From Cricket Bats to Beatles
The Summer of ’63 was long and hot. So were all the others of my childhood – or at least that’s how I remember them. In the Summer of ’63 I embarked on my voyage of musical discovery. Conventional media in which hidden gems are mined by intrepid music fans include live gigs and radio shows, friends’ enthusiasm and, of course, in these digital days, the internet. The shaded knoll at the edge of a prep school cricket pitch may seem more unlikely. This is especially the case since the prep school in question, the Lower School of Portsmouth Grammar, was not then an institution in which pop was part of the culture. The school was run with military precision by a group of authoritarian teachers. They had spent their teens and early twenties fighting the Battle of Britain in impossibly flimsy wooden Spitfires and watching their friends fry in tanks at El Alamein; one had even survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp inBurma
The Summer of ’63 was long and hot. So were all the others of my childhood – or at least that’s how I remember them. In the Summer of ’63 I embarked on my voyage of musical discovery. Conventional media in which hidden gems are mined by intrepid music fans include live gigs and radio shows, friends’ enthusiasm and, of course, in these digital days, the internet. The shaded knoll at the edge of a prep school cricket pitch may seem more unlikely. This is especially the case since the prep school in question, the Lower School of Portsmouth Grammar, was not then an institution in which pop was part of the culture. The school was run with military precision by a group of authoritarian teachers. They had spent their teens and early twenties fighting the Battle of Britain in impossibly flimsy wooden Spitfires and watching their friends fry in tanks at El Alamein; one had even survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp in
While waiting my turn to bat, three or four of my classmates spontaneously picked up their cricket bats, started to strum them in imitation guitar mode and to sing ‘From Me To You’. It was the first time I had heard of the Beatles. A couple of months previously the band’s ‘Please, Please Me’ had topped the charts, but somehow the event had passed me by. My listening thus far had focussed on instrumentals – The Tornados, The Shadows, The Spotnicks and Jet Harris & Tony Meehan. By the time the next games afternoon came round, I was word perfect and confidently joined in.
By the end of that summer and the release of the follow-up single ‘She Loves You’, in common with millions of others I was indelibly affected by the generational phenomenon of Beatlemania. Impossible for my children to comprehend, those who were there knew, understood and believed. The emergence of the Beatles defined the parameters of a new cultural order. A couple of years later The Who would be ‘talkin’ ‘bout my generation’. However, without the Beatles it is questionable as to whether the conversation would have started in quite the way it did.
‘From Me To You’ and ‘She Loves You’ by The Beatles both appear in my collection on the original Parlophone singles. They also both appear on the so-called ‘Red Album': The Beatles ’62-’66 released on vinyl in 1973. There is also a brief live-studio performance of ‘From Me To you’ on The Beatles ‘Live at the BBC’ released as a 2CD set in 1994. Hava Nagila’ by The Spotnicks is a single on the Oriole label released in 1963. Two singles by The Tornados - ‘Telstar’ and ‘Globetrotter’ and three by Jet Harris & Tony Meehan – ‘Diamonds’, ‘Scarlet O’Hara’ and ‘Applejack’ are all original Decca releases from 1962 and 1963. ‘The Shadows Collection’ is a 22 track compilation CD released by HMV in 2001.
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