What ever happened to Anne Collingham?

If you ever go through old Beatle Book Monthly Magazines or Beatles fan club newsletters, you will see the name "Anne Collingham" often in them.   From the photos and articles written at the time, you would have assumed that Anne was a Beatle fan who worked with Freda Kelly at the Beatles fan club headquarters.   So where is Miss Collingham today?

Well....come to find out there never was a real person named Anne Collingham.   It was made up by Tony Barrow in 1963 to help keep things simple at the fan club.   A variety of girls who worked at the fan club were used as "Anne Collingham" for photos at the time.      

Tony Barrow wrote about this in the May 1983 issue of the Beatle Book Monthly.

Paul, John, George and Ringo pose with Anne Collingham and Bettina Rose during a visit to the London headquarters of their fan club.   That is what the original caption said, however the truth is that Paul, John George and Ringo pose with  Val Sumpter and  Maureen Donaldson

I decided in June 1963 that the Club should have a Nation Secretary based in London at our Monmouth Street address.  Until then, fans in the South had kept in touch through Bettina Rose in Surrey whilst Freda had looked after the top half of Britain from her NEMS office base in Liverpool.

The name of the new National Secretary was given as Anne Collingham.  In fact, no such person ever existed.  the "Collingham" part came form part of my secretary's home address in Earls Court, and Anne was my wife's middle name.

It wasn't done in order to deceive the fans.  It was intended to be helpful.  clearly as the membership grew a full time office staff of clerks and helpers would be needed.  there was little to be gained from confusing members by letter them receive replies from an assortment of people, especially as staff were coming and going all the time.  So the simplest answer seemed to be to have "Anne Collingham" as the regular signature on all individual reply letters, on newsletters and on all the Club's printed stationery.

there was another massive advantage.  The press office and the Fan Club shared a single telephone number, COVent Garden 2332.  as the publicity side of things became busier we were not only handling the Beatles but all the other NEMS acts ranging from Billy J. Kramer to Cilla Black.  The telephone lines were being used more and more heavily.  Therefore it was convenient to know at once if a caller wanted the press office or the Fan Club.  If the caller asked or Anne Collingham, it was passed straight through to the right room to be handled quickly.

Personal callers at 13 Monmouth Street always found themselves talking to "come of Anne Collingham's assistants."  Ms. Collingham herself seemed to eb permanently unavailable to meet her visiting members!

The Fan club grew so fast that we took an extra floor of office space above the press office's suite of rooms.  Here at least half a dozen full time workers coped with the mountains of mail.  These peopel included Michael Crowther-Smith, tony Catchpole, Yvonne Sainsbury, Monica Stringer and Macy Cockram.  By the end of 1963, Bettina Rose, the Surrey-based South of England Secretary, had been put on the full-time NEMS payroll and was working at at Monmouth Street as the colleague of "Anne Collingham."  The two signed themselves as "Joint National Secretaries of the Official Beatles Fan Club."   Bettina's physical appearance at Monmouth Street meant that at least one of the Club's chiefs was on hand to meet visitors in person.

I have said that Brian Epstein  refused to sell souvenir stuff via the club.  He did make a single exception to that wise rule but he only did so to help a relative who ran a firm called Weldons of Peckham in Rye Lane, London SE15.  Weldons produced a two-tone Beatles badge embroidered in gold and red.  This they stitched onto a black polo neck sweater made of 100% Botany wool.  It was a quality product and it was the only item ever to be sold directly through the facilities of the Official Fan Club.  The mail order price at Christmas 1963 was 1.15.00 which included postage and packing.  Fan Club worker, Mary Cockram, a pretty little brunette with an outgoing personality, was used to model the Beatles Sweater, but the caption beneath the photograph read, "Anne Collingham wears the Official Sweater in the picture above."