Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Do You Promise Not to Tell? - a Book Review

George and Pat (copyright Pat Mancuso)

 

Pat Mancuso's new book, Do You Promise Not to Tell - The Final Story of the Official George Harrison Fan Club, is the revised version of her previous book, Do You Want to Know a Secret.

Just like in her previous book, Pat tells the story of how she started the Official George Harrison Fan Club in 1964.    Pat put an ad in one of the Teen magazines about her club and it really started to take off.  Pat's Club for George grew to become one of the best Beatles fan clubs in the United States.   She had a very well-written newsletter and was in direct contact with the Harrison family.    Due to all of this, she was able to meet George at his home in 1968 and talk with him on the front steps of Kinfauns for quite a while.  She also saw the other Beatles during that time while they were working at EMI on the White Album.   She did the same thing the next year but wasn't able to talk to George for as long.   As the story goes, in early 1972, George got ahold of one of her newsletters and was angry about something that was included.   He demanded an end to all Beatles fan clubs immediately. Pat was devastated, to say the least, and this event with George shaped her outlook and feelings for years to come. 

After the chapters about the George Harrison Fan Club, the book goes into the story of the child the club sponsored from Thailand and how Pat helped her come and live in the United States.   There is also a big chapter about the Peter and Gordon Reunion tours of the 2000s, and Pat became friends with her long-time crush, Peter Asher.   Any fan of Peter and Gordon will find that chapter to be really fun to read.   

The book ends with Pat coming to terms with what happened with George.  She was finally able to accept that it was not her fault that the Beatles fan clubs ended.  You will have to read the book for yourself to discover that part of the "secret."

For me, the real treasure in the book is the three trip diaries that are reproduced.   These diaries are from 1968, 1969, and 1971.  They are the unedited day-by-day accounts of what happened during Pat's three trips to London while she was president of the Fan Club.  It is really interesting to be able to read accounts of meeting or seeing The Beatles in "real-time" and not by memories years later.   These diaries are really interesting.  

Some readers might find some of the later chapters in this book to be a bit dry, but this book is well worth reading because there was only one person who was the president of the Official George Harrison Fan Club, and her story is really amazing.  (Plus -- I wrote the forward to this book!)


https://amzn.to/3Ie79sa





3 comments:

  1. lovely pic of george and pat

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  2. sometimes you have to realize that your idols are human too

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  3. no comparison to Harrison - miss you George

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