Becky meets the Beatles in London

I found this article in a newspaper archives online.   I find it interesting that Becky was determined to meet "the Beatles" in 1971---about a year after they official split.   And yet---she still thought of meeting George and Ringo as meeting members of The Beatles.    The fact that this newspaper treated this story as it was big news is also pretty neat.    I love how Becky doesn't remember much!

Becky meets the Beatles in London

By Chris Powell

Journal Inquirer

April 29, 1971

When 15-year-old Becky Hafford went to London last week for her spring vacation along with nearly 40 other members of the Ellington High School Cultural Club, she wanted to meet the Beatles.  

And it turned out that she did – or at least she met two of them and got a couple of autographed pictures and 20 complimentary fan club records as well.

Becky, a sophomore, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herman Hafford of Lower Butcher Rd. has been a Beatle fan “ever since the came out” and has most of the now split-up rock and roll group’s albums.  “I’m still trying to talk my parents into getting all of them,” she concedes.  

Becky left the Cultural Club tour for a few hours last Thursday afternoon in London and went over to 3 Saville Row, the address if Apple Records, the Beatles’ recording company, where other equally dedicated female fans – the “Apple Scruffs” sung of on Beatle George Harrison’s latest album – often gather on the sidewalk, hoping for a glimpse of their heroes.

“I took a chance on going there,”  Becky explained Wednesday.  “I just went in the lobby and looked around.”  She took some pictures with her Instamatic camera and went out again, walked around some more and came back.

Upon her return, a few other girls were waiting and they said that Harrison and Ringo Starr were inside.  This time nobody was allowed in the lobby and the girls waited for two hours on the sidewalk before Ringo came out and according to Becky, “we did the normal thing – we froze.”

“He started to walk past us and we stopped him and we got his autograph.”  For Becky, Ringo signed the back of an eight by 10 glossy photo given to her earlier by an Apple receptionist.  “We talked to him for 10 or 15 minutes, but I don’t remember what he said.  It’s kind of a black,”  Becky explained.

Ringo then left in a car.  About an hour later, George came outside and it was “the same thing all over again.”  George signed the back of the photograph for Becky, too.  “I spotted both of them first, “ Becky said proudly.

“They looked a whole bunch different in person.”  Becky described Ringo as having shoulder-length hair, but she can’t recall if he had a mustache. “He probably had a short beard.  He was wearing a black suit.”  George’s hair was a  little longer than Ringo’s, Becky said, but she doesn’t remember the specifics of the conversation this time, either.  “We talked for about five minutes and then George left in a white Rolls-Royce.”  

“We were sort of shocked,”  Becky said, but not hysterical –though she added that “if some more people had been there we might have killed them” in a mob scene reminiscent of those first American television appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show back in 1965.[sic]

The 20 complimentary fan club records were given to Becky by someone working inside the apple office, who found them in the basement.   Becky gave many of the records away to friends who didn’t believe at first that she really met the two stars.  She’s still waiting for the pictures she took to be developed.