On the Beatles beat in Bournemouth

Bournemouth must have felt like the centre of the universe on Saturday, 16 November 1963. Not only were The Beatles in town and riding the crest of the first wave of Beatlemania, but Father Christmas chose that day to arrive at his town centre Grotto and the mighty Cherries had a home tie in the FA Cup at Dean Court. Clive Garland was a 19-year-old police constable at the time and right in the thick of it, as he remembers here...

I joined Bournemouth Borough Police in 1961 as a cadet and was sent to the training school in Folkestone in autumn 1963, returning to Bournemouth as a Police Constable in early November 1963.
All police leave was cancelled on 16 November as not only were The Beatles back in Bournemouth, but there was the annual Father Christmas parade, Bournemouth had a home tie in the FA Cup at Dean Court and the RAC rally was due to finish in town as well.
I was just back from 13 weeks of training and wasn't on the duty roster so the sergeant in the parade room at Madeira Road [police station] asked me where I wanted to go and I told him I wanted to be with The Beatles. I'd had a taste of it back in August at the Gaumont when I was being escorted round by PCs as a cadet officer before my training.
So he sent me off to the traffic office with Sergeant Nick (Noddy) Carter and Inspector Young and The Beatles were already there playing with a Scalextric set that had been sent up by [the department store] Beales. They spent the time joking and gibbing with us lot - of course, Scouse was like a new language to us Southerners!
Then about 4 o'clock they brought the Black Maria van round as that was the only vehicle we had with blacked out windows, to take them over to the Winter Gardens. There was a bit of talk about how we were going to do it as they'd heard there were thousands of fans packed around the stage door.
So they got in the back of the van and there must have been 14 or 16 of us got in after them. The instructions were to get them to the front door of the Winter Gardens. So we pulled up in front then we all leapt out, linked arms and they ran in through the front doors and straight into the theatre.

Our job then was to sit in the rows of seats while the musicians and roadies went through the soundcheck. During the shows - the first house was at 6.30, the second at 8.30 - we were told to stand off to one side and if the crowd surged towards the stage to come and stand between the fans and the stage. Well, of course as soon asThe Beatles came on the girls stood up and we lined up in front of the stage. The fans went wild. The jelly babies poured down on us, it was mayhem - bloody hilarious in one way, absolutely terrifying in another.
There were girls fainting all around, St John's Ambulance worked hard that night! The girls were pushing up against us all evening - I was only 19 at the time and I'd definitely made the right choice of duties!
We'd never seen anything like it. Even at football - and you got 20,000 in Dean Court for a Bournemouth match back then - we only had eight officers on duty inside the ground in those days.
I never saw the going of them from the Winter Gardens. The Beatles were off stage and out the door before anyone knew it really. I think we got out of the Winter Gardens at about 11.30 that night and had to walk back to Madeira Road to clock off at midnight, after a 12 hour shift.
It was a hell of a day - great fun and I've been a Beatles fan ever since.
:: Both photos used courtesy of the Bournemouth Daily Echo and appear, with more than 200 others in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, which can be ordered at a special price from here.

Beatles - Bournemouth to the USA

If anyone had been in any doubt after their summer season at the Gaumont in August, The Beatles' shows at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth on 16 November 1963 at the height of what the Daily Mirror had dubbed Beatlemania just a fortnight before, confirmed their popularity as a cultural phenomenon the like of which Britain had never seen before.

Shortly before the autumn tour Brian Epstein had flown to the United States and secured a deal that would see The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show the following February. When the US news networks CBS, ABC and NBC got wind of it they dispatched reporters to find out what all the fuss was about - after all, The Beatles hadn't had even a hint of a hit Stateside at this point.

With the presence of camera crews from all three networks whose footage would introduce them to America, it was a high-pressure date for The Beatles who were further prevented from getting to the sanctuary of their dressing room ahead of the first show by five stowaway fans who had to be removed.

The actual concerts were standard Beatles’ shows of the era. The 13th date of their autumn tour of Britain and Ireland, they played the same ten-song set throughout. 

Opening with I Saw Her Standing There, the first track on their debut album; they followed with hit single From Me To You; All My Loving; versions of The Miracles’ You Really Got A Hold On Me and Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, which were all to appear on With The Beatles, their second album which came out on 22 November. 

Two more covers – The Shirelles’ Boys with Ringo on lead vocals; and Meredith Wilson’s Til There Was You from the musical The Music Man – followed, before they played their smash hit She Loves You and ended with two classic R&B belters, Barrett Strong’s Money (That’s What I Want) and, of course, the Isley Brothers’ Twist and Shout.

Here's NBC host Jack Paar talking about The Beatles coverage he broadcast on 3 January 1964.

:: You can see the CBS morning show story broadcast on 7 December 1963 - the first time US television audiences ever saw The Beatles - at this earlier blog post. 

:: The full story of The Beatles' first appearance on American television can be read in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, available to order at a special price here.

Yellow Submarine docks in Dorset

The lovely folks at Purbeck Film Festival have asked me along to introduce a special charity screening of Yellow Submarine at the Rex cinema in Wareham on October 12.

They've invited me because of the continued local interest in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, particularly in the light of this year's 50th anniversaries and copies of the book will be on sale on the night, but the invite is particularly special as it means much more to me than a simple sales event.

The first films I saw as a kid were in the Rex – 40 years or more ago. My dad used to take my brother and me to see Saturday matinees – Treasure Island, various Disney films, Bond, a packet of Paynes Poppets, maybe a vanilla tub, grown ups smoking, us kids stamping our feet when the feature started and seeing the shadow of mint imperial missiles cutting a trail through the smoke as the big kids threw them from the seats up the back. I loved it.

It was about that time I first saw Yellow Submarine – sadly not on the big screen, but on the telly. I’d seen cartoons before of course, but not like that. I’d seen films with songs in as well, but nothing like that. Yellow Submarine was crackers. It wasn’t a kids’ film, but it spoke our language, or so I thought. Mum and dad definitely didn’t get it and there weren’t any older brothers or cousins around to ask. So, if it wasn’t for Them, our parents, it must have been for Us, right? Yes, but who was Us?

So anyway, I knew The Beatles were the good guys because their voices were pretty calm – good guys in the westerns always had calm voices – but there were these shouty, over-anxious blue baddies with horrible yellow teeth and a vacuum cleaner beast that the Numberjacks ripped off 40 years later and a Flying Glove and a Dog with four heads long and flowers that turned to brambles. It’s a wonder I ever slept again!

The Yellow Submarine itself was skippered by Old Fred, who reminded me of my Uncle Johnny who was in the Navy – a man who sailed to sea – and he had a beard. But I remember identifying most strongly with Jeremy, the Nowhere Man – he was a bit chubby and very serious, thought a lot about things and brooded, but Ringo liked him and took him along for the ride until he got kidnapped in the Sea of Holes, which really troubled me – holes everywhere – enough to fill the Albert Hall. Then poor Jeremy’s really in trouble, bad things happen and even as the colour comes back to Pepperland, poor Jeremy gets it again. 

Luckily though The Beatles are on hand to save the day with their music and love – well, it was the sixties!

Hope to see some of you in the stalls. The 6pm screening is in memory of Dr Moira Walker and in aid of the charity she founded, Dorset Action on Abuse and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

More about the excellent Purbeck Film Festival here.

Copies of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth can be ordered here at the special price of £14.95.

It was 50 years ago today...

The Beatles came to Bournemouth to play!
That's right, today is the 50th anniversary of the very first Beatles' show in Bournemouth - 19 August 1963.Whoop it up, say yeah yeah yeah!To mark the occasion a new exhibition of Beatles memorabilia related to Bournemouth has opened in town, at the Beacon Hotel on Priory Road.
Among many golden jubilee anniversaries this week, it is 50 years since George wrote his first song for The Beatles. Confined to his bedroom at the Palace Court Hotel with a heavy cold, he finally answered Merseybeat editor Bill Harry's nagging to write a song for the group.
Don't Bother Me made it to their second album With the Beatles, complete with cover photo taken in the Palace Court dining room by Robert Freeman.
And here's the first in a what will become a regular look back into this blog's archives ... the story of Don't Bother Me and the infamous Alf Bicknell recording. Click here.

The Beatles & Bournemouth: a permanent exhibition

To mark the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ first shows in Bournemouth, on 19 August 1963 when they opened a six-day residency at the Gaumont (now the Odeon) cinema on Westover Road, a new exhibition celebrating their many connections to the town is to open.

The Beatles played more shows at the Gaumont than in any other UK theatre outside London, notching up no less than 16 shows between August 1963 and their final visit on 2 October 1964.

The exhibition, at the Beacon Hotel on Priory Road, Bournemouth, includes dozens of photos of The Beatles in Bournemouth, as well as posters, handbills, reviews and programmes from the group’s four visits to the town.

There are various other photos from Robert Freeman’s photo shoot of the boys at the Palace Court Hotel on Westover Road that produced the iconic half-shadow sleeve shot for their second album, With The Beatles.

Also at the Beacon Hotel you can find the main venue sign, a section of stage and some seats from the historic Winter Gardens theatre where The Beatles played on 16 November 1963 and were filmed for US television – the first footage America was to see of the Fab Four.

Much interest is bound to fall on the remarkable photo of John Lennon with his young son Julian and his Aunt Mimi at Sandbanks Ferry, just yards from the harbourside bungalow he bought for Mimi in 1965 and where he visited her many times before he left these shores for good in 1971.

The exhibition tells an incredible story of how a small resort on the south coast of England came to play a significant part in the history of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll group of them all.

In conjunction with the exhibition there is a new restaurant opening at the Beacon Hotel later this month.The Bournemouth Rock Cafe uses Harry Taylor’s iconic ‘Stick of Rock’ photo as part of its logo and will be serving gourmet burgers and a full menu in rooms that are adorned with Bournemouth music memorabilia from all eras and genres.

:: The Beatles In Bournemouth exhibition opens on Thursday, 15 August.

:: The book, Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth can be ordered here for 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.

John signs for Mimi's furniture

John Lennon's signature on a receipt for the delivery of some furniture to Mimi's house at Sandbanks in what looks like March 1967.
It would certainly tie in with John's visit to see Mimi when the two of them were photographed with Julian at Sandbanks ferry, as seen in this Dorset magazine cover.

John is wearing the Afghan he wore at the press launch of Sgt Pepper at Brian Epstein's house on May 19, but everyone in the photo appears to be dressed for March rather than May.
It seems the boys had a few days off following the session at Abbey Road on 23 March to record more vocals for Getting Better and a session on 28 March at which John had his first crack at the lead vocal for Good Morning Good Morning.
Mimi obviously had an account at Beales and Bealesons - the receipt indicates it has been made up to 24 February 1967, still further evidence that the almost entirely illegible delivery stamps indicate March rather than May.
And, of course, it's impossible to resist the obvious similarities between the Beales name and that of the group in which her nephew had earned the money to buy her home. (Bealesons was previously a draper's store in Commercial Road, Bournemouth that Beales' founder, John Elmes Beale bought from a Mr Okey after World War One. It's now The Avenue shopping centre.)

We can only wonder at the reaction of the delivery driver when he called to deliver an old lady's chairs, blankets and came face to face with a Beatle.
:: The complete version of the photo of John and Mimi with Julian at Sandbanks ferry can be found in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, available to order at a special price here.
:: A permanent exhibition of memorabilia relating to The Beatles and their connection to Bournemouth can be seen at the Beacon Hotel.