Me and The Beatles

She Loves You was the track, that got me started. I don`t know if I was aware of Love Me Do, but everybody, everywhere became aware of She Loves You. I`m pretty sure that it was my mum that bought the records in our house. Never had my dad pegged as a music lover. In later years, he showed a liking for country music, but very much the old style C&W, not the new fangled stuff. It was always mum and also my grandparents` little red transistor radio that provided the music in my life. I have no memory of who decided I would have Beatles` wallpaper on one wall of the bedroom, I shared with my baby sister. I assume it was my idea. It would have also been my idea to have a plastic wig, a jacket without lapels and a red, plastic Beatles` guitar. Oh, if only I still had those things. Not for sentimental reasons, but for the cash they would induce. Yes, that`s right, I would sell them. Aren`t I terrible?

I can`t remember wearing the wig outside the house, but I definitely wore the jacket to Saturday morning ABC Minor`s Club at the ABC cinema in Walsall town centre. I probably also wore it on my first "date". I was 9 and went to see Hard Day`s Night with a girl from school. I say "date", we just happened to be going in the Odeon cinema at the same time, by ourselves. You could still do that in 1965, as a 9 year old. We noticed each other, in the queue, and decided to sit next to each other. She screamed a lot. A lot of girls did. But it was The Beatles that caused it, not me!
When the boys were going to appear on Sunday

Night at the London Palladium, it was a big deal. The show was a hugely popular variety show. It was October 1963 and I was desperate to see it, but it was after my bed time and, wouldn`t you know it, dad was going to be home from work. He was a train driver and had very strange hours. I have no idea how mum and I managed it, but I saw the show from under the dining table, in the living room. Quietly eating a cheese sandwich. Dad must have known. He must have.
In 1967, I went to Grammar school, got more into records. I started to siphon off the house collection over to my burgeoning box of delights. Around 1970, I had a job on the Sunday market in Warwick. Followed, later on by Bilston  market on Saturdays. Just weekends of course, I was still at school. I finally ended up working the foam rubber stall at the top of Walsall market on Saturdays. That was when the world came to an end or, rather, The Beatles as a group came to an end. I was 14 in 1970, the age when the music you like is the music that you will always like. I don`t remember it being a huge deal, as their music persisted.

One memory I have from those school days is not being able to go on the ski trip with my mates. I had a Grammar school education, but my parents did not have grammar school income. When my mates came back, they told tales of apres-ski, listening to Don`t Let Me Down over and over again. I was jealous of the shared memory they had. While still at school, I bought two Beatles albums off a kid, for ten bob. Ten bob was a popular price for everything. We hadn`t quite got into decimal then. They had no sleeves, but it still seemed a bargain and I immersed myself in With The Beatles and A Hard Day`s Night. I still have them, although I replaced them, later on in the 70`s, with really nice copies from a guy who ran a second hand shop in Smethwick High Street. They were out of his personal collection, so he said. No idea why he would part with them. I have not parted with them. I started to buy singles in abundance and the occasional album. The first Beatles related record I remember actually buying for myself was

Paul McCartney`s Another Day, still one of my favorites of the disbanded boys. I very soon had a complete set of the original albums on vinyl. I also have a copy of The Early Years with Tony Sheridan. Some interesting pieces on that. Especially a Harrison/Lennon instrumental track called Cry For A Shadow. When the full album collection was released in a box set, 1978, I bought the Rarities disc. It was released separately. One track on there was a slightly different mix of Across The Universe. That was one track I already owned, courtesy of a World Wildlife fund LP. Much later, I picked up an old copy of A Collection Of Beatles Oldies. An interesting mix of tracks. Somewhere along the line I got a copy of an album called Let It Be and one called Beatles Ballads. Since moving to the States a few years ago, I have picked up a couple of American releases. Copies of Sgt. Pepper and Help which are the same as everyone else`s apart from this weird thing with a lot of American albums. They seem to be blank sleeves with 12" x 12" stickers on the front and back. I also got Meet The Beatles and The Beatles Yesterday and Today. Actual American releases with track listings not found anywhere else. All 4 of those were found in a tatty box of old albums at a yard sale for 50c each. Yes, that`s right 50c each!!!

I still collect Beatles stuff. Several vinyl re-releases , including Let It Be Naked. A CD box special edition of Sgt Pepper`s 50th Anniversary. Vinyl editions of the Live at the BBC albums, Mono Masters and Live at the Hollywood Bowl. My step-son got me the box set of Christmas fan club releases. A very odd collection of sketches and music with varying degrees of quality. A more recent addition to my collection is a birthday gift, also from my step-son. It is a 10" vinyl recording of the New Musical Express poll winners concerts. These shows were massively influential in my life. The only place I would see this amount of talent in one show, all playing live. Freddie and the Dreamers, Rocking Berries, The Searchers, Rolling Stones and many more. They were great shows. They loom large in my memory. Event television it would be called now.
I bought most of my records during the 70`s and they became even more popular, so it seemed, as each individual release came out. The Beatles inform all of my musical tastes. They didn`t seem to care about pigeonholes and took influence from all forms. That became the way I listen to everything. Don`t want to know what the style is. Is it any good? The boys were always good. Always. I have no preference in early, mid or late Beatles. I love it all.