STEVE WRIGHT, BBC BROADCASTER, LONDON