Beatles, Fishers & Marauders
The Beatles on my doorstep; Marauders on my stage.
i
In my home town of Wem, Shropshire in 1980, I formed a rock band called Assassin. We played about nine gigs in North Shropshire. We played on the same stage as The Beatles. Well, in a poetic licence kind of way. Bear with me. The Town Hall, is on the High Street, Whitchurch, a few miles up the road from Wem. Originally there was a ballroom, upstairs. That room burnt down in December 1941, when it was being used as a cinema during WWII. The adjacent market hall survived the fire and was used as a replacement venue for assemblies, bands and dances. It was there that The Beatles played their one and only Whitchurch concert on Saturday 19th, January 1963. Assassin did play gigs at Whitchurch Town Hall on 9th May and 19th December 1981, but by then it was the new Civic Centre, nevertheless, on the same site. For me, there is enough psychogeographic alignment to excite my imagination and to activate my creative energy.
ii
At the time of the Beatles' Whitchurch show they had only just released their second single, Please Please Me, on Friday 11th January. The single went to No. 2 in the record retailer chart and No. 1 in both the New Musical Express and Melody Maker Charts. In the second half of 1962 The Rolling Stones had played their first shows and on that same Saturday 19th January 1963, were playing Sandover Hall, Richmond upon Thames. Only three months later the Beatles met the Stones for the first time, when they saw them play at The Crawdaddy Club, at the Station Hotel, in Richmond-upon-Thames. Something was happening with the flamboyant emergence of pop 'Groups', as opposed to solo acts.
The UK winter was extreme: the 'Big Freeze of '63', as it was called. At seventeen months old I would have experienced my first serious snow fall. I have a photograph of me, from that January, standing, looking in awe, at a magnificent snowman, three times my height, our neighbours Pauline and Edwina Blackwood had built in the garden at Roden House, Mill Street, Wem. (See previous Substack: Thrown)
The same night the Beatles were onstage in Whitchurch, they were also on national TV performing the pre-recorded Please Please Me, on ITV's Thank Your Lucky Stars. The local Shropshire crowd, due to the fog and sub-zero temperatures, might well have stayed at home to watch that. Though they could have made both, as The Beatles were bottom of the bill on the TV show, performing the one song, prior to the commercial break, and the programme was over by 6.30pm. Alternatively they could have stayed cosy after that and watched Bonanza, an ITV Cowboy Western series, or Laramie the BBC Cowboy Western series, followed by the Saturday Film Abilene, a 1946 American cowboy Western. Or, they could have ignored The Beatles all together and watched Juke Box Jury over on the BBC, competing at the same time as Thank Your Lucky Stars, with a panel including TV personality Katie Boyle, musician/artist Rolf Harris, and actors Jack Jackson, and Susan Maughan judging the latest pop releases with a crude 'HIT' or "MISS' criteria:
Loop De Loop – Frankie Vaughan: HIT
I’m A Woman – Peggy Lee: HIT
What Now – Adam Faith: HIT
My Colouring Book – Nana Mouskouri: MISS
Hava Nagila – Spotnicks: HIT
The Wayward Wind – Frank Ifield: HIT
Tell Him – Alma Cogan: HIT
I May Not Live To See Tomorrow – Brian Hyland: MISS
Town Crier – Craig Douglas: HIT
There Ain’t A Boy In The World – Wendy Walker: MISS
Ruby Baby – Dion: MISS
Well, they might have dismissed Dion's (in my opinion) rather good rendition of Liber and Stoller's much covered classic, but he was the only artist from that night's list that ended up on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Please, please yourself. Five months later on June 22nd, John Lennon was on the Juke Box Jury panel himself and voted all of the records presented as a 'MISS', including (You're The) Devil In Disguise by his former idol Elvis Presley.
iii
If you were having a problem with your TV you could rest assured that Tudor Fisher could sort you out. Harold Tudor Fisher ran Fishers' Radio Service, a general electrics shop at 33 High Street, three buildings up from the Whitchurch Town Hall.
Tudor, as he was known, was also a traffic warden. He was responsible for the lighting rig for the Whitchurch Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society, based in the Town Hall. On the evening of the 19th January he had got wind of the fact a band was playing, so he called in to check out what was going on. He was not happy when he found out the organisers were planning to use the WAODS equipment. Mike Dale, dance organiser at the Town Hall, was sitting in a dingy changing room backstage with The Beatles when Tudor came in.
You're not gonna use these lights, you can't use these lights they belong to the operatic and dramatic society, you can't use them.
The brief smoking gun stand off was averted when Mike Dale pointed out that all they had were strong white lights, which would be far too bright for the stage. After a bit of negotiation, Tudor averred and avoided forever being remembered as 'the man who refused to light The Beatles'. Mike Dale was relieved. They had been using the WAODS lights for almost a year and Tudor had only just found out. Mike had recently taken on the job and knew he was part of something special: It was a time of rock and roll and the birth of something that was great, he was able to say later. But that was just the start of a memorable evening. The Town Hall was alcohol-free. The previous organiser had taken the staff too, so Mike got his mum, Joan and his dad to do the little cafeteria: crisps, pop and sandwiches. The Beatles played their show with an interval and were thirsty at the break. So, Mike took them across the road to The Victoria Hotel. The Whitchurch Historical and Archaeological Group kindly sent me a recording of Mike and Joan Dale recalling the story.
The Vic was normally businessmen and farmers, it's not like today when anybody sort of went in. And we took them in there and of course, at that time they got long hair, smart, and dressed in the suits with the lapels. And, of course, they didn't know who they were. And the only eyebrow that lifted was when they saw them come in, because they probably hadn't seen anything like that before. We had a couple of drinks and then went back.
iv
In The Vic, with Mike and The Beatles, were Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and booking agent Keith Fisher. I don't think Keith and Tudor were related. Fisher and his business partner Chris Burton ran the Chris Wainwright Agency, on Waterloo Road in Stoke-on-Trent. During the 60's-70's, the Potteries, as the Stoke-on-Trent area is known, was an active nexus of the UK entertainments circuit. Initially, from the mid 1940s Keith was a ‘Bevin Boy’ office worker, rising to deputy manager at the local Chatterley Whitfield coal-mine. Keith was also a washboard player and then drummer in a skiffle trio called The Lionspaw Ramblers, based in Brown Edge, in the Staffordshire Moorlands, north of Stoke-on-Trent. By 1961 he had left the group to become an entertainments agent and the band evolved into The Marauders, whom he then managed, having also left Chatterley Whitfield.
In September 1963 The Marauders were guests on the penultimate episode of The Beatles' BBC radio show Pop Go The Beatles. They were booked in to Whitchurch Town Hall many times by Keith Fisher in 1961 and '62. They had a hit single, That’s What I Want (Decca F 11695), reaching No. 43 and spending four weeks in the top 75 in 1963.
Keith's agency was key funnel for bands Midlands gigs as part of the national circuit. One of his bands The Kingpins played several spells at the Star Club in Hamburg, a venue familiar to the Beatles, in fact the site of their final thirteen night Hamburg residency ending on Monday 31st December 1962, nineteen days before winding their way to Whitchurch.
v
Mike Dale picks up the Beatles, Whitchurch story:
During the last performance I just looked outside and the fog was coming down quite thick. I mentioned this to Brian Epstein and Keith Fisher and he said, 'we won't be long before for we are going.' So, afterwards when it folded up, they shook hands and said 'It's been a good do'. And the Beatles, I think it was John Lennon, looked outside, and they told Ringo and Ringo said, 'Well, I won't be driving in this' - because they got a van, and also they had another van with all the gear in. And one thing led to another: mother and father had already started off, they'd left to make their way home. I thought, 'dare I ask them to come back to our place for a while?' I wondered what mother would say. Anyway, I said, 'Well, I'm walking home. If you want, come home with me and you can have a sandwich and a drink'. And they said 'yes'. So, we drew up outside our house, at 11 Smallbrook road and invited them in to the front sitting room. Mother did them spam and tomato sandwiches and this was about quarter past one in the morning. And then, as they are, they were messing about, banging and tuning their guitars, and then throwing the cushions around. Of course mother came up and she told us off. It was about an hour they were here. And they said, 'we are gonna go now'. It was still a bit foggy, but it was all better than it was. Mother was saying, 'hurry up and get them noisy lot out!' We were concerned about the next door neighbours. And not only that, my two brothers were upstairs in the bedroom and they had to get up catch the bus at quarter- to-six in the morning at the car park, to get to Sankey’s. So they said, 'Where do we go, which way?' Well there's only one way out of town for Liverpool, so I said, 'I'll come with you to the where The Hollies is, the other side of the Chester Road, you can drop me off, and then I can come down the dark walk here again.' So that's what happened. And that was my last personal touch with the Beatles.
More recollections of the night appeared in an article in the Shropshire Star in 2013. Albert Griffiths, 73, said:
They arrived in an old transit, it was as much rust as it was van. At the time we always had great bands performing in Whitchurch on a Saturday night. In many ways it was just another gig but there was an extra bit of excitement around The Beatles. When they came on stage John Lennon was stood right in front of me. He had that sort of cheeky look on his face and was wearing a pair of really old tatty jeans. I remember it well because he had a safety pin on his fly to hold them up. It was a great night. I can't remember most of the songs but I can remember Love Me Do like it was yesterday, it really stood out."
Pam Shaw:
It wasn't Beatlemania, there wasn't people screaming and fainting, but there was a lot of excitement. I can remember being there, dancing and thinking how good they were. I really liked them and from that day I started to take a keen interest in them. I even went up to see them at The Cavern Club in Liverpool.
Councillor Doris Ankers said her late sister, Margaret Raine, met the musicians on the night:
My sister went and she never let us forget it. They were just a group from Liverpool who came down to play and after the show were talking to the crowd. My sister actually sat by the band and was talking to them, they were just starting to get famous but she always said they were very nice.
One woman arrived early and was sitting in the foyer waiting for a friend. When her friend arrived The Beatles were still carrying their own equipment to and from their van. Paul McCartney came up and asked if they wanted to meet the rest of the group backstage. They wanted autographs but the only thing that they had to sign was the stub of a ticket for a concert by Chris Barber's Jazz Band. (Chester Chronicle, 23 October 2008.) The signed stub sold for £2,300 in 2008. About eleven years later another full set of Beatles signatures from that same night sold for £4,200 at auction. The collector of that one had turned down an offer of £100 in 1999. She said:
There was snow on the ground and the temperatures were sub-zero. Because there was so few people there, it was quite relaxed and we got to chat to The Beatles and ask for autographs. We spent about 15 minutes with them. I remember John Lennon plonking away on the piano after the gig. At the time I didn’t even know Ringo Starr’s name. They were all really nice to us. I asked Paul McCartney for his autograph and, as he wrote it, he said out loud, ‘To the most beautiful girl in the world, with all my love and affection’. I expect he said that to all the girls. He was only joking but it’s been my claim to fame ever since! I framed the autographs and put them away in a cupboard for 56 years. I was worried the names would fade if I left them in the light. I wasn’t sure how much the autographs were worth. I thought they might go down in value the longer I kept them. (Shropshire Star Oct 22 2019).
Having enjoyed Mike Dale's generous late night hosting and Mrs Joan Dale's spam tomato sandwiches, the Beatles survived the foggy road back to Liverpool, had a lie in, and were ready for their 272nd appearance at The Cavern the next day.
vi
Looking at the map, it occurred to me that The Beatles may have passed through Whitchurch a few times early in their career. They were all still living in Liverpool, until later in 1963 when they moved more permanently into the capital. Whitchurch is on the way to London via the M6 and M1. Two days after the Whitchurch gig they were due to be in EMI House in London to record the Friday Spectacular, a show for Radio Luxembourg. Normally Neil Aspinall, the Beatles road manager at the time, would have driven them down south, but he was ill with the flu. So Brian Epstein asked the Cavern doorman, Mal Evans if he would do the driving. He agreed, and the next day, as he records in his diary:
Picked up George at about 10.45 then picked up John, Paul & Ringo... George bought me dinner at Whitchurch and took over the driving up to about 20 miles before the M1. My only wish was for better headlights on the van otherwise admirable to drive, and I could not have wished for better company. They [The Beatles] made me feel at home with them at once. After steady 70-75 miles down the M1, entered London via Finchley. The boys seemed to know their way and took us to the door of EMI house. There we met Kenny Lynch, Jess Conrad & Carol Deene all nice people. (Mark Edmunds, The Sunday Times Magazine, 20 March 2005).
There are several way to get to London from Liverpool. The most obvious would have been via the recently built M62. But Mal Evans' route makes sense as George's house at 174 Macket’s Lane was to the east of the city, and Ringo at 10 Admiral Grove, in Dingle was the most westerly of the four. Ringo's was not far from the Queensway Tunnel, under the Mersey and from there it would have been a straight down the A41 from Birkenhead to Whitchurch.
vii
A curious, close-call, connection. From 2004-2017 I lived with my partner, ten miles from central Manchester, near the northern edge of the Peak District National Park, first in Greenfield and then in Mossley. A few miles away was the popular tourist village of Uppermill. We occasionally went to events, dances and gigs in Uppermill Civic Hall.
On Easter Saturday, 13th April 1963, Springhead Amateur Football Club booked The Marauders. Now billed as Bry Martin & The Marauders, the group had been joined by solo Pye recording artist Danny Davis the previous month.
A local advert has a bracketed reference to the Beatles. Strangely, the Beatles were only booked to make an appearance, not to play music. Sadly, the Beatles had to cancel the appearance. They had played the Co-operative Hall in Middleton, only ten miles away the previous Thursday. Next day, Good Friday, they played the Cavern Club’s “Rhythm & Blues Marathon”. Then, instead of their brief appearance over in Uppermill, they were down in London taping songs for The 625 Show. This was also the same day the Beatles met the Rolling Stones for the first time, as mentioned above, at The Crawdaddy Club, in Richmond-upon-Thames.They could probably be forgiven (though maybe not by the locals) as this would be their first national BBC network TV appearance. The 625 Show was aired on the following Tuesday, 16th April. Brian Epstein knew what he was doing.
The Blackjacks, actually spelt The BlakJaks were a band from Oldham who became Remo Sand and The Spinning Tops.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Judith Hoyle, volunteer curator and Philip Walker at Whitchurch History and Archaeology Group (WHAG).
Many thanks to Mike Dale and his mother Joan for their recollections.
The recordings of Mike and Joan Dale were produced by Liza Willis and Philip Walker of WHAG.
Thanks to Joan and Mike Dale, Liza Willis and Philip Walker for permission to use the recordings.
Thanks to Louise Ferriday, archive services manager at Stoke-on-Trent City Archives.