IT WAS every teenager’s dream date – a private two-hour concert by the hottest new band around.
The year was 1963. The venue was the ABC cinema in Huddersfield. And the band was...The Beatles!
Paul Berriff was a 16-year-old aspiring photographer when he decided to practice his skills at pop concerts around Yorkshire.
There was an up-and-coming band called The Beatles and Paul followed them around the county.
He took pictures of them in Leeds and Doncaster but it was in Huddersfield where he had his most memorable experience.
Paul had taken his girlfriend June with him to the ABC on November 29 - and ended up having a private audience as The Beatles performed their brand new single I Want to Hold Your Hand live for the first time.
Paul said: “I usually got to the theatres around 5pm but this day we got there at 3pm.
“It was quiet so we went to sit in the auditorium to kill time .
“We’d been there for half-an-hour when the stage lights came on and, surprisingly, The Beatles walked on and started setting up their amplifiers.
“They had just launched I Want to Hold Your Hand and had never played it live before.
“They started singing it and June and I sat enthralled as they practised what became one of their biggest selling singles. It was amazing, just like having our own private concert.”
After the warm-up session Paul got chatting to the Fab Four and snapped the band with their feet up on the ABC seats!
Paul said Paul McCartney was always the band’s PR man.
“By the time of the Huddersfield concert I had met them twice before in Leeds and Doncaster so Paul remembered me and asked how I was getting on with my photography and we had a long chat. He realised the value of the media.
“As I recall he was eyeing up my girlfriend and seemed more interested in her than me!”
Despite the date from heaven, Paul and June’s relationship only lasted another few months and the couple lost touch.
Around the same time Paul also photographed other top stars including the Rolling Stones, The Hollies, Roy Orbison and Gerry and the Pacemakers.
He landed a job with a newspaper and the negatives of the pictures he took were put away in a box.
Click on the link below to view a gallery of The Beatles in Yorkshire including the Huddersfield gig
