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

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.

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.

Dave Davies on Kinks, Beatles and Bournemouth

The ill-tempered night The Kinks opened for The Beatles at Bournemouth Gaumont - a one-off show on 2 August 1964 - has gone down in the annals of rock history thanks largely to Kinks' frontman Ray Davies' lengthy description of the backstage shenanigans in his superbly written autobiography, X-Ray.
He remembers lining up with The Kinks behind the curtain and hearing the crowd baying for his band while John Lennon and Paul McCartney tried to intimidate him and the band. What's more he say the audience screamed louder for his band than for The Beatles that night and for the second show they were moved to a different spot, closing the first half of the show, to prevent them overshadowing The Beatles.
There are lots of stories to counter those claims - not least an attempted stage invasion during The Beatles' set - but Ray's recollection gains a little extra weight in the light of comments made recently by his guitarist brother Dave (pictured) in an interview with Rock Cellar magazine. 
The interviewer suggests The Kinks actually went on after The Beatles - a claim that's highly unlikely and one that was never suggested during research for the book Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth. 
Dave replies: "The Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, worked it out that way. He wanted us to go on after them. 
"What happened is a year before we played before The Beatles at Liverpool Empire, I think, and they couldn’t get us off the stage.

"So I think with Brian arranging it for us going on after the Beatles at that show in Bournemouth was his way of showing us who the boss was. I mean, you try and follow-up The Beatles, but we thought we could. Epstein had that sort of humour."

The truth? Well, perhaps there are times it shouldn't get in the way of a good story - and, unlike his brother, Dave certainly doesn't suggest The Kinks blew The Beatles off stage.

:: The full story of what happened that night, with photos, including The Beatles getting trapped by fans in an alleyway outside the Gaumont, can be read in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth. Available to order at a special price here.

From Bournemouth with love: George's first ever song for The Beatles

George Harrison would have been 69 years old on 25 February and to mark the anniversary of his birth we thought we'd direct you to Happy Nat's ever-engaging Beatle Rarity of the Week in which he discusses George writing Don't Bother Me, his first Beatles song.
It was August 1963 and as we know The Beatles were ensconced in Bournemouth on a six-day summer season at the Gaumont Theatre on Westover Road. They were staying at the Palace Court Hotel next door and on the Saturday, the day after She Loves You had been released, while the others were engaged in press duties in the hotel lounge, Brian Epstein sent George to his room to nurse a heavy cold.Previously encouraged by Merseybeat editor Bill Harry, who was with the boys that week, to write his own songs and finding himself holed up with only a reel-to-reel tape recorder that had been given to him by John Lennon for company, he picked up his guitar and started strumming. Out of the coughs, splutters, whistles and hums emerged a ditty he called Don't Bother Me. 

It wasn't his best song, indeed years later he pretty much disowned it in his autobiography, but it was his first.
Anyway, have a listen here. 
Helpfully Nat also includes takes 10-13 recorded at Abbey Road on September 12.
:: The photo of George top right was taken by Harry Taylor (copyright Dave Robinson) on the balcony of the Palace Court Hotel, probably on 20 August 1963. 
:: The photo below was taken by Sandie Taylor (copyright Dave Robinson) at the Palace Court Hotel, Bournemouth on 19 August 1963 at a birthday reception for Billy J Kramer. 
:: More than 200 rare and previously unpublished images can be found in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, available for order at www.beatlesandbournemouth.com.

Billy J Kramer talks Bournemouth and The Beatles

Billy J Kramer in New York in 2012, photo by Steve Gardner

Billy J Kramer is in integral part of the story of The Beatles and Bournemouth. 

As the main support act for their six-day summer season at the Gaumont from 19 to 24 August 1963, by day Billy J held court with The Beatles, almost as an equal, being interviewed, photographed and courted by local celebrities, dignitaries and the media. One of the grande dames of British newspaper columnists of the day, Nancy Spain of the Daily Express, interviewed Billy and gave the new(ish) Merseybeat scene her seal of approval.

They arrived in Bournemouth on Billy's 20th birthday and The Beatles threw a drinks party for him in their dressing room between shows. Also celebrating his second single Bad To Me (written by Lennon and McCartney), later that day they held a big reception at the Palace Court where they were photographed by Disc magazine who ran the shot on their front page that Friday to congratulate Billy on his birthday and his chart topping single.

I caught up with Billy on the phone from his New York home... and discovered he remembers things a little differently.

photo by Harry Taylor, copyright Dave Robinson

Billy, you appeared with The Beatles in Bournemouth as main support act on their six day summer season at the Gaumont in August 1963. It was your 20th birthday and The Beatles had a party in your dressing room (above) between shows on the opening night before a big reception at the Palace Court Hotel next door. Bad To Me was number one, wasn’t it?

Well, I’ll tell you the story of Bad To Me, as I remember it.

We arrived in Bournemouth and it was my 20th birthday and I have very distinct memories of drinks in the dressing room, the party at the hotel next door, cutting the cake and the rest of it, but this is what happened with Bad To Me.

They were getting all the gear on stage and everyone was having a big jam – Paul McCartney was playing drums would you believe?

I was in a corridor off the stage with John, just me and him, and he said he’d got this song they thought I might want to record. I said: ‘Well, let’s hear it then John. Are you going to play it for us?’ He said he didn’t what to play it there, but said he’d drop by the next time I was in Abbey Road. I kept on at him, but he wouldn’t budge, not even when we were back at the hotel.

So anyway, a few weeks later I was at Abbey Road and I didn’t think he’d show, but then, sure enough, there he was. We had a chat and then he sat at the piano and played me the song – and it was Bad To Me. That was the first time I heard the song and it was after Bournemouth.

Funnily enough, there are photos of The Beatles reading a copy of Disc music paper that carries a headline about your 20th birthday and Bad To Me being number one.

Well, I don’t know how that could have happened. I have very, very good memories of that time. I can see John now sat at the piano playing the song to be. He also played me a new song they had called I Want To Hold Your Hand. I said: ‘Can I have that one?” and he said: ‘No, we’re doing that one ourselves.’

But, you know, I was 20 years old and having the time of my life.

It would be great for you to see these photos though Billy, everyone looked so young and innocent – obviously nobody had a clue what would become of you, The Beatles or anything else for that matter.

I’d love to see them as well because a lot of my stuff from that time I’ve lost or it has been ruined – I remember lending a load of stuff to my brother to show his mates and it came back all torn and tatty.

Someone gave me this photo not so long ago of me stood outside the Palace Theatre in Manchester with Cilla Black and Brian Epstein. We were doing a week there and there’s this magical photo of the three of us – things like that bring back some happy memories.

Talking of Brian, who obviously managed your career as well as The Beatles’, you’ve been campaigning to have him inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. It seems incredible that he isn’t there already.

There’s a line in my new song Liverpool With Love that asks why Brian Epstein isn’t in the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame. I just can’t understand it. He gave the world The Beatles and he’s this almost forgotten man.

For the last eight months or so I’ve been campaigning to have Brian inducted because there is a place for non-performers and what he did with The Beatles changed music, it changed the world. There’s a limit to what I can do from over here in New York, but local radio in Liverpool has picked up on it and I just wish a few more would do as well because if it hadn’t been for him, the world might never have heard of The Beatles.

I remember seeing Brian out at night at gigs in Liverpool looking totally brow beaten because he’d been down in London all day trying to get a break for The Beatles and had suffered nothing but rejection all day long. It must have got him down, but he kept at it and because of that, the world got to hear The Beatles.

Now, if that’s not reason enough for him to be inducted into the Hall of Fame I don’t know what is.

You’ve been off the radar for a few years, but there’s a new album ready for release, how did that come about?

I never set out to make a record, but it was one of them things where lots of little things come together and suddenly you see the way ahead.

It’s 30-odd years since I did any serious recording, I don’t know why. It’s just the way it was. To be honest, I never thought about it, there was always other things going on. Then I was in the UK a few years ago doing a track with Billy Kinsley (of The Merseybeats – I’m the One Who Loves You on the 1997 album Many Happy Returns celebrating 30 years of Radio Merseyside) and I was given a copy of his latest album and it was really good. I congratulated him on it and he said I should think about writing some songs.

I walk my dogs every day in a dog park near my home in New York and I got to know this guy who runs shows in schools to get the kids to eat properly, that kind of thing. He told me one day he also writes and records his own songs then he asked me what I do, so I told him I’m Billy J Kramer and he said: ‘Oh my, well, why don’t you get some songs together, I’ll help you.’

We came up with this song, I Can’t Keep My Dog Outside Tonight, which sounds like a country song, but isn’t. It has a dark side and there’s a light side to it as well. I wrote another song called Sunset Sante Fe, which my wife said is really catchy and then there’s the new single Liverpool With Love, which is my tribute to the city I love.

So it all feels very natural really, there’s nothing forced about this record.

The album’s called I Won the Fight – is that how it feels sometimes?

People tell me it’s my first album in 30-something years, but to me it’s more like my first ever album. To tell you the truth, all those albums I did years ago we never spent longer than 13 hours on any of them.

There were the singles and then a load of fillers, which I just sang through from the lyric sheet, then never sang again. I didn’t know the songs then, I don’t know them now, but that’s just how things were in those days.

I love to come over there to the UK and perform this record though. There’s nothing artificial about the album – it’s got real guitars, real drums, real keyboards, real bass – but I suppose a lot has to depend on how well the record is received when it comes out.

We’ll have to wait and see.

interview © Nick Churchill 2013

:: Orders for I Won the Fight are being taken at www.billyjkramersite.com

:: For more photos of Billy J Kramer and The Beatles in Bournemouth, see Yeah Yeah Yeah" The Beatles & Bournemouth, on order from www.beatlesandbournemouth.com

Beatles' Bournemouth review 2

When the Rank Organisation booked The Beatles for a six-day summer season at the Gaumont in Bournemouth, hardly anyone at cinema knew who they were. But their kids did and The Beatles' arrival in town on 19 August 1963 caused great excitement with fans crammed into the alleyway by the stage door craning their necks for a glimpse of their idols as the soon-to-be Fab Four drew up in their Ford Zephyr.
By then the papers were on full Beatles alert and in Bournemouth it fell to already seasoned showbiz scribe Tony Crawley and the characterful photographer Harry Taylor to cover the group's stay in town, at the Palace Court Hotel, and keep abreast of the shows for the Bournemouth Times. As a weekly paper the Times could afford to circumspect than the somewhat breathless reviews of the Evening Echo's Stan Sowden.
This is how the Bournemouth Times reported those first shows in August 1963...

Cinema manager Charles Booth says he has a minute to relax, "Well, 45 seconds." He sits down. Somewhere between the pile of programmes, stack of autograph books, and the last mail delivery. (Most of the letters are marked "You're fab" on the envelope.)
"We've never had anything lie it," he says. "I've been in this business for 30 years. I've arranged film premieres, and big stage shows. But never have I experienced a week of demand and commotion like this."
Mr Booth is general manager of the Gaumont. And he'd right. His cinema has never witnessed such a commotion for visiting stars.
Not even Cliff Richard, Adam Faith or Billy Fury have won such screams, cheers, shouts, stomps, than is currently happening with ear-piercing regularity twice-nightly at this cinema.
The reason? Britain's most revolutionary and extraordinarily successful records stars: THE BEATLES.
It's their first visit to Bournemouth since virtually ruling the Top Ten for the last nine months. Holiday-makers, too , are making sure they don't miss the town's biggest attraction.
There are even dedicated fans on special one or two-day trips from - honest - as far away as Edinburgh and Hull.
Policemen on duty in the auditorium agree they have never heard anything like it.
Once the four, long, lean and lanky Liverpool lads come on-stage, real pandemonium sets in. Girls scream, jump up and down. Boys yell, stamp their feet. And hands are lifted outwards, upwards.
Fortunately, 99 per cent of the packed audiences (26,000 by tomorrow) know the Beatle songs by heart. I say fortunately, because no matter how much they pay, they don't hear them at the Gaumont.
Surprisingly, as these Liverpudlians don't claim to be the quietest quartet in the business. Their audio-histrionics, raucous voices, and electric guitars are loud, lusty - gutsy.
They yell, howl, stomp with gay abandon. So do their audiences.
The Beatles have won a sensational brand of success that has escaped even Cliff or Elvis.
Success like two successive no.1 hit single discs; an LP and EP (the first ever to crash the Top Ten) both selling way past the 100,000 mark; and a new single out today, She Loves You, which will be in the top three by next week as the advance orders for it already total 235,000.
They've every right to be big-heads. But off-stage, they are quiet, almost reserved, gently-spoken, expertly-mannered - and good fun.
Lead guitar is George Harrison, 20; Ringo Starr, the oldest as 23, is the drummer; the others are the singers and songwriters Paul McCartney, 21, and John Lennon, 22.
They write the main songs and the two hits by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas; and now more songs for their other partners in the success, Tommy Quickly, The Fourmost, etc.
When do they get time to write?
"Oh anytime," murmurs a pensive Paul. "In the train, dressing room, in bed, in our sleep," adds John.
How about the fans? "We love them all,"smiles Ringo. "They made us."
And their screams? "Sam thing," grins George. "Wed start worrying if they stopped."
Also in town this week is Beatle no.5 - their ex-Etonian manager Brian Epstein, suave as their suits.
Tony Crawley, Bournemouth Times, 23 August 1963

:: This, and all the local press reviews of The Beatles' shows in Bournemouth can be read in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, available for order at www.beatlesandbournemouth.com.

Billy J Kramer on The Beatles and Bournemouth

Billy J Kramer has been recalling his remarkable career in a brand new interview with the excellent ezine ZANI. Have a good read here.

Loaded with anecdotes and laced with rare insights, Billy seems to be in fine fettle although we have to take issue with his memories of Bournemouth. He recalls his 20th birthday party well enough, but seems to think John Lennon played him Bad To Me in a corridor when, in fact, the single was already topping the charts when he arrived in Bournemouth on his birthday - 19 August 1963 - to open a six-day summer season at the Gaumont Theatre on Westover Road.
To mark the achievement The Beatles hosted a party in their dressing room that evening between the first and second shows. Later on the boys sent Billy a telegram that read: "Happy birthday from your proud parents, The Beatles."
Bad To Me stayed at number one until it was replaced by She Loves You, released the Friday of their Bournemouth run.
:: The photo above (by Harry Taylor, copyright Dave Robinson) is taken from the book Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, available to order here.

The Beatles' first review in Bournemouth

The Beatles arrived in Bournemouth on Monday 19 August 1963 to open a six-day summer season at the Gaumont cinema on Westover Road. By the time they left town on the Saturday, the single they had been touting all week - She Loves You - had been released and the die was cast ... within months they would be the biggest group in the world.

Here's what the Bournemouth Evening Echo had to say about that historic first show:

Into Bournemouth last night on a wave of enthusiasm almost unprecedented in pop history came The Beatles, the four young Liverpool men who have really set the world of pop music alight.

Little known outside Merseyside until a year ago, the group then travelled to London and made Love Me Do. Then followed Please Please Me and after that, also into first place on the Hit Parade, From Me To You.

But the proof of their popularity came with their new EP, Twist and Shout, which made musical history by not only getting in the Top Ten but also challenging for the no.1 position.

To a smaller degree they’ve made history locally because they are the first pop group to be booked into a local cinema for an entire week. Advance booking at the Gaumont theatre was good and queues all day yesterday look like being repeated all week. There are more than 25,000 seats to be sold at the Gaumont’s 12 shows this week and a fairly high percentage of them will go, I feel sure, after yesterday’s performances.

The audience enthusiasm was terrific, making most of the numbers completely inaudible, as is usual with these shows. Trying to listen, I suddenly realised why pop records sell so well. The fans buy them so they can listen to the words at home, then they know where to scream when they see their lads on the stage.

As well as writing most of their own material, The Beatles have been penning a couple for another group, The Dakotas, who were joined in January by tall, good-looking Billy J Kramer.

Yesterday, Billy celebrated his 20th birthday, and a welcome present was the news that his latest record, Bad To Me, was on top of the Hit Parade. This was written for him by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but I’ve a feeling that The Beatles’ own She Loves You, tried out on the audience yesterday and to be released on Friday, will soon be at the top.

Completing the line up are newcomer Tommy Quickly, the Three Lanas, versatile Tommy Wallis & Beryl, brash compere Billy Baxter – some poet! – and the oddly named but effective-sounding Sons of Piltdown Men, with Gary and Lee.

Stan Sowden, Bournemouth Evening Echo, 20 August 1963

Reviews of all The Beatles' shows in Bournemouth can be found in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth. Order here.

The Beatles, Bournemouth: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

August 1963: The Beatles on the balcony at the Palace Court Hotel, Bournemouth. 

Photo by Harry Taylor ©  Dave Robinson

Incredible as it may seem for a small resort town on the south coast, The Beatles played 18 gigs – two shows a night – in Bournemouth in just 14 months.

Kicking off with a six-day summer season run at the Gaumont cinema in August 1963 as She Loves You went to number one; they returned on 16 November 1963 at the much bigger Winter Gardens; and twice more at the Gaumont in 1964 – on 2 August and 30 October.

What’s more, at least one photographer was there to record them at every step.

Harry Taylor was among the first paparazzi.

A larger than life figure, Flash Harry as he was affectionately known to the Bournemouth social scene by the early 1960s, had moved from his native London to the south coast of England during World War Two and built landing craft in a factory on Poole Harbour. After the War he started to promote his photographic abilities towards the local press, finding a ready home at the weekly Bournemouth Times.

During their first stay in Bournemouth, on 23 August 1963, The Beatles’ third single She Loves You was released. Written earlier that year in Newcastle while on tour with Roy Orbison, the song remains the biggest selling Beatles single in Britain today. Having gone into the charts at number one, it stayed there for 31 consecutive weeks – and charted again the following April – returning to number one the week The Beatles arrived back in Bournemouth to play the Winter Gardens in November. 

But during the landmark week in Bournemouth in August 1963, not only did The Beatles land their biggest hit to date, they also sowed the seeds from which would spring the phenomenon of Beatlemania.

While staying at the Palace Court Hotel, the first of the band’s most iconic photo shoots took place. Easily ranking along Peter Blake’s Sgt Pepper sessions and Iain Macmillan’s cover shot for Abbey Road, the half-shadow photos by the band’s then official photographer Robert Freeman number among the most instantly recognisable symbols of the Swinging Sixties.

Freeman was paid £75 – three times the normal rate.

Also at the Palace Court during that week George Harrison wrote Don’t Bother Me, his first song for The Beatles, holed up in his hotel room suffering a heavy cold.

Having left Bournemouth, happily swapping their rock ‘n’ roll credentials for the trappings of international stardom The Beatles embarked upon the path that was to bring them far more then they could ever have dreamed of.

By the time they came back to Bournemouth, to play the Winter Gardens in November, the die was well and truly cast.

The screaming audiences that night were beset by the demands of American television as reporter Alexander Kendrick directed camera crews that lead to the three major networks – CBS, NBC and ABC – showing footage of The Beatles live at the Winter Gardens. It was the first time America had seen The Beatles.

Having subsequently toured the States and watched the spark of Beatlemania turn into a raging fireball, nine months later The Beatles were major international stars and back in Bournemouth for a one-off show at the Gaumont in preparation for a European tour.

The two shows of 2 August 1964 were fairly typical of Beatles shows of that time. A couple of breaking acts were named as support and the compere would wind up the audience of expectant Beatlemaniacs so that by the time the boys hit the stage expectation was at fever pitch.

It was into this hotbed of old fashioned variety show tactics that one of the young support bands that night was thrown. The Kinks had a couple of failed singles behind them, but their third release – You Really Got Me – had started to make an impression on the charts. Billed to open the second half of the show, directly before The Beatles came on, Kinks singer Ray Davies has recounted how John and Paul, but particularly John, appeared backstage behind the Gaumont curtain to irritate the nervous upstarts, resplendent in their new stage gear of bright red riding jackets.

The Beatles’ final Bournemouth shows, in October 1964, were part of a UK tour that saw them fly the flag for the music of black America that had influenced the songwriting of Lennon and McCartney from the earliest days.
Principal support act Mary Wells became the first Motown act to perform in the UK and the first female singer to open for The Beatles. Red hot from her biggest hit, My Guy, Mary Wells was named as The Beatles’ favourite American singer. Ironically though she was in major dispute with Motown, affording her time to tour with The Beatles, but effectively ending her Motown career.

And that was the last Bournemouth was see of The Beatles as a performing band for although there was to be one more UK tour, in December 1965, before they quit playing live altogether the following year, they stuck to major cities only.

But the south coast continued to play its part in Beatles history.

In mid-1965 John’s aunt Mimi sold Mendips, her house in Menlove Avenue, Liverpool – just up the road from Penny Lane – and John spent £25,000 on 126 Panorama Road, a waterside bungalow at Sandbanks, between Bournemouth and Poole. John, his first wife Cynthia and their son Julian visited Mimi frequently at the house.

Lennon remained close to Mimi, phoning her every week and visiting as often as he could – being spotted by locals in either a Mini Cooper or, later, in his famous psychedelic Rolls Royce. He even visited during the hectic run up to the release of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 when he was photographed with Mimi and Julian close to the nearby Sandbanks chain ferry.

It was on one such visit, on 14 March 1969, just after Paul McCartney had married Linda Eastman, that John and Yoko announced they were to get married. John asked his chauffeur, Les Anthony, to drive to Southampton and ask if he and Yoko could marry at sea. Having been told that would not be possible they chartered a private jet to take them to Paris, but were unable arrange a wedding at short notice so opted for Gibraltar near Spain, as related in The Beatles’ final number one single, The Ballad Of John and Yoko.

And it was to Aunt Mimi in Poole, as well as to Cynthia in Liverpool and Yoko in New York, that the world reached out its hand in sympathy when John Lennon was murdered. Then, in 1992, Lennon’s two wives were seen together with their sons Julian and Sean at Poole Crematorium for Mimi’s funeral service – Paul, George and Ringo all sent wreaths.

:: The full versions of these and many other stories are included in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, along with more than 200 rare and previously unpublished photographs. Copies can be ordered at www.beatlesandbournemouth.com.