My Crazy Life With the Beatles (By Bill Corbett)

 My Crazy Life with the Beatles

Written by Bill Corbett

The People

August 23, 1964

    When I stood on the tarmac at London Airport last week listening to the screams of Beatles fans and watching the Boeing 707 climbing into the sky, it was more than John, Paul, Ringo, and George who were flying away. It was part of my life.

     A few hours before driving the boys to the airport for their flight to America, I made up my mind that this was to be my last job for them. Don't misunderstand me; they are four wonderful young lads, great-hearted guys.

     There are certain things that human flesh and blood and the nervous system can't stand forever, and being the official, permanent, full-time, 24-hours-a-day chauffeur to The Beatles is one of them. That's why I have decided to quit while my body is still in one piece, but my mind is still sound (although slightly shattered).

     In many ways, being chauffeur to The Beatles is one of the most fascinating jobs in the world, but it's also one of the toughest for me.  It's been nine months of high tension, sleepless nights, calamities, crises, and catastrophes, and a lot of crazy fun, too.

     Four million quids worth of crazy, unpredictable Liverpudlians is pretty nerve-wracking cargo, you must admit, especially when besieged by a mob of fiendish screaming fans. I think I'll take up driving loads of unexploded bombs to give my nerves a rest!

     I've been driving for 40 years now, and in that time, I've had pretty famous people sitting behind me, Tony Curtis, Cary Grant, Yul Brynner, Cliff Richard, Peter Sellers, and many more. But nothing in all my experience compares remotely with the job of ferrying The Beatles across the country.

     And the job doesn't just end at driving. I had to be their bodyguard, nurse, valet, errand boy, cook, waiter, amorous advisor, keeper of secrets, and even a calendar, for sometimes Misters Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Harrison are so hard-pressed they don't even know what day it is.

     I gave George an early morning telephone call at 12 noon the other day, and he said sleepily, "Hello, Bill. What day is it ?" 

    I've done just about everything for the Beatles except for singing and playing their guitars. They do that pretty well themselves.  But when it comes to ordinary, everyday chores, The Beatles are about as useful as a three-legged bicycle. I've cooked for them, got them up in the morning and to bed at night, brought them clothes, groceries and furniture. 

    They appreciate my efforts. I know for often heard them refer to me as that "big, soft, headed cockney nit."  Sometimes, I've worked an 18-hour day and a 120-hour week. There have been times when I've had to snatch an hour's sleep in the back of the Austin Princess to keep myself from falling asleep at the wheel on the next trip.

     Protecting the Beatles from their fans has been the most terrifying part of my job. I'm six foot three, weigh 17 stone, and used to be a professional boxer, so I'm better equipped than most to take care of the world's most valuable show business property.  But now I think I'd rather go 10 rounds with Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay simultaneously than face another horrifying horde of  frenzied stop at nothing teenage fanatics.

     Despite all the publicity there has been about Beatlemania, I'm sure most people just don't realize how deeply this hysteria has eaten to the souls of the teenage lunatic fringe. People say it's falling off now, dying down. Don't you believe it! 

     A few weeks ago, I was waiting in a quiet mews near the Belgravia flat of Ringo and George when the back door of the car was wrenched open, and a girl leaped in. Her eyes were wide, her hair was disheveled, and her clothes looked as though they'd been slept in, as they probably had. It's quite common for these girls to spend night after night outside one of the Beatles flats. She was pretty in a beatnik kind of way. Her eyes were heavy with black makeup. Her face was pale. She wore a hipster skirt, a tight black sweater, diamond pattern black nylons, and stiletto shoes. She withered on the back seat and then started taking off her clothes. She was 14. I was out of the driving seat and into the back of the car just as she was pulling the sweater over her head, I yanked it back down, hooked an arm around her waist, and hauled her bodily from the car. She didn't scream or yell. She went limp and kept muttering, "I love them. I'm going to wait for them. Leave me alone. I love them." 

     In nine months, I've become pretty familiar with the symptoms of chronic Beatlemania. This was a pathetically advanced case, but not all that uncommon. There are many kids like this so desperately obsessed that they're ready to degrade and demean themselves and the same cause of fan worship. I just can't understand how parents can allow their kids to get into this wretched state. I watched this kid walk back dejectedly to join the little group outside the flat and wondered what would become of her. 

    I learned a few days later that she was taken before a juvenile court as being in need of care and protection. When she was picked up, she hadn't eaten for three days. Maybe they'll save that one from her own and her parents' folly. But what about all the other pathetic little creatures? 

    What about the "Suicide Squad"? The kids, whose one aim in life seemed to be  run over by the Beatle's car. Fantastic, of course, it is, but it's true, and this crazy death wish was responsible for the most frightening ordeal in my 40 years of driving.

     It happened when the boys were filming at the London Scala Theater. All day long, girls have been trying to break into the theater. Some had even climbed up onto the roof. It was pouring with rain, and they were soaked to the skin, but it didn't dampen their frantic enthusiasm. One girl in particular, a little bedraggled, bespeckled mouse, had been a perfect menace to the police all day. She was a regular Houdini, and she found more ways into that theater than anyone knew existed. 

    After the day's filming, I pulled the car right up to the stage door, ready for the Beatles to come out. As the police struggled to hold back the shrieking, surging crowd, the boys emerged, led by their road manager, Neil Aspinall.  They piled quickly into the car and slammed the door. I drove out pretty fast. You have to to prevent the kids from swarming around and trying to climb aboard. I must have been doing about 25 miles per hour when she stepped off the curb right in front of me. It was the same little girl in glasses who had been thrown out of the theater at least five times. She stood in the road, her eyes shut tight, her fingers in her ears waiting for death, the most glorious death her warped little mind could conceive.  By a snap reflex action. I braked, swung the wheel over, and held my breath as the big, lurching car passed within inches of her frail body. In the rear mirror, I saw her still standing there, waiting for the impact. Escapes don't come any narrower than that, and you can't imagine the outcry there would have been if the car had struck her. I rarely seen any of the Beatles show any fear, but even they were scared on that occasion.

    The half-erased extremist element among the fan girls between 13 and 15 is mostly the most dangerous of all. Whenever I am frustrated, their plans and my job depends on doing just that. To use the most foul language, I have been scratched, bitten, and kicked by these schoolgirl furies and some pretty horrible experiences.

     The all-night campers are the worst I've seen. Green Street Mayfair, where George and Ringo used to live, looked like a corporation rubbish tip. After 60 or 70 kids have camped there for several nights on the run, the road was littered with orange peels, sweet wrappers, half eaten sandwiches, Coke bottles and the tattered remnants of newspapers and pop magazines. 

    The sickening fan worship is bad enough in teenagers, but it's even worse among middle-aged women who ought to know better. Some of these women write the most abject letters of adulation to The Beatles. Some time ago, one of the Beatles received a letter from a mother of two children, which was quite nauseating. It said that since seeing him on the stage, she had lost all interest in her husband and slept apart from him. She couldn't sleep for thinking about this particular Beatle. It ended, "my daughters love you, and so do I. Loving kisses."

     But what convinced me most of all about the insane depths of which Beatle mania has sunk were a couple of policewomen outside of the theater where the Beatles were appearing last winter. I heard them saying in under tones, "I must touch Paul." "I'm going to get one of Ringo's buttons."  And they deliberately let the crowd push them forward so they themselves could be nearer to the Beatles, whom they were protecting. 

    The Beatles were in the middle of a grueling tour of one night stands when I took on the job last winter, and by the end of the first week, I was ready for the men in the white coats to collect me and leave me gently away. 

    Come with me on a typical day during one of these tours. You wake up in a New Castle Hotel at 8am, having got to bed around 3am, and realize you've drastically overslept. You know, you have to get John, Ringo, Paul, and George safely in the back of your car by 12 noon, and that this process usually takes about five hours, so you grab a shower and quick breakfast (probably simultaneously) and with road manager Neil Aspinall, you start on the rounds of the four Beatles.

    A gentle tap on the bedroom door, no response. Open the door, go in, and call, "Ringo, time to get up." No response. You shout. Nothing. You roar. This time, you get a response. A Cuban-heeled boot hits the door just an inch above your head. You decide to come back later.

     Much the same situation in the other rooms. The Beatles don't like getting up in the morning. One member of the NEMS organization that manages the Beatles once a word out of place to George who just got out of bed and had a glass of orange juice thrown over him.

     Eventually, after a few more boots, a prize-winning selection of colorful Liverpool expressions, and a small avalanche of cornflakes, marmalade buddies, and tea. You are more or less astonished to find all four Beatles sitting in the car at about 12:30pm.

     You have to be at Lewisham by 6pm  "Do you know the way Bill" 

     "Of course, he knows the way. We went to London once before, didn't you Bill?"

     "Yeah, but he was only a lad then, not the big, soft, headed, old knit he is today."

     "Leave Billy alone. He can't help being half witted."

     You set off knowing that once you got through the 250 kids who are swarming around the car, all you have to do is deliver the Beatles safely to the theater and Lewisham. Nothing to it, really, provided you are a combination of Sterling Moss, James Bond, and Superman.

     John and Paul start working out a new number on the way, and Ringo joins in drumming with his fingers on the partition.  It all sounds a bit disjointed, but by the end of the run, Paul and John will probably have hummed themselves another £10,000.

     In between their cryptic comments on the scenic beauty.

     "Look at that one."

     "Hey, slow down, Bill."

       "You're joking. She's too young for you. She's only about 35."

     "There's another one. Look!"

    "What? Me old Granny's better looking than that."

     By the time we get to the M1, the boys are beginning to get just a little tired of the journey. 

    "Hey, Bill, you're not going to let him get away with that, Are you?"  As a mark 10 jag goes by.

     "Yeah. Gonna move on, Billy!"

    "If Bill goes more than 25 miles an hour, his hands start shaking."

     "Come on, Bill, get the needle off the clock."

     I get this all the time. They kept urging me to go faster, so I decided to show them. I gun the throttle and take her well into the 80s. Now, my foot is flat on the boards, and I keep it firmly there. It's raining, and the conditions are not too good, but I'll show them. Show them but they don't turn a hair.

     "Come on, Bill. Take the handbrake off."

     At Lewisham, we drive straight into the police station yard, where the boys are to be transferred to a police van to take them into the theater. In the theater dressing room, the boys settle down, knowing they are prisoners for the rest of the evening. They share the small room with their stage suits, a few 100 fan letters, dozens of presents, soft toys, packets of throat sweets, and jelly babies.  A large amount of autograph books and a crate of Cokes.

     Meals, messages, and certain privileged shy fans are sent in. I kick around backstage for a while, and they go off to snatch a bite of food. I'm back in time for the getaway operation. The boys leave the theater as though it's on fire. They're into my car and away before the fans can muster.

     Back to their flats in London, then on to a nightclub in the West End. They'll be there until four. I'm standing by, still on duty. When they're ready, I have to run them home. It's going to be even more of a struggle to get them up in the morning to go to Southampton. I'll be sleeping in the car at the garage tonight. That's the hard days, day you can expect on tour with The Beatles.