He wasn’t waiting for their autograph, but because he wanted to see Paul. As Paul and Michael’s only parent, cook, cleaner and bottle washer, he had to spend his lunch hour doing the shopping for the evening meal.
‘I had to go to the Cavern to give Paul the sausages or chops or whatever it was. I’d be in a terrible rush and I’d just have time to fight off the fans and give Paul the meat.
‘“Now don’t forget, son,” I’d say. “Put this on Regulo 450 on the electric oven when you get home.”’
14 marking time — liverpool and hamburg
Their success as a local phenomenon was assured, once the Cavern days arrived. After almost five years of messing around, they had at last built up an individual act and had acquired a devoted following in Liverpool.
But for the next year, throughout most of 1961, nothing really dramatic happened. They improved all the time and their local following grew and became more fanatical. They visited Hamburg again, the first of several return visits, and their success there continued. But they now entered a trough of local success. They seemed destined to play forever in Liverpool or Hamburg. No one else was interested in them.
Their second Hamburg trip began in April 1961, by which time George had become 18. Peter Eckhorn, manager of the Top Ten Club, and Astrid helped to get all the right work permits. Peter Eckhorn still has the contract. It said they would play every night from seven until two in the morning, except Saturdays when they would play till three. ‘After each hour of play there will be no less than a break of 15 minutes.’
The Top Ten was bigger and not as rough as the two other clubs they’d played in. It had better accommodation, décor and audiences. There were even more exis in the audience shouting for them now, many of them photographers who would lie down in front, trying to get unusual angles of the Beatles on stage, and shouting ‘more sveat, pleese, more sveat’.
Astrid met them off the train — they were doing it in a bit more style this time — and was wearing a complete leather trouser suit. Previously she’d worn a leather jacket, which they’d all copied, although they’d worn them with their jeans and cowboy boots. Stu was very impressed and got her to make a complete leather suit for him. The others wanted one as well, but they got them done so cheaply that they split almost as soon as they put them on.
It was at this time that Astrid got round to telling Stu that she didn’t like his greasy, Teddy Boy hairstyle. She said he would suit the sort of style that Klaus and Jurgen had. After a lot of persuading, Stu let her do a special style for him. She brushed it all down, snipped bits off and tidied it up.
Stu turned up at the Top Ten that evening, with his hair in the new style, and the others collapsed on the floor with hysterics. Halfway through, he gave up and combed his hair high. But thanks to Astrid, he tried it again the next night. He was ridiculed again, but the night after, George turned up with the same style. Then Paul had a go, though for a long time he was always changing it back to the old style as John hadn’t yet made up his mind. Pete Best ignored the whole craze. But the Beatle hairstyle had been born.
Astrid went on to influence them in other ways, such as collarless suits. She’d made one for herself which Stu had admired so she’d made one for him, despite the jokes from the rest of them. ‘What are you doing with Mum’s suit then, Stu?’
They all got a bit wilder during this second Hamburg trip, turning to pep pills (all except Pete Best) to keep them going during the all-night sessions. ‘But it never got out of control,’ says Astrid. ‘Neither did their drinking. They hardly drank at all, just now and again.’
John was still doing a little bit of shoplifting, when the urge took him. Astrid says it was great, which is the phrase Pete Shotton, John’s school friend, had used.
‘It’s the way John was,’ says Astrid. ‘Everyone feels like doing things sometimes, but of course you don’t. John would suddenly rub his hands and say, “I know, let’s go shoplifting now.” It was all fun. You couldn’t be shocked. The idea had suddenly come into his head, so he acted on it. He wouldn’t do it again for weeks. Things don’t go round in John’s head first, the way they do with Paul.’
John was still turning out his antireligious cartoons — drawing Christ on the cross with a pair of bedroom slippers at the bottom — and getting involved in other adolescent jokes. He put on a paper dog collar once, cut himself a paper cross and preached from a window of the club in a Peter Sellers Indian accent to the crowds below.
They made their first record during this trip, though Allan Williams had made them do a demo disc on their first arrival in Hamburg. This had led nowhere, and only five copies were made. This time they were asked to do the backing for Tony Sheridan, the singer from the Top Ten. ‘When the offer came,’ says John, ‘we thought it would be easy. The Germans had such shitty records. Ours was bound to be better. We did five of our own numbers, but they didn’t like them. They preferred things like “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean”.’
Bert Kaempfert, the German orchestra leader and A and R man, did the recording. On the records, backing Tony Sheridan, they were called ‘The Beat Boys’. It was thought the name Beatles was too confusing.
Only four of them were involved in this record. Pete Best was still there. He says he thought he was getting on well. He’d had a fight with Tony Sheridan, but that was all.
But Stu Sutcliffe had left. ‘We were awful to him sometimes,’ says John. ‘Especially Paul, always picking on him. I used to explain afterwards to him that we didn’t dislike him, really.’
They felt a bit guilty about how they treated Stu, but this wasn’t the reason for him leaving. He’d decided to stay in Hamburg, marry Astrid and go back to being an art student. He enrolled at the Art College, thanks to an eminent visiting professor, Eduardo Paolozzi, the Scots-born sculptor. He even managed to get Stu a grant from the Hamburg authorities.
Stu still liked the Beatles’ music, but he felt he was better at art than on the bass guitar. Paul could obviously play it much better. It would be best for him to take over, which he did. After he left, Stu became closer friends with all of them than he’d ever been before. They all realized how meaningless their little quarrels had been.
In July 1961 the four Beatles returned to Liverpool, leaving Stu in Hamburg. He did well at the Art College. ‘He had so much energy and was so very inventive,’ says Paolozzi. ‘The feeling of potential splashed out from him. He had the right kind of sensibility and arrogance to succeed.’
The Beatles did a special welcome home show when they arrived in Liverpool with another leading group they’d known for a long time, Gerry and the Pacemakers. They played each other’s instruments or daft objects, like a paper and comb. They billed themselves as the Beatmakers, which was an in-joke all the fans appreciated.
The Beatles were still lucky to be making £10 a week each, but the Liverpool beat cult had arrived. The most obvious sign of its existence was the birth of a newspaper completely devoted to the doings of beat groups. This was Mersey Beat, in which Bob Wooler wrote the article about the Beatles, referred to earlier. Its first edition came out on 6 July 1961. It contained gossip about the leading groups, such as Gerry and the Pacemakers and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the group in which Ringo Starr was on drums. These appear to be the two main groups. The Beatles came after them in popularity, judging by the first issues. But the Beatles did provide the only bit of humour in the first edition when John was asked to knock out a bit about their history: