Post 68: January 1st

We had a great sing song last night, with guitars, keyboard and harmonica. We ate home made pizzas and just before midnight some hot home baked doughnuts dipped in melted butter and icing sugar.
Playing 60s music took me back to the time when I first heard the Beatles. Grandma thought they were longhaired scruffians. Mum was slightly more tolerant. That is until I bought my first single.
The Beatles
I spent my free time wearing ‘Richard Kimble is Innocent T- shirts mooning over David Janssen and recording sound tracks from ‘The Fugitive.’ I was obsessed. Despite my crush on various TV actors and covering my walls with their photos, I wasn’t that interested in pop music until one particular Saturday evening in February 1963 when I watched ‘Thank Your Lucky Stars’ on TV and heard an amazing sound. It was ‘Please Please Me’ performed by a new dynamic foursome; The Beatles. I was hooked. I could hardly wait for their next release and I saved up my pocket money until I had the necessary shillings and pence to purchase “She Loves You”. I was thrilled. I rushed upstairs and put it on the record player. I set the button to eject so that it would play continuously. It was my first single. Nowadays I can’t listen to ‘She Loves You’ without laughing aloud when I think of Mum’s reaction. She was clearly driven to total distraction by the repetitiveness.
It was around the 20th ‘You think you’ve lost your love, well I saw her yesterday’, that she came bursting into my room, red in the face and close to melt down:
“Turn that awful racket off now,” she commanded, “ or I will smash it to bits and that contraption with it!” She waved menacingly at the large orange and cream plywood case Gerald had rigged up for me with amplifier and deck. I was horrified. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that she wouldn’t completely share in my enjoyment and that she might not want to hear the same tune playing all afternoon.
We reached a truce and compromise after that sticky episode. Mum even began to enjoy some of the music and understood my enthusiasm. A couple of years later in January 1965 the Beatles were booked to perform at Hammersmith Odeon. My brother Gerald and Cousin Michael were going to get tickets and I begged them to take me. Gerald was reluctant.
“Mum, there will be crowds of people. She could get lost. I don’t think it’s a good idea”
Mum fought my case.
“Oh come on, she is desperate to see them. She’ll stick with you the whole time. Let her go with.”
I don’t think Gerald was that concerned about my welfare. He just knew he’d be in deep trouble if he came back home without me, so he took control and never let me out of his sight.
We sat in the ‘Gods’ in that huge amphitheatre, me crossing my legs, as I wasn’t even allowed a visit to the toilet. None of that mattered. I saw my heroes for the first time. The audience was a seething, teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling, clothes -rending, deafening mass of hysterical teenagers and I was proud to be one of them.
I screamed for Paul McCartney all the way through their set. I scarcely heard any music, and I could see Paul’s face only with the help of a pair of opera glasses – I emerged with a sore throat and pounding ears, but I had seen the Beatles live. I was in heaven.