Fab memory ofThe Beatles Fan recalls moment legends signed photo in ATV studios canteen
IT’S a fab photograph – and may be worth a bob or two. The rare Beatles picture, signed by the Fab Four 58 years ago in Birmingham, is going under the hammer in the Midlands and is expected to realise around £3,000.
Sutton Coldfield grandmother Monica Hayes vividly remembers her mother surprising her with the precious autograph, signed during a break in filming at Alpha television studios in Aston.
Monica’s mother Norah Sargent was working in the canteen at the ATV/ABC studios when The Beatles went to grab a bite to eat in between filming for a show.
Knowing her daughter was a big fan, Norah asked them for their autographs.
A publicity photo was promptly produced and John, Paul, George and Ringo all signed it in front of her. Monica, now 74, said: “I was in bed when she got home and she just came in, showed me the signed photo and said it was for me.
“She was thrilled she’d brought it home and I didn’t sleep well that night because she’d shown it to me! “Our family had a saying in the house, ‘honest to God’. If you said ‘honest to God’ it had to mean you were telling the truth.
“So I spent a long time saying to mum ‘say honest to God, say honest to God’, because I just couldn’t believe all four Beatles had signed a photo for me.” The photograph shows the band wearing their trademark matching 1963 collarless suits, based on a Pierre Cardin design reproduced by Beatles tailor Dougie Millings.
It is a style specific to the momentous year in which The Beatles released their debut LP Please Please Me and second album With The Beatles.
Norah loved working at the Aston studio and took the opportunity to mingle with stars of the day and ask for signatures for her younger daugh
ter Anne’s autograph book. But Norah knew Monica was the big Beatles fan.
“The Rolling Stones never appealed to me at all,” added Monica. I liked the look of The Beatles and I was also a fan of Rod Stewart, Tom Jones and Elvis.”
She added: “I must admit I don’t listen to The Beatles anymore – but I still love Tom Jones and Rod Stewart.”
The Beatles rarely had a day off in 1963, with a punishing schedule including recording sessions, concerts, TV and radio appearances.
Please Please Me had been number one in the UK album charts for seven months before it was usurped by With The Beatles. The two albums gave the band a back-toback run of 51 chart-topping weeks.
1963 also saw three Beatles EPs including Twist and Shout – the best-selling extended play release of the year.
The signed photo will now be sold at Lichfield based Richard Winterton Auctioneers’ antiques and home sale on Monday.
“As well as truly being ‘toppermost of the poppermost’ and dominating the charts in 1963, it was becoming increasingly apparent that The Beatles were more than a simple teen sensation,” said auctioneer Richard Winterton.
Later in the year they appeared on Sunday Night At The London Palladium in front of a TV audience of 15,000,000 viewers, gave the landmark Royal Command Performance and Lennon and McCartney were dubbed “the outstanding English composers of 1963” by The Times’ music critic William Mann. Beatlemania was well and truly under way and to have a photograph with such impeccable provenance signed by all four members during this pivotal year is fab indeed.