These press conference photos were taken by Susan Barren, who was a teenaged fan that attended the conference in San Diego in 1965 to help present the key to the city to the Beatles. (I often thought with all of those "keys to the city" why could John Lennon use one of them to open his citizen rights at the immigration office?). They are a beautiful set of photos in full color. I am so thankful to all of the fans who spent the extra money in the 1960's to buy colored film when they saw the Beatles. Black and white is alright, but colored photos from the 1960's are amazing! Something that I find really charming, but isn't clearly seen in these photos from this press conference, but can be seen in others, is that some fan (or group of fans) baked the Beatles a homemade cake that says "Welcome Beatles." Isn't that really cute? They didn't buy some fancy cake but baked it themselves for the guys. Today it wouldn't be considered "Safe" to eat a cake made by fans, but I somehow can see the four of them chowing down on the cake backstage.
Wow! This is an old blog! My best friend and I baked a sheet cake for the Beatles that had "WELCOME BEATLES" written on it, took it to Balboa Stadium and gave it to someone who we thought was a security guard. It had white frosting and we had foil on it, but it was so warm that day, that I was afraid it would melt. I think we also put their names on the cake, each name in one of the corners, snipped from a magazine. The name "Paul" would have been in the upper left, and "George" in the upper right. I had spent the night at her house and we climbed out her bedroom window at 5:00 a.m. and started walking. I carried the cake. We ended up getting picked up by a police officer about 45 minutes into our walk and, incredibly, he drove us the rest of the way. We spread a blanket in front of one of the gates and sat down to wait. We were the very first people there. I have an entry in my diary that talks about the cake. I never knew if they ever really got it or saw it. After the concert, we went down on the field and met a British reporter, who asked us some questions. I asked him about the cake and he said he had handed it to the Beatles. I wrote that in my diary too. I still have the diary.
ReplyDeleteLinda in Mount Laguna - lindainmtlaguna@aol.com
THIS IS WHY I LOVE THIS BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!
DeleteThank you for sharing your incredible, adorable, way-cool story, Linda!!!! You must have been so excited to find this!!! Reading your story, I can almost imagine how you must feel!! Almost.... but only an inkling!
And Sara, thanks for mentioning the cake in the first place, in the blog post!!!!
MTBFR does it again!!!!
I have to agree with my friend above, thank you Linda for sharing your wonderful memory about the cake that you made for the Beatles. I often wondered who made that cake and now we know! Thanks so much. It was great for you to leave a comment. :)
DeleteI worked with Linda and she was telling me the story of the cake when suddenly I flashed on the fact that I had seen photos with a cake sitting in front of John. As she was telling the story my eyes got bigger and I stopped her mid-story and said I can show you a photo of your cake sitting on the table at their press conference! I had wondered who made the cake and what a small world to know the person who made it. I assumed it was the fan club President who probably gave it to them. Happy ending that Linda was able to finally see that they actually got her cake!
ReplyDeleteSara, once again, you share stories and photos that no one else mentions...or knows. Thank you for being such an important and unequaled part of Beatles history. If they gave awards for Beatles historians, you would deserve the first one! This is great! Jude
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