The town that wasn’t ready for the Beatles
The Beatles, the most famous band of all, swept everything before them as they conquered the world in the 1960s. What started in Liverpool and Hamburg swept like a tidal wave through the UK, then America and the world, as the Fab Four cast a magical spell that ensnared everyone, from screaming pre-teen girls to grannies, Mods through to Rockers, Hippies through to public schoolboys.

However, there was one highly forgettable occasion when the soon-to-be Fab Four got a less than rapturous welcome when they were but months from kick-starting their revolution. In fact, they barely got a welcome at all. The date was Saturday December 9, 1961, and the unlikely venue was the military town of Aldershot in north-east Hampshire.

A series of mishaps left the Beatles – John, Paul, George and Pete at that stage – with only a handful of people to play for. The Beatles had hardly got their breath back from a pulsating show the night before at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton on the Wirral.

Thousands had turned up at the Tower to see seven acts, including not only the Fabs, but Gerry and the Pacemakers and the bill topper, American singer Davy Jones. Special guest Danny Williams brought the house down that night when he sang his hit ‘Moon River’, which was Number Four in the charts and heading for the top spot.

As the massive show drew to a close, the exhausted Beatles were on a high. However, they were soon to be brought down to earth. In exactly four hours, they found themselves setting off on a nine-hour journey to Aldershot where their audience was to reach a high of just 18 people. Now referred to as the “lost” gig, the failed venture at the Palais Ballroom on the corner of Perowne Street and Queens Road, Aldershot, was to prove a last stand for Liverpool promoter Sam Leach.

The Beatles had played a few gigs for Sam, including those action packed dances at the Tower, but within a month of the Aldershot calamity, Brian Epstein was managing the band. By December 1961, the Beatles were already acknowledged as the best band on Merseyside. It wasn’t a rough and unrehearsed group that turned up in Aldershot, but their performance that night reflected the disastrous circumstances they found themselves in.

In a nutshell, it was all down to a mix-up between Sam and the local newspaper, the Aldershot News. Sam maintains he booked a sizeable advert in the newspaper and sent a cheque down to cover the cost. The newspaper maintained that adverts placed by new customers had to be pre-paid in cash. The advert never appeared… and nor did the fans.

It was a personal disaster for Sam who had printed posters boasting of a battle of the bands between the Beatles from Liverpool and London's Ivor Jay and the Jaywalkers, who were not related to Peter Jay's band. Sam had invited A&R men from top record companies to the gig, convinced that when they witnessed the Beatles performance, and the reaction of the fans, they would be speeding the 37 miles up to London to pen contracts for the Beatles.

Sam hired a flash car for a month and arranged for one of his flunkeys – Dave Johnstone – to chauffeur him down to Aldershot, while another, Terry McCann, drove the Beatles in the group van. 

The first piece of bad news was that Ivor Jay and the Jaywalkers didn’t turn up. The second was that no A&R men appeared either. Worst of all, there was the lack of an audience.

The Beatles, by this time used to playing packed houses, were less than impressed with the prospect of playing all night to a handful of people and reverted to type – they acted the goat. Pictures taken by Sam’s photographer friend Dick Matthews capture the mood as John and George waltzed on the dance floor at one stage. The group was also pictured swigging from bottles of brown ale Sam had bought to cheer them up. It didn’t appear to work on drummer Pete Best who looked rather miserable in the photos.

When the doors opened there were no more than half a dozen people waiting to get in. The Beatles were reluctant to play, but Paul, ever the professional, tried hard to rally the others, saying “Let’s show them we’re professionals”. He let rip with ‘Long Tall Sally’, putting everything into it. John chipped in with ‘Memphis Tennessee’. The set continued with numbers the boys featured regularly in their act, plus rock ’n’ roll standards and even sea shanties as they let their hair down in front of their miniscule audience.

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