The first time that The Beatles made an impact "In My Life" was around April 1963 with the release of their third single "From Me To You", which I started to perform with the band I was with at the time. The first mention of them in my diaries is that they were on a TV programme called "Pops with Lenny" (Lenny the Lion was a puppet) on Thursday 16th May 1963 and again two days later on "Thank Your Lucky Stars." I can remember buying the first edition of "Beatles Monthly" and being fascinated by the look of "The Beatles" and their instruments. It was the first time I had ever seen a Hofner Violin Bass Guitar, or a Rickenbacker Guitar. George played a Gretsch Country Gentleman Guitar and although I had seen Gretsches played by the likes of Duane Eddy and Eddie Cochran I had never seen a Country Gent before.

I first saw "The Beatles" live on Friday 6th September 1963 at The Odeon Cinema in Luton, I was working in The Westminster Bank in Hatfield at the time and we finished work when the books balanced and Fridays was always a late night. I eventually got away at eight oclock and a couple of mates were waiting outside and we drove straight to Luton for the 8.45pm performance. I remember queuing outside to get in and behind us in the queue were "The Zombies" who were a local group that we knew. They were still a year away from having their first hit with "She's Not There" which was helped when The Beatles gave it a favourable review when they took over as the complete panel on a programme called "Juke Box Jury". We had pretty good seats about fifteen rows from the front and had to endure four other acts before "The Beatles" came on. No matter how good they were there was only one act the audience had come to see. Finally the compere, Ted King, announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, "THE BEATLES!", there were no curtains at The Odeon the group just ran on stage wearing the famous grey collarless suits, plugged in, and went straight into "Roll Over Beethoven" followed by "Thank You Girl", "A`Taste of Honey", "She Loves You", "Baby  It's You", "From Me To You", "Boys", "I Saw Her Standing There", and finally "Twist and Shout" and they were gone. The PA System was two small speakers, one each side of the stage and you could just about make out which songs they were singing above the continual screams, but it was fantastic. We drove home from Luton discussing when we would see them again.

Beatlemania was officially born on Sunday 13th October 1963 when "The Beatles" appeared on the top variety show of the time, "Sunday Night at The London Palladium" which was introduced by Bruce Forsyth. The show normally opened with a dance group called "The Tiller Girls", but on this night, the curtains opened and there were "The Beatles" singing just the opening verse of "Please Please Me". The audience went wild with girls screaming at the tops of their voices. The curtains closed and for the next forty odd minutes Bruce Forsyth had a tough job trying to keep the audience from screaming during the other acts which consisted of a singer called "Brook Benton" and "Des O'Connor". Finally Bruce appeared on stage dressed in a "Beatles" collarless suit and a wig and said "I Thought I'd be a dead ringer for Ringo,--- are you ready---are you steady--- 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, The Beatles". Cue for pandemonium as they sang "From Me ToYou", "I'll Get You", "She Loves You" and finally "Twist and Shout". The papers the following day reported the scenes of screaming fans inside and outside The Palladium and one of the papers coined the phrase,"Beatlemania". I still have my original reel to reel tape of the show including Bruce's opening announcement, recorded with a microphone in front of the TV. It was just a year since the release of their first record "Love Me Do" (5/10/1962) and yet with only eighteen songs commercially available "The Beatles" were already the biggest pop act this country had ever seen, and nobody, and I'm sure, not even "The Beatles" realised that the best was yet to come

I didn't have to wait very long to see them live again, as "The Beatles were to perform a Christmas Show at The Finsbury Park Astoria (later to become "The Rainbow") from Christmas Eve 1963 up to January 11th 1964. A friend and I managed to get two tickets (7/6d  or 37p each) for the show on Saturday 28th December 1963. This show featured, Billy J. Kramer, The Fourmost, Tommy Quickly and Cilla Black who were all Brian Epsteins artists. The Barron Knights were also on the show and the whole thing was compered by Rolf Harris. At the beginning of the show A large cardboard helicopter was lowered to the stage and one by one each act got off and was introduced by Rolf Harris. Everybody was off except "The Beatles" and the audience was teased by the helicopter taking off and hovering. Eventually it landed again and out came "The Beatles" to the loudest screams imaginable. The Beatles took part in several sketches during the evening until it was time for their closing spot which included tracks from their second album "With The Beatles", released a few weeks before on November 22nd. Once again they opened with "Roll Over Beethoven" followed by "All My Loving" , "This Boy", "I Wanna Be Your Man", "She Loves You", "Till There Was You", "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", "Money", and finally "Twist and Shout". Once again a great show. So great that two weeks later I managed to get hold of another ticket for Friday 10th January 1964 and saw it all over again. This time I was high up in the balcony and could barely hear a thing over the screaming.

Two days after the Christmas show finished they appeared for a second time on "Sunday Night at The London Palladium".

6th September 1963

13th October 1963

28th December 1963

Beatles Fan Club Membership Card

Beatles Christmas Show 1963/64