Mystery Boys

Beatles fan, Peter Hodgson made a fantastic discovery last month when he was going through some archived photographs of Liverpool by the Liverpool Echo newspaper.     The photograph was taken by near Speke on the Oglet Shore in the late 1940's.    

The photo itself shows a group of kids playing on the beach.   And in the background, which has been zoomed and cropped from the original, shows some young boys wearing shorts and braces along with a girl with a bow in her hair.

Peter is convinced that the two boys (the one looking at the camera being Paul and the short one turned is Mike) is the McCartney brothers.

Mike was shown the photo and said it was a 50/50 chance as he and his brother did play on that beach in the summers and their mum often dressed them in shorts and braces as well as they had a neighbor girl that palled around with them.

But can we know for sure that this is Paul and Mike and not just some other ragamuffin kids from Liverpool?  No---the image is too far away to really make out the facial features of the boys.  

Here is the photo that has convinced many that it is Paul and his neighbor friend.    As you see the little girl has a bow in her hair, just as the girl in the beach photo has.    The clothing and hairstyle of the little boy in the beach photo does look identical to little Paul's in the photo below.

However, a lot of little girls wore bows in the hair and a lot of little boys looked similar to how Paul looked at that time.   I don't think we will ever know for sure---but it really was a great discovery!

Peter and Paul

For many years I have been curious about these photos of a man and Paul McCartney making music together at "The Mill."  Who is this guy?  What were they playing?   Was this a recording session?  Well, I should have know because it guy's name is one that I have heard of on many occasions.   I guess I just never put two and two together.   Anyhow, the guy is Peter Hodgson who is a Beatles fan.  And he has an amazing story.   I found an article in the Tokyo Beatles Fan club magazine (which I think really was the most profession fanzine ever published) from issue 16 from 1997 written by Kenji Maeda that tells it better than I can.  Although Peter if you are a reader of this blog, please feel free to chime in and add to your amazing story!

Peter and Paul just playing "Let it Be" together.   Photo taken by Geoff Baker

Peter met Paul again in 1996

The Liverpool convention was as exciting as ever, the most enthusiastic moment was when I met Peter Hodgson.  Peter was the owner of the early Beatles tapes from 1960.  As we wrote in the 13th issue of this magazine, Anthology 1 album had a mystery, the three songs from the tape - "Hallelujah, I love her so,"  "You'll be Mine" and"Cayenne" have been first released on the album but actually these have been available on bootleg for years.  Peter told me the following story, which may unravel the  mystery.  When Paul McCartney borrowed the Grundig tape recorder from Peter's grandfather, he made 2 or 3 copies of the tape for himself.  After he returned the tape and the tape recorder back to Hodgson, he brought the copies to Germany with him.  Many years have passed since then and eventually one of them was passed to a bootlegger.

The original tape included unusual tracks which Paul McCartney failed to copy.  They included the early versions of "Ask me Why" and "When I'm 64"!  Of course, they were not featured in any of the bootlegs.  It is well-known that they often played "When I'm 64" in the early 1960's but nobody ever heard it, it must be a valuable recording.

However, we may not have an opportunity to hear the songs for awhile, as the original tape is now owned by Paul McCartney.  Peter had a great experience whilst handing over the tape to the ex-Beatle.  He was invited to Paul's private studio in East Sussex on 27 March 1995 and he enjoyed talking about good old times and playing instruments with Paul.  Photos were taken by Paul's publicist, Geoff Baker while Peter was playing "Let it Be" on the piano with Paul.  Peter was also lucky enough to hear the rough mix of "Free as a bird" in the studio.