I must admit, in the early days when I worked for bands in and around Liverpool, I didn’t have a great knowledge of the Beatles. The first recollection I have of seeing them was at Litherland Town Hall. I was with a sort of in-between band, between Kingsize Taylor and possibly the Strangers, Joe Fagin’s band. I was in the town hall one night when a proper scruffy crowd climbed on stage to do their thing. The two things I particularly recall were firstly a girl in the audience with a large cardboard or possibly hardboard heart, with the legend ‘I love you Paul’ written on it, and secondly, Paul McCartney singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’ Most unusual! 

Much later, while I was with Faron, we worked quite regularly at the Plaza in St. Helens. Faron was a great admirer of the Beatles, and a greater admirer of the leather clothes they had brought back from Hamburg. The cost of something like that at that time, was rather prohibitive in England, so Faron had acquired a little less expensive version of that gear: plastic, in fact. It looked the part, but he sweated like hell when he wore it. One night, the Beatles walked into the Plaza, touting for bookings, and Faron looked, and I think wished, as if the ground should open and swallow him. It would be a gross understatement to say that he seemed embarrassed. I also feel that the Plaza was the venue where Brian Poole bribed Faron with a glass of scotch into giving him the words of ‘Do You Love Me’, a record that was a big hit for Brian.

We worked with a band from Burton on Trent called Mike Everest and the Alpines, and were invited to parties when we were over that way, and of course, when they visited God’s country, we reciprocated. That was the first time I had ever heard the phrase, ‘We’ve supped sum stuff tonight’; but the expression was very apt.

One night, after we had played at the same gig somewhere in or around Liverpool, we had a party at Paddy Chambers’ house in Walton. I was enticed into bed (honestly) by a girl called Joanne from Warrington, and caught in flagrante delicto by Paddy, who berated me for, as he called it, having a pop at Trevor’s girl. She wasn’t: well, as far as I knew she wasn’t; but Paddy was a little put out. And anyway, she started it. You know the old Latin saying, ‘Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.’ Or ‘grab them by the vulnerables, and their hearts and minds will follow.’ She did – and mine too.

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