She Knew the Beatles When... (1966)

Photo by Thornton

 

"The Beatles were really very friendly at first," according to Roslyn. "One of my friends had a date with George, but it really wasn't so much fun because she just sat in the audience while he played on stage. George's sister took a lot of pictures of the Beatles for us. That is, if we bribed her a bit." Photo by Thornton

Short-haired Beatles, sporting leather jackets and trousers as they performed in the Cavern, from left to right, are John, Pete Best (no longer with the group), Paul, and George. Their wit reflected the wit of Liverpool, says Rosalind, whose friend managed to snap this picture one crowded lunch hour in the Cavern.

She Knew The Beatles When....

By Dannye Romine

The Durham Sun

October 8, 1966

    Roslyn Owens is a girl with a past. Lurking behind those big, mysterious brown eyes are scenes she'll never forget. Scenes the whole world is talking about today.

     Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back in 1962, when Roslyn was just a slip of a 14-year-old, she witnessed the rise of one of the most famous singing groups in history: the city Liverpool, the place the Cavern, the group the Beatles. 

    Today, Roslyn lives with her parents on Marion Avenue in Durham, while her father serves a year's exchange professorship in Duke's engineering department. Now she's a sophisticated young lass who vows she wouldn't be caught dead in the Cavern. But she hasn't forgotten the thrill of being there, and her eyes shine as she talks of the whole, the most unique place in the whole world, and the group of whailng millionaires who've been dubbed "the most popular entertainers in history."

     "It's really quite a dump, this Cavern. It's in the cellar of an old warehouse, and it's so hot down there that the sweat rolls off the walls and clogs up the guitars, and it's so loud that no one tries to talk. If a boy wants to dance with you, he comes up and sticks his elbow in your back.

     "But the place is unique. I've never been in any other like it. When you first walk in, it smells of disinfectant. Then, as you go down, it smells of old soup.  My parents didn't like me going a bit, but they didn't understand what it was really like. It wasn't wicked; it was just dirty."

     And there, in the midst of the dirt and the smell of stale soup and powerless disinfectant, were the Beatles strumming their guitars, singing, joking, and pushing their way through the cavern to chat with the patrons. Roslyn sums up their appeal this way: "We really didn't have the time during school days to visit a lot of clubs in Liverpool, so the best thing to do was to hear the Beatles because they had good music and a good personality too.

     They were really friendly at first, and the people liked them as well as their music. Mainly, we liked their wit. John made straight jokes, while Paul was quite suave and subtle in his humor. George could say the most funniest things with the most deadpan expression, and Ringo, well, he was new to the group then, and he never said a word. Now his sense of humor has developed into sort of twisted jokes."

     And the patrons of the Cavern back in '62, those young Liverpudlians, who recognized the uniqueness of the Beatles and packed the house day after day, paying just one shilling a piece. "It was quite a high social class that the Beatles appealed to at first, but the kind of people who were trying to displease their parents and liked to give a show of not caring about anybody or anything. But as the Beatles became more and more popular, a whole cross section of Liverpool society came to hear them."

     They came for different reasons too. Some came only to hear the Beatles. Some came to see what the "talent" was-that's Liverpudlian for checking out the good-looking boys or girls-and some were there simply because they didn't have any other place to go. Yet there was a definite unity to the crowd in the Cavern; their attire was amazingly alike.

     "There were certain things you just had to wear to the Cavern. One was a black polar neck sweater, and I shudder to think of those 100 black sweaters dancing to Beatles music in that tiny space. And of course, you wore either blue denim dungarees or blue denim skirts. Girls wore their hair very long and very, very straight"

    . Although Roslyn still wears her hair very long and fairly straight, and although she still likes the Beatles' records, she's a little too old to be at the height of the Beatles' craze. In fact, she has a quite dignified position at the University of North Carolina. She's secretary to the dean of men there, but when she returns to Liverpool, she says she'll not be there long. 

    She's representative of her generation who wants to be on the go. "We don't like restrictions. She says it would be the worst thing for a girl in Liverpool to be married before her 21st birthday. To be engaged, maybe, but married would be the end.

     "When I return to Liverpool, I'll go abroad. I'd rather do dishes in Denmark than do typing in Liverpool."

     Roslyn Owens is a girl with a future as well as a past. 

T