Award for I Want To waHold Your Hand

 

From Paul's clothing, we know that this photo of the Beatles receiving a reward was taken while the Beatles were doing the Beatles Christmas Show at the end of 1963/ beginning of 1964.  

Christmas Concert

 

Backstage at the Christmas Show

Photo taken by Paul McCartney 

 

The Beatles Panto

 

The Screamless Ones Weigh Up the Beatles

Elaine and Gillian kiss George 

 

These two stories are cute about two fans:  Gillian and Elaine meeting the Beatles, but they don't say HOW the got to meet them!  Maybe that part of the story needed to be kept a secret because other fans would have tried to do the same thing?   I feel like we are missing a big part of the story here!

The Screamless Ones Weigh Up The Beatles

By "A Daily Post Reporter"

Liverpool Daily Post

December 23, 1963

    In the year of the Beatles, there have been 1000 stories. This is one of them: the case of the screamless Beatlemaniacs. Their names Gillian Brighton and Elaine Shoreman, and their ages  14 and 15 years, respectively, and their homes are at West Houghton, near Bolton, and Cultheth, near Warrington. 

    Their stories, ladies and gentlemen of the mature middle aged jury is curious.  At nine o'clock yesterday morning (it should have been six, but Elaine refused to get up. ), They left Gillian's house and walked without compulsion four miles to Leigh. There, having missed the train, they caught a bus to Liverpool, where they subsequently had tea with the mother of one George Harrison, a well known local Beatle. 

    They had already had a brush with their headmistress, who was unwilling to allow them time to queue for tickets for the show in which the aforesaid Harrison and his colleagues were taking part in Liverpool last night. 

    All the evidence you may well think shows that these two young creatures are Beatlemaniacs of a most determined kind. But wait. Leaving the Harrison homestead, where the hospitable Mrs. H has had risen splendidly to the occasion. ("My mom said she won't want you there, but she was ever so nice," said Gillian.) They proceeded to the Empire Theater, and there, waiting to meet the Beatles before the show, which they couldn't see because they had to get an early train, they found themselves in the company of several newspapermen to whom they had something original to say.

     "It makes you look cheap. Screaming," declares Gillian. "Even if I came to the show," said Elaine, "I wouldn't scream. It's ridiculous. After all, you want to hear them."

     And the words of the old song it was, "I won't scream, don't ask me. " And these two fans went on to give a cool view of the boys for whom they walked four miles. "I think they're fabulous," said Gillian, "of course, the reason they are at the top is just that they came out first."  They had to come and meet them. "I just had to come and meet them," said Elaine. "George is wonderful, but when you see them up close, they do look as though they could do with a haircut, don't they?"

     And so the two screamless Beatlemaniacs paused only to give Mr. Harrison an extraordinarily demure kiss, left the theater in an orderly fashion and returned happily home. Which proves conclusively that even with Beatlemaniacs, you just never know, you know?

Praise for Beatles and their Fans

No author listed

Daily Liverpool Express

December 23, 1963

    A pat on the back for the Beatles and their fans came from the Chief Constable of Liverpool, Mr. J. T. Smith, today, following the group's one-night stand at the Empire Theater Liverpool last night. "During their recent visits to Liverpool we have received all the cooperation we could wish for from the boys. They have been very helpful indeed, especially when it comes to leaving the theater quickly after a performance," said Mr. Smith.

     "Of the 5000 fans that filled the two houses," he said "they were very well behaved. We had 50 foot policemen and 40 mounted policemen on duty last night, a lot less than the last visit. "

    The only incident police had to deal with occurred after the first house. Fans coming out of a side entrance on Lord Nelson Street heard a dressing room window being opened and rushed up to the stage door in the hope of seeing the Beatles. For several minutes, the officers on duty struggled to keep them back while the girls, about 200 of them, screamed the names of the four singers, but eventually, they cleared them down the street, and the entrance from Lime Street was then barred. 

    Just before the show, The Beatles greeted two young fans who did not have tickets for the show but who had nevertheless come quite a way to see them, Gillian Brighton, age 14, and Elaine Shoreman, age 15, pupils at Leigh Grammar School for Girls had been refused permission by their headmistress to join the queue for tickets three weeks ago, and their parents, they said, were not very keen either. 

    "But we left home at nine o'clock," said Gillian as they waited to meet the group. "And walked four miles to the station, then found we had missed the train anyway. We got a bus to Liverpool, then went to George Harrison's home. His mother was in and was terribly kind. We had tea with her. "

    "Now that we have met them, we shall just go home again, added Elaine, "I don't know what my mother is going to say. She was not very keen on the idea. And I stayed with Gillian last night so that we could slip over here. But I think it will be worth it."

     Despite their enthusiasm, however, the two girls said they would never scream at their idols. They preferred to listen, and Elaine said, "I think they could do with a bit of a haircut."

     The Beatles , on Saturday night, were presented with two golden disc replicas of the records "Let Me Hold Your Hand," [sic] and "She Loves You", each of which has topped the 100,000 sales mark. Records are currently first and second, respectively, in the Pop Hit parade. The presentation was made at the conclusion of their appearance on the independent television show Thank Your Lucky Stars.

American girls meet the Beatles

 

January 13, 1965

"Two American sisters spent £300 on a 6,000-mile round trip from New York to snatch a few hours in London - just to see the Beatles pantomime.  On Wednesday (13-1-65), Mary Pezzullo, 21, and her schoolgirl sister, Virginia, 14, canceled their plane seats and stayed a second night to see the show again.  And later to meet John, Paul George, and Ringo backstage. Said sir stewardess Mary: "We just can't believe it.  We were in the foyer this time on Tuesday (12-1-65) when I mentioned our trip to someone standing there.  Along came one of the Beatles' managers who invited us to see the show again and gave us two tickets. So we stayed on."  Dark-haired Virginia - "We both come from New York"- said, "This was my sister's joint Christmas and birthday present to me. I guess I'm Beatle-crazy, and now all the other kids back at college will be full of envy when I show them their autographs and pictures taken of us with them,"  Said Mary:  "She had been looking forward to seeing the Beatles for over a year, and entered a competition to win a ticket and trip here.  She got to the final stages, and then she missed a phone call from the radio station because she was at school. So I decided not to disappoint her."

P.S. Left to right: George, Paul, Mary Pezzullo, Virginia Pezzullo, John Lennon and Ringo Starr

Backstage with Sue

 January 8, 1965 

For some reason I think the fan in these photos is named "Sue."   I own the rights to photos of the Beatles with this girl that are in color and maybe her name is written on the back of the original photograph.  Even if her name isn't Sue,  I think she is really adorable in her cat glasses and I am sure meeting the Beatles was something she never forgot even 60 years later. 

Christmas Show for New Year

 

January 2, 1965

More Christmas Show photos

 

I think I should have posted these a few weeks ago -- oops! 

The show goes on

 

December 26, 1964 

Neil helps out

 

December 24, 1964 (not sure that is the date exactly -- but it was during the Christmas shows of 1964)

Bongo players

 

Snowy Beatles

 

Preparing for Christmas

 

Paul gets the idea for Bruce McMouse?  Haha!

swords and autographs -- the Beatles backstage

 January 4, 1964 - Backstage during the Christmas Show 

Messing about

Paul McCartney photo 

 

Beatles Christmas Spectacular

 

Man in the mirror

 December 21, 1963

Dress Rehearsal

 December 20, 1963 -

I don't know about you, but I would have loved the opportunity to have seen the Beatles Christmas Show.  It looks so silly and wonderful.  

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.'