John: Touting Beatles tickets

Feb 4 2010 by John Avison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

NOBODY asked me for my memories of the day the Beatles came to town, but I’m not pouting.

As reported this week, author and former journalist Martin Creasy is putting together a book about the 1963-65 Beatles tours of the UK.

They arrived at the ABC cinema in Market Street on November 29, 1963, and I was there.

I was an uncritical fan of Beatle music and the whole exciting culture shock that Beatlemania had thrust upon the pop scene.

There had been a rumour that the Beatles were staying the night before the concert in MIrfield.

One strand was that they were staying with some friends in St Paul’s Road.

I hung about there for a while but nothing stirred, so I checked out the second strand of rumour, which was that the Fab Foursome were holed up at the Marmaville Club down Church Lane.

This too turned out to be probably a dud, though as a 14-year-old I wasn’t brave enough to sneak into the place and check it out personally.

I just hung about outside until I got cold, then I went home.

The concert itself was a bit of a let-down. I had no problem seeing my heroes, but I heard barely a note of the music – the screaming was too loud.

I’d queued in the rain some time before for tickets, and I bought half a dozen for 7/6d (37½p) each, which – at a time when my spending money was 5/- (50p) a week was a massive outlay.

But I had begged and borrowed, and I had a cunning plan.

I touted four of the tickets in the old Market Hall for 15/- (75p) each, and invested the profits in some nice foreign stamps. Such was life then.