"There are places I remember all my
life ... All these places had their moments."
- "In My Life," 1965, by
Paul McCartney and John Lennon
Jackie Spencer knows her Beatles lyrics. At the microphone in the front
of a tour bus, the trim, 40ish woman with dark, close-cropped hair mingled
them not so subtlely with her description of the sights out the windows.
"Over there is the 'shelter in the middle of the roundabout'... The
shop of the 'barber showing photographs' is to the left. ... On that
corner is the bank of the 'banker with a motor car'... The street over
there is 'Penny Lane'... And in just a few minutes, we'll get off the
coach and eat lunch at a pub 'beneath the blue suburban skies.' "
On this June day the suburban skies actually were gray, but that was a
small complaint for almost 30 Americans in the midst of nine days getting
to know the Liverpool that shaped John, Paul, George and Ringo and the
London where the Beatles honed their creativity.
We
had joined a single guy from Petersburg, Va., two baby-boomer sisters from
Minneapolis and St. Paul, a dad and his two teen-age daughters from Iowa
and Beatles fans from both coasts on a tour hosted by Pilgrimage Ltd., a
company in Greensboro, N.C. For Kathy and I, it was a delayed celebration
of our 10th anniversary, but all of us were keen on this close-up version
of Beatlemania 2002.
And lucky for us, Jackie also knows her Liverpool. She and Paul
McCartney both were born in Walton Hospital, and she led a special "Paul
Day" tour on June 18, his 60th birthday.
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Come Together:
Members of the tour group re-enact a Beatles album cover, walking
across London's famed Abbey Road crosswalk.
Courtesy Photo
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Paul's wedding to
Heather Mills was a bigger story, having taken place the day our British
Midland plane arrived in England. Some of the women in our group didn't
take the news well at all.
But there was little time for dismay at the conquest of the "Cute
Beatle." The tour was packed not only with row houses where the lads grew
up but with experiences like squeezing into the Jacaranda club to hear
local bands belt out rock 'n' roll on the same little stage where the
young Beatles played.
We bought T-shirts at the rebuilt Cavern club, the legendary venue
where the Beatles performed among damp, low, brick arches below street
level. Liverpool city officials, slow to take note of their native sons,
had the original Cavern razed in 1973. They finally began to capitalize on
the world's intense interest and in 1984 allowed reconstruction of the
Cavern, with original bricks, half a block from the old site.
Albert Dock, on the east bank of the River Mersey, is a must-see
Liverpool location. The Mersey opens into the Irish Sea, and Albert Dock
formerly bustled with trade ships. Now the old warehouses are a shopping
area that includes the Merseyside Maritime Museum, the Tate Gallery and an
exhibit called the Beatles Story. Down the street is the massive Liver
Building, topped with its two namesake Liver Bird statues.
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Frequent Shoppers:
Mathew Street, where the Beatles played at the Cavern Club in the
early 1960s, is the most visited Beatles location in Liverpool.
Mike Haynes/Globe-News
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Part of the Beatles
Story is another re-creation of the Cavern, and our group was invited to
an unusual concert there: A reunion of the Quarry Men, four gentlemen in
their 60s who were part of John Lennon's first band, named after the local
Quarry Bank School. They worked up a sweat giving us a glimpse of the
feverish tempo the early Beatles must have let loose on '50s standards
such as "Worried Man Blues" and "Come Go With Me."
Walking at Albert Dock one afternoon, Kathy struck up a conversation
with a senior citizen, a woman who had the same Liverpool brogue as
Jackie, the same accent that helped endear the Beatles to America and
which is as different from London speech as McLean is from Manhattan.
"Oh, yeah, I lived near Ritchie," the resident said of a boy named
Starkey who later changed his name to Ringo Starr. She told Kathy she
still has a pair of Ritchie's trousers that were among some clothing he
gave her.
That is the feeling in Liverpool. Although the population is 450,000,
it has that small-town attitude of "I'm proud to live here." Liverpudlians
joined the rest of England in going gaga over the World Cup football
tournament (not soccer, as we call it here). Jackie even warned us that
Mathew Street, home of the Cavern and of the Grapes pub where the Beatles
used to hang out, might be a boisterous place after England's match with
Denmark.
But she was quick to boast about the two local pro clubs, Liverpool and
Everton, and in the Liverpool Echo newspaper, clean-cut Liverpool star
Michael Owen's play in the World Cup rivaled Paul and Heather's wedding.
Put simply, Liverpool people are friendly. We West Texans felt at home,
more so than a few days later in London, home to 7 million people.
A highlight was an inside tour of Paul's boyhood home at 20 Forthlin
Road, now run by the National Trust. Fourteen fans at a time can spend 45
minutes in the house, walking into Paul's bedroom, looking out the same
parlor window that illuminated Paul and John while they tinkered with
their guitars.
John's home at 251 Menlove Avenue wasn't open yet, but the National
Trust will begin tours there in April 2003.
We toured the Walker Gallery, which in addition to works by such
artists as Rembrandt and Degas featured, through Aug. 4, "The Art of Paul
McCartney." When asked how she liked Paul's painting, someone in our group
replied, "He's an excellent musician."
Pete Best, the drummer who was dumped in 1962 in favor of Ringo, still
has his office in the stately three-story house where his family lived and
where, in 1959, his mother opened a teen-age coffee club in the basement
called the Casbah.
Tour guide Jackie, with ties to the Best family, got us invited to the
recently reopened Casbah, and with maybe 50 other people, we ducked our
heads to pass through several musty rooms with low ceilings.
And then Pete Best, with thick gray hair and mustache, showed up in the
dark of the mansion's back yard, politely nodding to fans who reacted much
like the girls who surrounded him when he was a Beatle. Enduring autograph
and photo requests, Pete mingled with the crowd, occasionally revealing
the slight smile from the black-and-white 1962 photographs.
Off to London and to three days of Beatle sites: Marylebone Station,
where scenes of "A Hard Day's Night" were filmed; the Prince of Wales
Theatre where the Beatles played for royalty and John Lennon said, "The
people in the cheaper seats clap your hands, and the rest of you, if you'd
just rattle your jewelry"; the London Beatles Store; the Apple
headquarters roof where the boys had their last concert; the home of
Paul's ex-girlfriend, Jane Asher, where he wrote "Yesterday" on the top
floor.
Tony reminded us to show proper respect outside Friar Park, the estate
of George Harrison, who died of cancer in November. The property is
southwest of London at Henley-on-Thames, a quaint and pretty village also
known for the annual Royal Regatta boat race.
We had two days to see the "regular" London sites: Westminster Abbey,
Harrod's department store and the like. We visited the Tower of London,
Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus. The regal horse guards, bagpipers and
brass band swept past us at the Buckingham Palace Changing of the Guard.
And no Beatles tour would be complete without a stop at the Abbey Road
studios where much of the Fab Four's music was recorded. At the end of the
block is the celebrated crosswalk, and yes, our group walked it, four at a
time.
Dodging traffic to follow the Beatles' literal footsteps, we didn't
care if we looked like tourists, thank you very much.
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