John back at Mimi's... more photos!

Einstein said the more he learned the more he realised how much he didn't know, so that puts us all in good company.

I came across these photos recently. They were taken in 1966 and show John Lennon at Harbour's Edge, the waterside home he bought for his Aunt Mimi in Sandbanks the year before. Clearly the photos pre-date the iron railings John bought for Mimi so she could sit outside on that ledge and watch the birds.

With John are his half-sister Jackie, his cousin David Birch and Derek Layder, a family friend.

John with David Birch

David's mum Harriett was the youngest of the five Stanley sisters - Mary (Mimi), Elizabeth, Anne and John's mother Julia were the others. Years later John said the sisters were: "...five fantastic, strong, beautiful and intelligent women..."

After Julia's death in 1958, John lived with Mimi and his half sisters Jackie and Julia went to live with their Aunt Harriett, Uncle Norman and David, their cousin.

The photos suggest a close family unit and it seems John and David were in regular contact. 

A year or so later when David was living with Mimi at Sandbanks he visited John and Cynthia at home at Kenwood in Weybridge where Lennon gave him the 1963 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Nashville model guitar he used on the Paperback Writer sessions.

According to the auction description when the guitar failed to meet its £400,000 reserve last year, David has asked John is he had a spare guitar he didn't want as he was planning to get a band together with some mates.

"I had my eye on a blue Fender Stratocaster that was lying in the studio but John suggested and gave me the Gretsch while we were talking," he said.

David also asked to borrow John's Mini Cooper and obtained the necessary cover note (below), which has since turned up in a collector's hands and (inevitably) on to teh internet.In 1991 David Birch was awarded the MBE for his services to the information technology industry. 

Whether or not he has since been moved to follow his famous cousin and return it for any reason is not known!

:: You might have noticed but we've been away for a while and there hasn't been a great deal of activity on the blog. Apologies for that. The plan is to resume whatever passed for normal service forthwith!

The book, Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth is still available at www.natula.co.uk. 

Review: The Beatles, Gaumont Theatre, 2 August 1964

Just in case anyone thought the 'build them up, knock 'em down' trajectory was anything new as far as Her Majesty's press is concerned, Stan Sowden's review of The Beatles' return to Bournemouth for a one-off bank holiday show on 2 August 1964 should make interesting reading.

Stan was a peculiar character, someone I got to know towards the end of his life. He was properly old school, a showbiz reporter through and through, always ready with a take to spin and something of a legend if truth be told - if only for being one of the few newspapermen anyone has seen carried into a restaurant for a free meal!

Anyway, in line with the rest of the media Stan had been charmed by The Beatles the previous summer and swept up in the hype and fuss of Beatlemania that followed their Winter Gardens visit in November. By the time the summer of '64 rolled around, in keeping with the rest of the British press, the man at the Evening Echo was straining to see the cracks start to form.

Here's what he made of the Gaumont show ...

Last night the screaming was still there, but it was not so loud, one could hear the show and there was a higher proportion of people who went to listen to The Beatles rather than to scream at them.
Apart from a few children who tried to rush the stage, there was little trouble during the actual performances themselves.
With fantastic tours of America and Australia behind them, as well as their first film, The Beatles themselves don't appear to have changed at all, thank goodness, and there is still that drive and vitality that makes them the most popular entertainers in the world.  
The Hearts - they dropped the Purple from their title when the phrase began to have a sinister ring - got the show off to a better-than-average start, their lead guitarist being brilliant. Adrienne Poster provided the touch of glamour, and Mike Berry and the Innocents took us up to the interval. Now that he has stepped out of Buddy Holly's Shadow, Mike gets better and better each time I see him.
The Kinks provided what could be called an atmosphere-raisinf opening for the second half.
Stan Sowden, Evening Echo, 3 August 1964

John, Mimi and family and Sandbanks

I stumbled on the excellent Tumblr page CynthiaLennonLove recently and found a post dedicated to John and Mimi at Sandbanks, complete with photos of various family members.

The text recounts the story told in the book Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, of John and Cynthia taking Mimi house hunting for a property by the sea after the premiere of Help! They settled on a bungalow called Harbour's Edge, at 126 Panorama Road, Sandbanks, which John bought for £65,000. Mimi moved in during October 1965 after which John and Cynthia and baby Julian became fairly regular visitors, particularly in the summer of 1966, as 
seen in these photos.

The first shot (above) shows Mimi sat outside at Harbour's Edge. Pictured right is Cynthia on a family visit with John's aunt Harriet and halfsister Jacqui Dykins (taken from Julia Baird's book John Lennon My Brother) and below that from the same book is a snap of John relaxing with his cousin.

The story goes that John called Harbour's Edge "The most beautiful place I know" and loved visiting because people would leave him alone.

Cynthia recalled one trip to the seaside at Sandbanks where they frolicked on the beach, built sandcastles, swam and enjoyed a picnic with Julian.

Much later Mimi remembered one instance when a photographer tried to snap John and the family on the beach. She was horrified but her nephew must have been in a forgiving mood, telling her not to worry and that he hoped whoever tipped off Fleet Street's finest had 
managed to make a couple of bob!

John also managed a visit with Julian in April 1967, in the run-up to the release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on 1 June.
On that occasion he and Mimi were photographed with Julian by the Sandbanks Ferry. This image of Julian appears in Andrew Solt's book Imagine.

Mimi lived at Harbour's Edge until her death in 1991, at which point John's widow Yoko sold it. Other than a few squatters and some rave parties the house remained empty until it was demolished in 1994 to make way for two luxury homes. Sandbanks now boasts the fourth most expensive land prices in the world behind Belgravia, Upper Manhattan and Moscow, but ahead of Tokyo and Paris.

Read the full post here. Former milkman Tony O'Hara shared more memories of Mimi at Harbour's Edge and an account of what Sandbanks was like in the 1960s and 1970s, in this article from Dorset Life. 

Kinks' drummer Mick Avory on Beatles 'row'

Mick Avory in action with the Kast Off Kinks

Thanks to a lengthy and somewhat bitter account in Ray Davies' otherwise excellent autobiography X-Ray there has always been an air of mystery surrounding The Kinks' appearance with The Beatles at Bournemouth Gaumont on bank holiday Sunday 2 August 1964.
Scheduled to open the second half of the show, playing immediately before The Beatles, according to Ray as the band tuned up behind the curtain he and John Lennon exchanged unpleasantries as the fans screamed for The Beatles. Just as the curtain raised Ray Davies changed the set list and The Kinks opened with their new single, You Really Got Me, ahead of its release on Tuesday.

The fans' screams turned to 'We want The Kinks' and apparently to avoid a repeat performance in the second house, the irked Fab Four insisted The Kinks be moved to a close the first half of the show.
There were no other eye witness accounts to support or contest Ray Davies' account. Fans that were present recall The Kinks making an impression on the crowd, but not to the extent that they 'converted' Beatles fans to scream for them over their mop topped idols.
Indeed, Kinks drummer Mick Avory has no recollection at all of anything untoward before their set.
In a recent email he told me: "I remember us going on before The Beatles and had a great reception from the crowd, with Paul McCartney coming up to us when we came off saying: 'You didn't have to warm them up that much!'."
:: Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth is available from Natula Publications.

Beatles out and about in Bournemouth

Of all the photos taken of The Beatles in Bournemouth and published in Beatles Monthly, this is among the most intriguing.
It's not easy to pinpoint the location, but the chain link fence and wooden posts suggest it is somewhere on the cliffs overlooking the sea to the east or west of the town centre. The Palace Court Hotel, where The Beatles were billeted for their six-day summer season next door at the Gaumont on Westover Road in August 1963 is just a short walk from East Overcliff Drive, past the Russell-Cotes Museum, behind the Royal Bath Hotel.
But would The Beatles have been able to walk out of the Palace Court and up the hill to the East Cliff without being pursued by fans? Probably not, although there are photos of Paul signing autographs in the street that week, so maybe they did manage to stretch their legs.
More likely is they took a short drive along the cliff top road, stopped near the deck chair stand and posed for the photo.
The accompanying feature in Beatles Monthly doesn't offer any explanation, nor does it explain where Ringo is or who's leaning on Paul's deckchair. It's a bit of a stab in the dark, but could it be Paul's brother Mike? Their dad Jim is thought to have been with The Beatles in Bournemouth. It could also be Michael Cox, possibly a relative of Maureen, Ringo's girlfriend, and introduced to Swedish radio interviewer Klas Burling that week.
Perhaps you know...? If so, please don't hesitate to shine a light.
Photo © Beatles Book Photo Library 2011

George writing Don't Bother Me in Bournemouth

This tape recording of George Harrison composing his first song for The Beatles was one of the most popular entries on this blog when first posted a couple of years ago.
The earlier clip has long since been withdrawn but now it's back!
Confined to his room at the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth during their week-long summer season at the Odeon next door from 19 to 24 August 1963, George coughs and splutters his way through the makings of what would become Don't Bother Me, his first Beatles song and featured on the With the Beatles album, the cover of which was photographed downstairs in the Palace Court restaurant that same week.
The tape was made by Beatles' driver Alf Bicknell on the reel-to-reel recorder given to him by John Lennon and surfaces from time to time as a bootleg.
Bill Harry, founder-editor of the Merseybeat newspaper, who was with The Beatles in Bournemouth that week, says he had been on at George for ages to get him to write a song for the group. George, who later dismissed the song as 'not very good' in his autobiography, finally gave in and used it to pass the time after Brian Epstein had sent him to his room for the day to keep his fresh for the shows that night.
(In fact, George had previously co-written In Spite Of All The Danger with Paul McCartney in 1958 when they were in The Quarrymen and recorded it as a demo with Buddy Holly's That'll Be The Day.)
The 2009 stereo remastering  of Don't Bother Me can be seen and heard below.

 

Table tennis serves up Beatles encounter

A lucky fan meets The Beatles backstage at the Gaumont 

Barely a day passes without a Beatles golden anniversary of some kind - 50 years ago today for instance they were on a train headed for Newton Abbot filming sequences for A Hard Day's Night.

They were exciting times to be young and in love with music. With the screams of the previous year's Beatles' shows still ringing in the rafters, Bournemouth's Winter Gardens played host to concerts by The Rolling Stones on 22 February 1964 and the Gaumont had Cliff and the Shadows to look forward to on 29 March.

Not to mention the return of The Beatles of course on 2 August and 30 October.

In a story that has come to light since the publication of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, Geoff Purkiss from Parkstone remembers seeing The Beatles' final show in Bournemouth, at the Gaumont on Friday 30 October 1964. They shared the bill with R&B star Mary Wells - the first Motown artist to tour the UK - as well as The Remo Four, The Rustiks, Sounds Incorporated, Michael Haslam, Lorne Gibson (replacing Tommy Quickly) and compere Bob Bain. 

Geoff recalls: "It was the Mary Wells concert, and it was just by good luck that I was there. I

was playing table tennis with a rather pretty new member at St Peter's Church youth club in Parkstone and a friend asked for a quick word. He had bought two tickets for the Beatles with the intention of persuading a girl he rather liked to go with him. Unfortunately she declined his offer, so he just wanted to get rid of the tickets!

"I said: 'Hang on a minute,' and asked my table tennis partner if she fancied going to see The Beatles with me at the weekend. Of course she agreed! And we were together for the next five years or so... until she fell for someone in a uniform!"

The Beatles' set: Twist and Shout, Money, Can't Buy Me Love, Things We said Today, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, I Wanne Be Your Man, A Hard Day's Night, Long Tall Sally.

:: Visit www.natula.co.uk/BournemouthBeatles.html to order copies of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth at a special price.