With the Beatles

by Alistair Taylor

  You got used to the strangest requests from the boys, but when I got a cable from the United States asking for some of their favourite Lark cigarettes to be sent urgently to their next venue, I had to laugh. They smoked Larks in Britain, all of them. It was another illustration of their togetherness, I suppose. But I knew that Larks were American and I rang Wendy Hanson, Brian’s PA, who was with them on tour, to point this out. But the answer puzzled me. Yes, they knew they were American, but the Beatles all thought that the Larks they bought in England were a lot better than the ones they got in America. So could I please send some English ones over quickly? I had learned from experience that sometimes it is better just to do as you’re told, so I sent the consignment. And as I was packing up the cigarettes, I noticed on the packets that these export Larks were blended and packed in Switzerland. So they probably did taste different. So the Beatles were not quite as daft as I thought. I should have known they’d be right in the end.

  Sometimes, being the Beatles resident Mr Fixit didn’t seem such a great idea. Like the day George sent me a note from America. I’m not sure exactly where it was from, but then neither was he. The address was given as ‘Somewhere in America’ and the date as ‘Sunday the something’. George told me he had seen a great picture of him in the US papers taken in an unguarded moment when he was pulling an angry face and flashing a well-known two-fingered salute. George thought this was the most hilarious photo of him ever taken. He enclosed a scrap of a newspaper with this image on and my task was to track down the original. He wanted to buy the negative, have a lifesize print made of it, and have it mounted on hardboard and have it screwed on the outside of his front door. There are a lot of photographers in America and tracking down the one who had taken this particular snap took a great deal of time and effort. But eventually a friend in Fleet Street provided a vital contact and I managed it. George was delighted with the result, but the lifesize image was so alarming he did relent enough to switch it to his bathroom door. And he had them printed on the front of his Christmas card with the seasonal greeting ‘Why don’t you …?’ George always did have a rather individual sense of humour. George wrote, ‘To Al and Lesley, without whom it would not have been possible.’

  Dealing with Beatles requests was always interesting. The least demanding of the boys was Ringo. But when he did make a demand for something, it could be difficult. He came back from America hooked on the game of pool at a time when it was pretty unknown in this country. Naturally, Ringo wanted his own table for his house in Hampstead. For the weekend! I eventually found some tables in bond in Dublin. The makers were happy to supply one but it would take at least a week – until I explained it was for Ringo Starr of the Beatles. The table arrived the next day with two fitters to install it. The popularity of the boys never failed to impress me.

  This was the tour that was hit by death threats and bomb scares that did nothing for the peace of mind of all concerned. George was already jumpy and now he demanded to be regularly informed of all developments to do with security. Brian humoured him with a trickle of harmless information. It wouldn’t have done his paranoia any good at all to get the whole truth on what all the loonies out there were saying. Some batty astrologer predicted the Beatles’ plane, chartered specially by Brian for the whole tour at a cost of just under $38,000, was going to crash en route from Philadelphia to Indianapolis with no survivors.

  Fortunately she was wrong, but by the time the Beatles got back to Britain they all pledged that they would never again undertake such a punishing marathon of a tour. Even Brian privately agreed with me that for once he had perhaps pushed the boys just a shade too hard. But he barely let up for the British tour that followed in the autumn with 54 shows planned at 27 concerts in 25 towns and cities in 33 days.

  As 1964 drew to a close, the Beatles had conquered the world. Their new record ‘I Feel Fine’ was on top of the charts and the Christmas show at the Hammersmith Odeon was a total sell-out. The Beatles had succeeded everywhere from Sydney to Sunderland and from Los Angeles to London. Nobody talked about supergroups in the days as the daft description had yet to be invented. But if they had, then Beatles would surely have been the first internationally popular supergroup.

  In the early days of touring the Odeons and the Granadas, because the fans were so numerous and so enthusiastic, to get them in anywhere I had to use the police. We would arrange a meeting at a nearby police station and we would often use a police van. I remember when we played a date in Leeds we had a meeting lined up with the police at Sowerby Bridge Police Station to do the swap over. We swapped from the limo and got into the van and headed for the theatre. Suddenly, the van stopped and because there were no windows we couldn’t see where we were but I didn’t think we’d reached the theatre because I had already timed the route and we hadn’t been driving for long enough. The doors opened and there, standing in the car park of the police station, were all the senior officers and their wives and kids waiting patiently for the Beatles to jump out and sign all their autographs and chat to their wives and kids. The Beatles were thunderstruck. Out of the side of his mouth, John said, ‘Right, Al, when we get rid of this lot, we’re going to sort you out.’ But he was smiling as he said it. They went through the motions of signing and chatting even though they were in danger of being late for the concert and they knew that the police were way out of order hijacking their transport just so they could get to meet the Beatles. They had to be pleasant until they could get away. That happened again and again, until I could see the change gradually taking hold of the Beatles. ‘I sometimes feel as if I’m public property,’ Paul said to me very early on. ‘I’m not a person, I’m like the Town Hall. I’m something to be stared at and it seems like I always have to be open.’ The boys resented the police abusing their position.

  Little did I realise at the start of the ’60s just what an era was beginning. I believe the Beatles’ arrival heralded all sorts of changes, in the recording industry and in society at large. Entire lifestyles changed for ever in fashion and in attitudes and I believe the Beatles were an immense force for change.

  In the beginning, there was an enormous furore over their hair. And yet if you look at the early pictures of the Beatles after Brian’s total makeover of suits and haircuts, they just look so smart. It’s incredible to think that they sparked a storm and were known as the ‘Moptops’ in those early days, because of their long hair. It was absolutely nothing. Brian used to have each set of sheet music framed and put up in the corridor on the way to his office and, as the years went by, we used to have great giggles because you could see that in those early days with ‘Please, Please Me’, their hair seemed positively short. It was only as they moved on towards Sergeant Pepper, their hair was down over their shoulders and you could see their history through the Beatle hair.

  Before any gig, it became a habit for children in wheelchairs to be brought in and sort of presented to them. It was very sweet and at the start they meant it most sincerely. But the frightening thing was that parents began to believe that if one of the Beatles touched their child then he or she would be healed. This soon became quite a sick practice. It turned my stomach and I didn’t like it. They received a lot of credit for allowing disabled children into their dressing room. Neil Aspinall would line it all up. He would check up the corridor to see if they were all waiting then he would come inside the dressing room and, mimicking John’s humour and purely to get the Beatles’ attention he’d shout, ‘OK, guys, spastic time.’ They and Neil felt very uncomfortable about all this. They used their black humour to disguise their real feelings but Paul told me how much he hated the way people used to use crippled or handicapped children to get backstage.

  ‘It started out innocently enough,’ he said. ‘These kids have mostly had such a shit deal from life they deserve the best seats in the house. That’s fine, but it never stops there. They want to come into the dressing room, to meet us before the show, and they start to think we’ve got healing hands or s
omething. We don’t want to do a damn thing to hurt any kid, sick or otherwise. That includes John. He might make some sicko jokes but when it comes down to it he’s about the softest guy I know about any sort of suffering. But if there’s any hint of us not co-operating, then we get threats of guys going to the papers. It’s just cruel to tell kids that touching a Beatle will make them better.’

  The big time had arrived by now but we still seemed haunted by memories of the old days. We did an appearance for BBC Manchester and the payment was so pathetic it didn’t even cover the fares from Liverpool to Manchester. Brian ordered me to get on the telephone to the BBC and demand more money. We couldn’t possibly operate at a loss. I could see Brian’s point but it was still a hell of an embarrassing conversation.

  One of Brian’s finer qualities was that he never forgot the people who had helped him on the way up. Louis Buckley was an old promoter out at Southport who used to always book the Beatles for about £12 a time. And when they made it to the big time, Brian gave him at least three dates when they could have charged much more for that same £12. It was a thank-you for him supporting them when they needed it.

  The Beatles worked incredibly hard on their music. They always seemed to prefer to work at night. And they used to go on long into the night. I remember that my eyelids would be drooping in the early hours at Studio Two at Abbey Road when they were still very hard at work. They would just keep on and on. That way, ideas seemed to keep coming. Of course, John and Paul emerged as the driving force but the part played by George and Ringo is too often forgotten or played down. Their contribution was highly significant as the boys insisted on putting layer on layer on layer to get exactly the sound they wanted. They seemed to draw energy from the actual music.

  By 2.00am I would be exhausted and dying to go home and they would be trying something new. All four of them were totally into music and what they were creating. It wasn’t that they were the Beatles and this had to be great. The mood was more like ‘That’s a great song, let’s get it down.’ They were really turned on by their music.

  Often, I remember one of the boys shouting up at George Martin and asking if they could do another version. You could see from the expression on George’s tired face that he thought they had already got it but he would say ‘Yes’ with all the enthusiasm he could muster. And even though there was nothing wrong with the last version, somehow they would manage to improve upon it. That happened time and time again. And George would smile in admiration. George was astonished at how it all worked out. In the beginning, he was ordered at least to give the Beatles a try. He never knew what he was taking on. If the potential of the Beatles had been recognised at the start, they would definitely have gone to one of the main pop music producers.

  John and Paul, as well as being the driving force of the group in those exciting early days, were the firmest of friends. People who talk about early conflicts are mainly talking crap. Sure, they had their moments, but to me it looked like John and Paul leading George and Ringo against the rest of the world. And it’s Lennon who has become the most misunderstood. I’m not saying he was a saint but to me he was a hell of a nice guy. He has been signed off as being the hard man, and cruel to women, brutal to Brian. But he could be so gentle. He was a sardonic bastard. I think he was the biggest piss-taker the world has ever known.

  But there was a gentle side to John. On one of the very rare occasions my wife Lesley came to see a concert, I remember we were in the dressing room at the Streatham Odeon before the show. The room was heaving with people and the boys were in a huddle in one corner having something approaching an argument about something musical. All of a sudden, Lennon’s powerful voice rose above the rest: ‘GET FUCKED.’ Then everything went quiet. And John’s head slowly emerged from the crowd.

  ‘Sorry, Lesley, I got a bit carried away.’ That was John Lennon, the wild man of rock, apologising for swearing, embarrassment showing on his red face.

  John Lennon was a special guy and I suppose I always felt the most protective of him. Not that he needed anyone’s protection, of course, it was just that because he was so up-front and outspoken I always wanted to go after him explaining to people that he’d only been joking and that he was a really nice bloke underneath. Somehow he was more vulnerable than the others because he did wear his heart on his sleeve sometimes. He needed looking after.

  John Lennon was in the office once and I was getting the documents together for their trip to the United States. I saw that John’s passport had had the photo ripped out of it. I started to tease him about it saying, ‘That’s a bit daft, Lennon. Even you have to have your photo in your passport.’

  He said, ‘Well, I hated it. It was a horrible photograph. Get me a new one.’

  I tried to explain you couldn’t just stick a new one in. ‘Oh you can do it, Mr Fixit,’ he laughed. I went down to Petty France in London and tried to explain my problem to an official. I told him the photo had fallen off. He explained that it could not do that because it was such strong glue. I had to admit John had ripped it out and threw myself on his mercy. He agreed, considering who it was, but he insisted I tell Mr Lennon not to be a stupid boy again.

  Working for Brian was certainly never boring. One of my most bizarre tasks was to help organise a wedding for a German guitarist.

  Klaus Voorman was a German guy the Beatles first met up with in the early days in Hamburg. He was a lovely guy, a good guitarist and a talented artist, and had drawn the Revolver cover. When I first met up with him, he was with a band called Paddy, Klaus and Gibson. Brian wanted to sign them up and work with them in this country which was a problem at the time because Klaus was German and the Home Office were being sticky about issuing him with a work permit.

  But then he married Coronation Street actress Christine Hargreaves and Klaus Voorman. It was a very sudden wedding, and they are a great couple; it also meant that he could so that he could stay in this country and work as a musician. When I saw him years later, I was pleased that Klaus recognised me as I had worked to organize his wedding. Brian kept in touch with Christine, who sadly died young only a few years later.

  8

  THE ESCAPES

  Paul met Jane Asher in 1963 when she came to write a piece for Radio Times magazine on the Beatles appearance at the Royal Albert Hall. All four of them took a shine to Jane, as did most of the males in the Royal Albert Hall. She was delightful. When they first met her, the boys couldn’t get over her lovely red hair. They’d thought she was blonde because they had only seen her on black-and-white telly on shows like Juke Box Jury.

  Gradually, I became closer to Paul than to any of the others. When he was going out with Jane, we were very close. He came to the office one day and told me that he had bought a farm in Scotland. He had had it for about four years and not done anything about it, let alone seen it. He asked me to go up and take a look to see where he could build a new farmhouse. I went up there on the overnight train and tramped around and discovered that the Scots had already built a house on the only suitable spot but the existing building was just about derelict. The farm hadn’t been lived in for five years. There were 400 acres of nothing but sheep and wind. I couldn’t understand how the poor creatures managed to stay upright in those endless gales. There was hardly anything inside the house except a very low toilet. Perhaps you’d be blown off a high one.

  For Paul to build a new home up there, I said to him that he’d have to knock the old one down and build on the plot. He said the photos looked great, in fact ‘Really groovy’ were the words he used. He asked me to get some furniture, but everything had to be second-hand and old, except for the beds. ‘I want it to be really basic and Spartan,’ said Paul, who always had an affection for life at its most primitive. He was absolutely sick of luxury and wanted to get right back to basics. So I organised him a Formica table, three plastic dining chairs and a second-hand electric stove. He did insist on clean bedding, though, and there was no bath.

  The three of us went u
p there. Paul, Jane and I flew to Macrihanish, which I discovered was a NATO airbase. It was run by the RAF so I rang the commanding officer and when I asked about the chances of landing a private plane there he said, ‘You have got to be kidding.’ That was one of the few times I used the Beatles fame. Mostly, I tried to keep them out of everything but I couldn’t see any other way of getting permission. I said actually it’s for Paul McCartney and, miraculously, permission was granted. When we landed for the first time all the staff were there. Paul signed autographs and chatted and went into the Mess. The base only consisted of two big runways off to the Atlantic, where I’d arranged for John, the local taxi driver, to pick us up. The road to the farm became more and more rugged and I could tell that they were becoming really excited at the thought of being able to walk outside without being mobbed by crowds of teenage girls. I was still a little apprehensive about what they might think of the place. It was very remote and basic and very cold. Lots of people are drawn to the idea of getting away from it all, but sometimes the reality is a little too rough to handle. But Paul and Jane fell in love with the place at first sight.

  High Park seems to stand up in defiance of all the elements. Paul and Jane marvelled at the complete absence of luxury and even everyday modern conveniences. They spent the first hour there exploring and wandering around the farm and its tumbledown buildings. They kept squealing out in delight to each other when they found an old washtub or a piece of dead tractor. I never knew junk could be so interesting, but you could see this was exactly the escape they had both dreamed of. The farm hadn’t been used for years and there were piles of old bits of machinery lying around. The sheep that we saw grazing belonged to Paul, but they were looked after by High Park’s neighbour Ian, who lived at the rather more hospitable Low Park.