OKAY so i finally finished the Craig Brown book and this chapter was one of my favourites, what an amazing portrait of fannishness:
In Reseda, California, sixteen-year-old Pam Miller was so besotted with the new arrivals that within the privacy of her schoolgirl diary she turned herself into a Liverpudlian. On 10 February 1964 she wrote: 'Paul you are gear. Really Fab. Say chum, why are you so marvellous, luv? The most bloomin' idiot on earth is me, cause I'm wild over you chap'.
From then on she posted Paul a poem every day, sealed with a kiss. As February rolled into March, her diary entries grew more intimate:
2 March 1964: It is 2:21 am at Paul's house. He's sleeping. I'm glad. I wish I could see him sleeping, I really do. I wish I could be with him sleeping (just kidding). I hope he read my poem before he closed his beautiful brown eyes.
Pam was perhaps rather more forward than other Beatles fans of her age. One of her particular treasures was a bubble-gum card of Paul - a photograph of him playing his guitar on a hotel bed, with his legs apart. She studied it close-up: 'You could actually see the shape of balls being crushed by the tightness of his trousers. I carried that card around with me in a little gold box with cotton covering it like it was a precious jewel'.
Virtually every day, on her local radio station KRLA the disc jockey Dave Hull, 'the Hullabalooer', would deliver an update on the state of Paul's relationship with his new girlfriend. Pam listened with growing resentment of the young lady she came to call 'the creepy freckle-faced bow-wow, Jane Asher', or simply 'Pig-Face'.
Pam covered her bedroom with Beatles merchandise. Her three best friends were also Beatles fans. Each her her own favourite. Stevie loved Ringo: 'I've got to meet Ringo or my whole life will be completely empty. Oh, I'm suffering so. He's my love and I love him. Oh, God, please don't let my Ringo be taken away!'
Linda loved John. Together, Pam and Linda would be Paul and John. They spoke to each other in Liverpudlian accents, pretending to go to parties and to eat in expensive restaurants. Pam had a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and would make up little plays, taking all the parts herself. In all of them, Jane Asher would die. But in her letters to Paul, she was the soul of tact:
Dear Paul, Your fans will always love you. Personally, I will never stop. Since hearing about your engagement to Jane Asher, I'll have to love you in another way, all of my own.
Pam's friend Kathy was in love with George. It so happened that Kathy's father had a pal who worked at the Hollywood Bowl, where the Beatles were due to play in August. Luckily, this pal managed to wangle them four tickets. Pam framed hers, hung it on her bedroom wall and started counting down. In her diary entry for 3 June she wrote: 'There's an actual day this year that is called August 23rd! It comes in 83 days!!'
With twenty-one days to go, the four girls went to see A Hard Day's Night. It was everything Pamela hoped it would be. 'The Beatles are the greatest actors alive,' she told her diary.
On 23 August she wrote: 'Day Of All!! Tonight I saw Paul. I actually looked at his lean slender body and unique too-long legs. I saw his dimples and his pearly white teeth. I saw his wavy, yet straight lengthy hair. I saw his doe-like eyes... and they saw me. Maybe it's fate that brought him to our sunny shores... for I am here too'.
One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, Craig Brown (2020)
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