We had a nice surprise in the mail a little while ago. Our friends Dot and Derek (over in UK travelling the canals on board Gypsy Rover) recently spent some time in Liverpool checking out the Beatles haunts from years gone by. They sent a postcard over which features a very young looking Paul and John taken at the famous Cavern Club way back in 1961. The boys are all decked out in tight leather pants and Pete Best in in the background playing the drums, obviously Ringo had not made the group at this stage.
I took my postcard to work and pinned it up on my wall. What a lot of interest it created – everyone knows the Beatles. I remarked to my Team Leader that the Beatles had toured New Zealand in 1964, performing a concert in Wellington. They landed at Wellington Airport in June 1964 to be greeted by 7000 screaming fans. For the following eight days, until they flew out of Christchurch, hysterical teenagers screamed wherever they appeared. At that time I felt that my life as a teenager was over – I was 18 years old, married and expecting my first baby so I couldn’t go and join in with all the other fans. A crowd of 4000 blocked the Willis St-Manners St intersection in Wellington when the Beatles were staying at the St George Hotel. It was the biggest thing that had ever happened to teenagers in New Zealand. George Harrison reflected later: "When we were flying into New Zealand it looked like England, like Devon, with cows and sheep. But in those days we were looking for some action and there was absolutely nothing happening. We were in the hotel room sitting around eating fish and chips with peas and watching television and suddenly, about nine o'clock at night, the channels all closed down. So we threw our dinners at the TV."
The Team Leader knew absolutely nothing about the Beatles trip to New Zealand as she said she wasn’t even born then!!
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