#pre:fab

[zilabee]

Colin Hanton, re Mimi:

"In those early days we certainly only practised at Mendips on a very few occasions as a full six-piece group. Although she was more relaxed about things than you might expect, Mimi was concerned about the noise we made and possible complaints from either the neighbours or of distracting the student lodgers who were studying next door in the dining room. […] having said that, when we did Mimi was very hospitable, she always served us tea and biscuits in the tiny morning room next to the kitchen.

She had the ability to terrify everybody, a cross between a headmistress and a chief librarian. Yet she was also the first adult I recall who would hold a conversation with you as an equal. She didn't talk down to you or treat you like a silly teenager like a lot of parents would. She would talk to us about the group and the music and other subjects, about life in general. She paid us respect, for which, in turn, I respected her."

Colin Hanton, re Julia:

"He said he was going to see his mum and asked did I want to go with him? I was a bit surprised by this because up to this point no one in the Quarry Men had mentioned John's mum and I'd never thought to ask if he even had one. I just accepted he was living with his aunt for whatever reason. It wasn't unusual at the time - post-war - for a parent to be missing. Think about it: Eric's dad was missing, and Ivan's, both casualties of the war. In those days many families were missing people: not just dads but mums too, because of the Blitz. It was something you almost took for granted, so you didn't talk about it. It was private. Anyway I went along with John to visit his mother.

I was immediately taken with Julia: she was vivacious, full of fun and friendly, not like most mums I knew who could be a bit guarded when you first met them. […] We hadn't been there very long before she produced a banjo and began singing a song. I was fascinated: a mum playing a banjo and singing. In my experience this was a bit different. And she was really good."

"Apart from the church fete the only time I remember seeing Julia in the audience was when we played a club on Penny Lane. […] We could all see that John was really pleased when his mum showed up that night. the rest of us were too: for one thing her presence almost doubled the size of the audience. As I looked out from my drums she was sitting almost at the front, on the right-hand side of the stage quite close to where we were, while other members of the audience were dancing. John acknowledged her from the stage and played up to her quite a lot, as if he was performing just for her. Every time we finished a song, Julia clapped very loudly and enthusiastically which was great because not many others were. She was clearly pleased and proud to see and hear John performing with his group.

After we had finished, Julia came over and told us how much she had enjoyed our set. As ever she was great to be around: one of the few parents who appreciated what we were doing. Jim McCartney was another. However, there was something special and engaging about Julia. All these years later I still feel privileged to have known her and to have witnessed the musical bond between her and John. It was very loving and very strong."

from pre:fab! by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall

[zilabee]

I've just finished Pre:Fab by Colin Hanton. It's lovely. I love books by people who knew them before they were beatles. I love the tiny soft-cheeked quarry man world. I love most of all their obsession with talent contests and how often they tried and how never they won. I love that they were 'scored' by how loud the audience's applause was - something the beatles would later win on a global historical magnificent scale because Paul doesn't like to lose at things.

This is Colin talking about Paul's first (or nearly first) gig. They're entering a talent contest but when they get there, they're expected to pay to come into the club, as if they're regular customers:

"[John] didn't like it one bit: paying to play did not sit right with John Lennon, and it is this that convinces me that this was Paul's first performance as a Quarry Man. You see we did eventually pay to go in - John included, and it was Paul McCartney who convinced John we should do so. Paul's reasoning was we were more than good enough to win the prize money. In Paul's mind it was a foregone conclusion. He argued that as we would soon be walking off with the cash prize anyway, we could afford to pay to go inside. He was very persuasive. His conviction was simply irresistible. (I think more than anything, having come this far to play with us for the very first time, Paul really wanted to play.) So we all did cough up and in we trooped, set up, performed and, of course, proceeded not to win. It was undoubtedly a reality check for our new super-confident guitarist. We all came away out of pocket, but steeped in admiration for Paul's enthusiasm and blind faith in the Quarry Men's ability. He had impressed us all."

Another time, months later, waiting for a different talent show to start:

"Sitting in the green room, waiting to go on, we noticed a poster on the wall advertising another talent contest scheduled for the next weekend. It was a bit different from usual, however, in that it was specifically for male singers - either as solo acts or duets, not groups." Colin remembers that the poster clearly excited Paul's interest, who immediately drew it to John's attention, commenting "we could do that - we could enter that as a duo." Without hesitation John emphatically replied, "No, I'm not doing that, we're a group." Colin looked anxiously to see what Paul might have to say about John's rebuttal, but he didn't say a word. "That was the end of that discussion. In my presence, Paul never suggested it or anything like it again."

[zilabee]

"I wasn't there because ahead of the Quarry Men's evening performance I'd gone home for a bite to eat. I only lived a ten minute walk away and hadn't eaten since breakfast, so after coming off the church field and putting my kit in place ready for the evening's performance I'd nipped home for my tea and in the process I missed that historic audition."

- - - Colin Hanton

"I must have nipped out to the toilet because I have no memory of the greatest meeting in rock n roll history."

- - - Rod Davis

"I noticed Paul while we were playing. He was standing with Ivan... but I don't remember him carrying a guitar."

- - - Eric Griffiths

Pre:Fab! - by Hanton and Hall.

-

History quietly shifting itself into place, while half the quarry men are looking the other way.

I just I love that some people are out there writing meaningful fantastic remembrances about Paul's eyelashes and electricity in the air, and then others are like 'I don't know, maybe he was there..?'

Colin Hanton (quarry man) consistently claims that Paul met John before the Quarry Men went on to play in the afternoon. Colin was in the scout hut, playing his drums with one of the scouts, getting ready for the afternoon performance:

"At the far end of the hut, I noticed John had returned by himself. [...] He was standing talking to another scout. It was at this moment that Ivan Vaughan walked in accompanied by this dark-haired lad whom I'd never seen before. I carried on jamming while the three of them stood talking. This carried on for about five or ten minutes, after which John, Ivy, and the stranger left the scout hut together."

Sounds completely like what a constructed memory of that event would seem like, but also sounds completely like something that might have happened too, and we'll never know.

Eric, meanwhile, believes that he was there for the 'historic meeting' in the church, but that Paul never played guitar for them at that point, no matter what Paul, John, Pete, Len and Ivan have to say. He thinks John first heard Paul play a few days later when John and Eric went round to Forthlin Road specially for the 'audition'. That's where he thinks Paul played Twenty Flight Rock for the first time.

Beatles fandom is an incredible study in the vagaries of memory. I love it. It's fantastic how little we will ever know.

As Colin Hall (biographer) writes:

Like most bands, they met a lot of new people every time they were booked to play. Often there'd be a lot of people hanging out with them before or after a performance. No wonder that, in the interim, exact memories faded, details disappeared. It would be many years after the event that the Quarry Men would be asked to describe this day in the forensic detail people now want from them. [...] They were not all present in the same places for some of the key moments. At the time it was a fun day, but of no great significance to most of them beyond the moment of their performance.

He also points out that an article published just one week after the fete, ("All the Fun of the Fair at Woolton" in the Liverpool Weekly News) which is an eye-witness report written while everything was still fresh... claimed that Colin wasn't there, and the Quarry Men played without a drummer. Something easily disproved by any photograph of the day.

Give up, surrender! Beatles reporting has been pure fiction from day nought. Nothing is knowable. Everything is mist. You can keep trying, you will get nowhere. Honestly it's all an imagination, so imagine wonderful things.

[zilabee]

When Paul first invited the Quarry Men to rehearse at his house - and to meet his dad - he met them in town to walk them over. On the way back they ran into a sailor returning home on leave, who was really excited to meet a band, and insisted that they come to the pub and play him a song.

Colin Hall (the book's narrator) writes:

"It was an offer the boys could not resist, although Paul's face immediately dropped. This was the last thing he needed. He was reluctant to accept the invitation because he knew his dad was waiting to meet the Quarry Men for the very first time. To turn up at home with a bunch of lads about whom he'd told Dad so much, and whom Jim was keen to meet, but who were now likely to arrive 'half cut' was Paul's worst nightmare."

Colin Hanton explains how they had a couple of pints and sang the guy a song as they left. He then says:

"Paul was clearly anxious that his dad would smell the beer on our breath and frustrated that there was nothing he could do about it. John reassured him we would be alright, it was half a mile at least to number 20 and the walk in the fresh air would take away the smell of the pub and beer. Reassured, but not entirely convinced, Paul walked ahead of us while we followed."

I know it's nothing but I love Paul being "clearly anxious" around these early days and John being okay about it instead of awful.

The meeting with Jim and Mike went fine though, and Colin mentions: "We also learned that their mum, Mary, had passed away a few years earlier."

"After about an hour, as would become the norm for our many rehearsals at Paul's, the glass doors opened and Jim popped his head round to ask if we were ready for a cup of tea. He was very obliging like that and always struck me as a very pleasant, sociable, and friendly man. After Jim served us tea, we carried on for another half hour before calling it a day. I think, despite the beery breath, we had passed the audition. Jim certainly didn't throw us out or make any comments about the smell of beer, he couldn't have been more hospitable. Indeed we were invited back many times to rehearse. Being a musician himself and a former band leader, Jim understood the importance of a good rehearsal space in which you felt at ease. Rehearsing at Paul's house was always enjoyable, Jim was always encouraging, and his warm welcome allowed us to relax and focus on the music."

Pre:Fab! by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall

[zilabee]

Colin Hanton left the Quarry Men because of a gig at the Finch Lane Busmen's Sports and Social Club. It was a club George's dad was a member of, and he he was the one who'd got them the gig. He and George's mum were both in the audience. The Quarry Men went on, played four songs, beautifully, and took their bow. But the curtain didn't close:

"Despite the best efforts of a chap in the wings it refused to move. So instead of us standing on the stage twiddling our thumbs, John announced to the audience that we would do another number while the curtain was fixed. And so we did. [...] As we left the stage the chap working the curtains congratulated us for covering the situation so professionally. The MC also approached and congratulated us, telling us we'd performed really well and that if we wanted to go to the bar there was a pint each waiting for us."

They proceeded to get very drunk.

"Unfortunately we didn't stop at one pint. We had several. George Harrison recalls we were drinking 'black velvets'. [...] We even took drinks with us back to the green room where we continued to have quite a party. As far as I can recall, George abstained after that first beer and remained relatively sober, but in no way did he hold back from some noisy partying. At one stage I remember standing on a chair in the green room singing away at the top of my voice. We were really into it, no holds barred."

What nobody had told Colin was that they were expected to play a second set.

"George was certainly aware we were expected to do so. I can't be certain John and Paul knew, although it seems more than probable they did. Whatever any of us knew or didn't know, somehow, quite drunk and not really capable of playing, we teetered and tumbled back on stage. [...] We were ragged and by the end of the first song John and Paul were finding it hard to focus on performing at all. They were mostly laughing and joking together, lost in their own private world. As a group we were almost oblivious of the audience, completely focused on our in-jokes and stupidity. George had become quiet and acutely embarrassed. [...] In front of an audience we had wowed with our first set, we had no literally fallen apart. To prevent further embarrassment the MC ordered the curtains to be drawn."

The curtain guy and the MC both told them how they'd themselves down, and were politely disappointed in them. But John and Paul continued to find it all hilarious and make jokes. It slowly dawned on Colin that the manager of another venue, the Pivvy, had also attended specially to see them because he'd been interested in booking them for regular gigs at the bingo hall. Obviously he decided not to hire them after all and tried to be polite about it, while Paul and John made jokes about him. Pete Shotton was the one to explain all this to Colin.

"I was angry. What was really getting to me most of all was that, even though by then he wasn't in the group, Pete knew exactly what was going on but I didn't. It really struck home that once again no one had let me know what was happening. They did not seem to care. They just contacted me when they needed me. I felt like the dogsbody, a spare part. It had become the theme of the times."

Paul and John continued joking and cracking up on bus on the way home, putting on stupid voices.

"Once we settled into our seats on the top deck of the bus, unfortunately Paul continued speaking in that silly voice and I continued to let it bother me. By now I was feeling outright anger about the way the evening had panned out and Paul's voice had become the focus for my bad temper. If I had a critic in the group it was Paul, and so, subconsciously, I was probably feeling some anger towards him even before the evening had started. Everything that was irritating me and upsetting me about being in the Quarry Men was now buzzing around inside my head. That whole evening summed up how frustrated I'd become. I wasn't enjoying it anymore. The drink I'd consumed only contributed to my dark mood. I did my best to stay cool, but the more I suppressed it, the worse I felt. In the end, my temper just broke. I snapped. My temper blew and Paul was the unfortunate target of the full fury of my anger. I remember screaming at him, "Shut up, speaking in that stupid bloody voice!" Such was the fury in my voice I frightened myself, so goodness knows how he must have felt. But from that moment I had his full attention. Shock and horror registered on his face, the voice silenced. John and George both looked absolutely startled. I'd stopped them in their tracks too."

At this point Pete grabbed Colin by the arm and told him it was their stop and hurried him off the bus. It wasn't their stop, but it was the end of Colin's Quarry Man days. He simply didn't bother getting back in touch with them, or them with him. He put his drums away and put it all behind him.

Quotes from Pre:fab! by Colin Hanton and Colin Hall.

[zilabee]

The Quarry Men playing the Cavern:

"Once we'd played ourselves in, we changed gear, came out of the blocks ready to shake the joint as we started to rock: 'Be Bop a Lula', 'All Shook Up', 'Twenty Flight Rock' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On'. In our minds these were some of our best numbers, guaranteed floor-fillers." The Quarry Men were flying, but to their gobsmacked dismay, particularly John's, the audience began to disappear. [...] John turned to Colin in dismay, shouting, "They're all leaving, walking out!" He was clearly upset. What made it worse was that the more the Quarry Men put into their performance, the more the audience shrank. "We gave it everything, but the sight of the audience leaving was really troubling. By the end we couldn't wait to get off. Back in the green room John was flabbergasted, despondent: he couldn't believe everyone had just got up and walked out. None of us could." As the Quarry Men sat commiserating, wondering what had gone wrong, the door to the green room flew open and in burst a highly exuberant, highly animated Shotton and Walley. Pete exclaimed, "God that was great: the best show I've ever seen you do!" "We looked at them as if they were crazy. Surely they were having us on: we'd seen those people leave. Why would they say this to us? Was it some kind of stupid joke?" In utter disbelief, John shook his head and cried out, "What do you mean, best show we've ever done? The fucking audience walked out!" John's outburst drew Nige and Pete up sharp, momentarily silenced as the penny dropped and they realised that from the stage the Quarry Men could not have seen what was really happening. "Yes, the audience had left their seats, no arguments about that, but not to walk out on us, but because our performance had really got them going. Instead they were on their feet dancing. The central arch was full of seats which meant there was no room to dance in that space. Consequently, the audience had moved to the sides where there were no obstructions. That's where they'd gone. Those spaces at the side were rammed with kids dancing."

from Pre:Fab!, by Hanton and Hall