Backstage at the Beatles Christmas Show

 

As we start 2023, I am wanting to Get Back to the original idea of this site, which is to focus on people that have met the Beatles and not just a place to share random photos (although I won't stop doing that either).   I feel like I have been lazy and have gotten farther from my original intent for MTBFR that I wanted and so no time is better than the start of a new year to get back on track.  

These Beatles signatures are currently in an auction  and I thought the story that went along with them was interesting.   

I got them after the Beatles’ performance at the Odeon Hammersmith in January 1965. I was taken by my aunt (the former ballerina Moira Shearer, of 'Red Shoes' fame) and uncle, the writer and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy. They had met Paul McCartney at a Christmas party. When they told him they were coming to the concert with two daughters and two nephews (me and my younger brother), he invited us all backstage afterwards. I was 13 years and eight months and wore a shirt with a tab collar which was then all the rage! I shall never forget it. The dressing room was small and cramped. John was sitting on the floor deep in conversation with a man he introduced as ‘my intellectual friend – he’s a teacher’. George and Ringo sat silently smoking. I noticed the washbasin was full of cigarette butts. Paul was the friendliest. He stood chatting to Moira and Ludovic while we passed our autograph books around. I remember very little of the music because of the screaming. Years ago I tore the Beatles’ signatures out of my autograph book and threw the rest away, perhaps unwisely, but there was nothing else of much importance.'