IWASN’T BEATLES
60 YEARS OF TEEN
IN THE first of a three-part series marking STV’s 60th year, Paul Young looks back on his career, which began with the fledgling channel’s kids’ magazine show Round Up in 1961 TELLY veteran Paul Young can tell how old you are from the show you associate with him.
“If somebody is over 30, it’s the fishing programmes. Under 30, Still Game,” he said.
And if they have a bus pass, it’s Round Up. That was STV’s early 60s offering for young people, a kids’ magazine show broadcast live from Glasgow at tea-time on Tuesdays.
Paul made the initial six pilots in between sitting his Highers then fronted the show until 1966. “It was Blue Peterish but less groovy,” he recalled. “This was Scotland in 1961.”
While the teenage TV presenter met all the stars who passed through Scotland, his three encounters with the Beatles stand out.
Paul recalled: “One day it was just on the script – The Beatles. We didn’t think anything of it. I’d heard their single called Love Me Do and thought, ‘I like that, nice bit of harmonica’.”
This was the start of their career, when the Fab Four were just another beat combo. It was their first appearance on Scottish television.
“They were very smart and mannerly,” Paul said. “I chatted with Paul about the name. He told me he had a brother called Michael, which was a normal Liverpool name, not like Paul. So there was a bit of rapport on that.”
Five months later, the two Pauls came face to face again. The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers were performing at the Odeon Cinema in