Fan Make it a Hard Day's Night for the Beatles (1967)

 

Fan Make it a Hard Day's Night for the Beatles

No Writer listed

Kent & Sussex Courier

February 10, 1967

    The Beatles tried to make a secret return to Knole Park, Sevenoaks, on Tuesday, but despite elaborate security arrangements, the words soon got around and Beatlemania was back in town. 

    Parts of Sevenoaks in which the inhabitants were once allowed to wander were placed out of bounds last week. They had made a film sequence in Knole and had managed to get it completed before the public overran the place.

     On Sunday, they were so mobbed by fans when they tried to make a second film sequence in Stratford that the police bundled them out and told them to stay away. So back they came to Knole quietly and prepared. But it's hard to disguise frogmen wallowing in deep pools formerly known only to golfers with bad aim and unlikely-looking banquet tables springing from the bracken.

     "I first heard they were dining in a High Street restaurant", writes a Courier reporter. I wandered up and sent a request by the waiter for two minutes of time. The answer came back in two words.

     Undaunted, I went to Knole, where the custodian at the gate said that all pressmen with cars were to be excluded. The pressmen could walk, but no cars.

    At the film location by the Birdhouse, the Beatles were at their old task of trying to film while besieged by small boys. On this occasion, the boys were from Sevenoaks School, who successfully blanketed the film crew most of the afternoon.

     Our own photographer was prepared to take a shot when a hairy-looking man with a Liverpudlian accent told him, "No photographs." We said the Park was dedicated by the National Trust to the public, and even though the Beatles probably had enough money to buy the place, they had not actually done so. 

    Meanwhile, the cameras were grinding away, despite the heavy background of straw boaters.

     Later, a spokesman for Knole said the cars had been expressly forbidden after last week's filming because so many people had churned up the fairway and approaches on the golf course.