A Hard Day's Night in a Jam (Manchester 1965)

 

A Hard Day's Night in a Jam

By Elaine Crossley

The Bolton News

December 8, 1965

    I was two miles from the Beatles last night, but I might as well have been 200, for I was trapped in the middle of a traffic jam in Manchester. A fog came down. It was a traffic jam to beat all jams. No one moved; dim light shone in the gloom from shop windows and frantic, shrouded figures deserted buses, which had been crawling and stopping for hours.

     I wasn't frantic to get home, but I was frustrated at missing my date with The Beatles. A photographer and I had set out from Bolton at 4pm for a rendezvous with the Beatles at the ABC Ardwick at 5pm.

     I had met the Beatles once before at Wigan. The bally-hoo had been sickening, but the group themselves had charmed me. I wanted to see them again. Of course, Paul McCartney wouldn't remember me, but I would ask him if he would give me my pen back. I asked him for his autograph last time, and I was so fascinated that I left him with my precious Parker 51.

     At 6:30pm yesterday, we were still on the outskirts of the city centre. The fog and the traffic jam were among the worst in the city's history. The journey was hopeless. We hadn't a hope of meeting the Beatles. And the group were probably as hopelessly lost and stranded as we were. 

    Instead of a set of drinks and a chat with The Beatles, I got a dismal meal in some strange cafe in Manchester. The journey back home took us until midnight. It was one of the hardest days nights I'd ever done.