Gillian Brighton and Elaine Shoreman, pupils at Leigh Grammar School for Girls, left Gillian’s home in Westhoughton and walked four miles to the rail station, but found they had missed the train. They were supposed to have left at 6.00am but Elaine decided not to get up. “We caught a bus to Liverpool, and then went to George Harrison’s home,” Gillian recalled. “His mother was in and was terribly kind. We had tea with her.” They then went to the Empire, where unable to see the show so they could catch their last train home, they managed to meet their heroes. “I just had to come and meet them. George is wonderful. But, when you see them close up, they do look as though they could do with a haircut, don’t they?” commented Elaine.
The Sunday Mirror pictured the Beatles with Dora Bryan on its front page under the heading “She’s Got A Beatle (Beatle Beatle Beatle) For Xmas!” with the sub-heading “Sorry, girls - but Dora’s grabbed the lot.” The paper also reported in the article that Sainsbury’s were selling oven-ready turkeys for 3s 10d per lb. The Pathé News documentary “The Beatles Come To Town,” shot on November 20th, opened in cinemas throughout the UK. With footage of a factory producing Beatle wigs, Bob Danvers-Walker reported, “Only a year ago the Mersey was no more than a river to most of us, now it’s dominating the pop world and on top of it all are the incomparable Beatles. As it takes too long to cultivate the hairstyle they’ve made popular, at any rate starting now you can’t achieve it by Christmas you have to settle for a wig. The demand keeps the cutters and all the rest of the factory staff going all out. There’s no time to twist and shout or reflect that she loves you, the public’s clamouring for Beatles wigs. Wonderful idea for Christmas presents if he or she says please please me. From me to you says Santa Claus and instant Merseybeat hairdo. The only trouble here is how to get them dispatched in time.”
ABC-TV in the US broadcast a segment of the Ardwick Apollo concert. The ten-minute film was selected to launch Pathé’s Techniscope Technicolor news in scope dimensions. The film was being shown with Elvis Presley’s “Fun At Acapulco.”
The group performed the second of two warm-up performances for their Christmas show at the Liverpool Empire, in the midst of its pantomime “Robinson Crusoe” starring Norman Wisdom. Because of Sunday licensing laws, fans saw a concert version of the show, without the sketches which would feature when the show came to London. Teenagers stormed the stage during the show. Outside the venue, more than one hundred police prevented fans from charging through the stage door. There was a brief moment of concern after the first show when fans heard a dressing-room window being opened and some 200 of them rushed to the stage door. They were kept at bay and persuaded to make their way down Lord Nelson Street and away from the venue. First aid workers treated thirty-six girls, most of whom had fainted with excitement.
“I wanted to be a rock and roll singer but I couldn’t sing. I did a lot of photography and I was taking pictures of a group called the Rave-Ons who said ‘you have a suit and a big mouth, would you be our manager?’ Consequently, I was running an entertainments agency in 1963, booking into Southport venues like the Klic Klic Club, Kingsway, Palace Hotel, Floral Hall, Club Django, Glenpark Club, etc. where groups like the Big Three, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Undertakers, Ian and the Zodiacs, etc. were appearing regularly. I started importing albums from Ronnie Kellerman, a pen pal in America.
Often, an American artist would have a hit in England but, although their single was released here, the album never made it across the Atlantic. I used to tape the tracks then sell the albums to groups who were only too anxious to get new material. The Searchers, Dave Berry, the Dakotas were among my customers. I got in touch with John Lennon and told him I had these rare American LPs. He said they would be in Southport on Tuesday, October 15th, 1963. I told him I lived right across the road from the Floral Hall, on the Promenade, so we arranged for the group to come back to my house after the show. They could have a drink and some supper and I would show them the catalogues. My mother was quite excited at this because, by then, Beatlemania was rife and she would be able to tell all her friends she’d had the Beatles to supper.
Sadly, this never happened because that was the very day it was announced that the group would be appearing on the Royal Variety Show, and when I arrived at the theatre, the backstage area was crammed with the world’s press and the group then had to be smuggled into the limo by the police.
It was thus that I arranged to go with the Dakotas to the Liverpool Empire on Sunday December 22nd, 1963, where they were playing at a second Christmas concert headlined by the Beatles. It was a star-studded evening. I remember Jimmy Tarbuck and Jimmy Savile both being there. The Dakotas took me to meet the Beatles and I showed them a case full of albums I had taken with me together with catalogues of the latest American releases. Ringo bought a mixture of everything but mostly country and western and little-known gospel albums. Paul didn’t buy anything. George selected the more popular singers such as the Coasters and B.B. King, but it was John who was the keenest and most discerning. He was interested in the more obscure r’n’b artistes like Dr. Feelgood, Inez and Charlie Foxx, Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, James Ray and Rufus Thomas. All of them were interested in Tamla Motown material that had not been issued in the UK.
John looked at my catalogues and wrote me a list of albums he wanted me to order for him. Later I cut John’s written list up into 48 one-inch squares and sold them for two shillings each to schoolgirls from Trinity Hall who came into Birkdale Library where I was working. Think what that sheet of paper would be worth today - the music that influenced the Beatles written in John Lennon’s handwriting.
In 1984, Albert Goldman, the notorious biographer of Elvis Presley, rang me from New York and asked if I would be his British researcher for his proposed biography, ‘The Lives of John Lennon.’ I worked for Goldman for four years, interviewing friends and family of the late Beatle in England, Scotland and Hamburg. I still give lectures on my research today to post-grad students at Liverpool universities.
I also went on to make several records, have written songs for P.J. Proby and Judge Dread among others, and even had a hit myself in the punk era when my self-penned composition, ‘Boys On The Dole’, reached the new wave charts, released under the name of Neville Wanker and the Punters.
I began writing the ‘Johnny Ace’ series of crime novels in 1988 and so far there have been seven titles. Set in Liverpool, they feature private eye, Johnny Ace, formerly a member of a Merseybeat group in the ’60s and who has a show on local radio. Consequently there are many references to the era and one title, ‘The Singing Dead’, is about a cassette featuring unheard songs, written and sung by John Lennon, found in a car hired by the Beatles and which surfaces thirty years later. Many real-life Liverpool personalities are featured in the book.
I am currently the Arts Editor of the Southport Champion and, along with my partner, Ellen, we review events at theatres from Liverpool to Lancaster for the Lancashire Evening Post so we get to about one hundred plays and shows a year. I have also been football correspondent for the Champion for the last 20 years.”
RON ELLIS, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST, SOUTHPORT, MERSEYSIDE