The Beatles were back on tour when this news came out. They were actually in Liverpool, about to appear at a Southport Ballroom, when the news came out. All the national newspapers sent reporters and photographers across from their Manchester offices to get the Beatles’ reactions to the news. They were obviously hoping for some satirical remarks about the royal family, but to Brian’s relief, there were none.
The Royal Variety Show was planned for 4 November. Before that, they continued touring in Britain and for the first time went abroad, to Sweden.
In Britain, each one-night stand was now resulting in the same hysterical crowd scenes. Every day the newspapers had, almost word for word, the same front-page news story as the day before, only the name of the town was different.
Even in smallish towns, like Carlisle, where earlier in the year they’d been ejected from a ball at a local hotel, the crowds were huge. On the night of 24 October, over 600 teenagers waited all night long in a queue for tickets. Most of them brought sleeping bags and slept. Some had been there for as long as 36 hours. When the box office opened and the queue moved forwards, shop windows were smashed and nine people were taken to hospital. In bigger towns the casualties ran into hundreds.
The Swedish tour, their first foreign trip since Hamburg, was a direct result of their record sales. ‘She Loves You’ soon reached the one million figure in Britain, for which it got a gold disc, and also sold well in Europe, which British pop stars had rarely done before.
They were in Sweden for five days, from 24 to 29 October. Day by day they made the British papers at home, as well as the Swedish press and TV. At a concert in Stockholm, police with police dogs tried to control the fans who couldn’t get in. Inside, 40 policemen, with batons, stood guarding the stage, to stop fans climbing on. The fans did eventually break through the barrier of police and got on the stage. George was knocked over but the police managed to restore order before he was trodden on.
Swedish fans were already affecting Beatle hairstyles and clothes, as British fans had started to do. In Sweden, their hairstyle was known as the Hamlet style.
The Beatles themselves date the beginning of Beatlemania slightly later than the Palladium Show, when Brian and Tony Barrow first realized it. They weren’t aware of their massive popularity until 31 October, when they arrived back at London Airport from Sweden.
They had, of course, been aware of the chaos at the Palladium two weeks previously, and all the other riots up and down the country. But this had been going on, building up all the time, though less publicized, since their Cavern days. They’d got into a pattern on tour of having to be smuggled in and out of theatres. They were trying to escape it, rather than face up to it and risk being killed.
But when they arrived back at London Airport the scale of their popularity suddenly hit them. It was their first triumphal arrival from anywhere, since the Cavern welcome homes. Thousands of screaming fans had been choking London Airport for hours. In the chaos surrounding their arrival, the car containing the prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was held up. Miss World, who was also passing through London Airport, was completely ignored. These airport scenes became familiar pictures during the next three years.
The Royal Variety Performance, their second big London date, was held at the Prince of Wales Theatre on 4 November. The audience wasn’t as big as at the Palladium show, but in theory much more select, as the seats were about four times the normal price. It was a charity show, full of show-business establishment, minor society and rag-trade moguls, all hoping for a glimpse of the royals. On this occasion they were the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon. It’s said to be a difficult audience to play to. There is the nauseating tradition of the audience craning to see what effect each act is having in the royal box before they clap or laugh.
Paul got a laugh all round from the beginning. The Beatles came on immediately after Sophie Tucker. Paul said how pleased they were to be following their favourite American group.
Musically, they did their usual act — causing hysterics just by announcing they were going to sing ‘She Loves You’. Then they did ‘Till There Was You’ and ‘Twist and Shout’.
John introduced one number. ‘The ones in the cheap seats clap their hands,’ he said. Nodding towards the royal box, he added: ‘The rest of you just rattle your jewellery.’
This joke was on every front page the next day, everyone loving the implied, though very slight, joke at the royals’ expense. All completely harmless, of course. But it was looked upon as being rather cheeky, but of course very lovable, because the Beatles had become so very lovable.
The Queen Mother, talking to them afterwards, showed that she was well aware of what they did. She even made her own jokey remark, though it probably wasn’t meant to be jokey. She asked them where they were appearing next, and they said Slough. ‘Oh,’ said the Queen Mother, ‘that’s near us.’
The show was televised the following Sunday and had an audience of 26 million.
The front-page stories about their concerts became monotonously the same. Even papers like the Daily Telegraph, which up until then had considered itself too staid to cover pop stories, (although they now religiously publish the top ten each week), gave columns to every riot. For a long time, however, they still referred in their reports, as in one about a Newcastle concert on 28 October, to ‘teenagers fighting to get tickets for the Beatles “pop” group…’ They still felt it necessary to explain who the Beatles were.
There were questions in Parliament about the thousands of extra policemen all round the country being made to do extra and dangerous duties because of the Beatles. One MP suggested that the police should withdraw and see what happened. Luckily, no one took that suggestion seriously.
On 1 November they began another tour, this time billed simply as the Beatles Show. There was no other joint star, as there had been with Roy Orbison, because none was needed.
In the programme for this show, which toured till 13 December, there were several adverts for Beatle products. A firm in Peckham was offering Beatles sweaters ‘designed specially for Beatle people by a leading British manufacturer with a top-quality two-tone Beatle badge’. All for 35 shillings each.
Manufacturers all over the country were by this time competing to get a concession to use the word Beatle on their products. Beatle jackets — the collarless ones, usually in corduroy, first worn by Stu in Hamburg — were on sale everywhere as early as September 1963.
Beatle wigs started appearing. A factory in Bethnal Green was working night and day to keep up with the demand. It announced it had orders from Eton College and from Buckingham Palace. Not from the Queen herself. Just a member of the staff.
Most teenage boys were growing their own Beatle-length hair. From November on there was a continuous stream of newspaper stories about schoolboys being sent home from school because of their long hair, or of apprentices not being allowed into factories.
The Daily Telegraph, on 2 November, produced the first leader criticizing the Beatles hysteria. It said the mass hysteria was simply filling empty heads, just as Hitler had done. The Daily Mirror jumped to the Beatles’ defence. ‘You have to be a real sour square not to love the nutty, noisy, happy, handsome Beatles.’ They complimented the Beatles for not relying ‘on off-colour jokes about homos for their fun’.
They were attacked and then defended in the Church Assembly, the annual meeting of leaders of the Church of England. One bishop said they were a ‘psychopathetic group’ and that one week of their wages could build a cathedral in Africa. But another speaker said he was a fan and that it was all healthy fun.