The band peeking above the hollyhocks with St Pancras Hospital in the background |
Camden Feature | Review| Book of photos by three Beatles fans | St Pancras and Old Street
A book of photos compiled by three Beatles fanatics illustrates John, Paul, George and Ringo’s ‘mad’ walkabouts around St Pancras and Old Street, writes Catherine Etoe
THE Beatles may have been bigger than Jesus, but the sight of them trundling around St Pancras Old Church and nearby gardens was still a surprise to the good folk of King’s Cross.
Yet there they were one fine Sunday in 1968 – John, Paul, George and Ringo – cheekily peeking above the hollyhocks over by St Pancras Hospital and confidently standing astride the doorway of St Pancras Church.
The visit was part of a “Mad Day” photo shoot with star snapper Don McCullin that would take in leafy Swain’s Lane in Highgate and the concrete jungle of Old Street roundabout in Islington.
But the maddest moment of that July day must surely have been in Pancras Road when nearby residents streamed out of their homes to glimpse the biggest pop stars in the land in their churchyard.
“I imagine word went around pretty quickly so quite a crowd gathered,” says Adam Smith, co-author of a vibrant new book which retells how McCullin urged the Beatles to mingle with the crowd for photos that would go on to adorn magazine covers and albums.
It is a fascinating dollop of trivia from an up-dated and relaunched version of a book first compiled in 1994 by then Camden resident Smith and fellow Beatles fanatics Piet Schreuders and Mark Lewisohn.
Rigorously researched, The Beatles’ London bids to offer the uber-fan or merely curious a more complete picture of the band through almost 500 buildings, open spaces and landmarks that meant something to the Fab Four.
“There is an enduring fascination with place in history,” says Smith, who insists that the book is not intended as a narrative, it simply “brings together information which really has no place anywhere else”.
But this is no lazy pointer to the tired old places we already know the Fab Four lived and worked in. It actually reveals where they fell in love, got married, had children, formed friendships and penned hit songs during their swinging Sixties hey-day up until 1970, when the four weren’t feeling so fabulous anymore.
“It’s been a huge labour of love for us,” says Smith. “There’s sweat in every entry and the detective work has been very satisfying too.”
Readers can get their own brand of satisfaction with a little help from the book’s “Fab” walking tour suggestion or 35 area guides, which see pithy anecdotes juxtaposed with original and contemporary illustrations and photos.
Open the Soho pages and you can take a stroll to the Bag O’Nails club in Soho, known as a regular Beatles’ haunt but marked out as the place where Paul first clapped eyes on Linda while Georgie Fame belted out a number in the corner.
Over by the Prince Charles cinema near Leicester Square, you can stand agog at the site of the old Ad Lib Club where Ringo went down on one knee to Maureen Cox, before hot-footing it to Marylebone to find the registry office where Paul and Linda said “I do”.
The insights continue in Russell Square where you can walk in the boys’ footsteps during a shoot with photographer Dezo Hoffmann, while in Euston Road you can find the site of the old Orange Tree pub where, after its demolition in 1963, the boys leapt above the rubble for a photo that would be used as the cover of Twist and Shout.
Up in Hampstead you can find the flat where Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards thrilled John Lennon with an “all-night record session” and the Heath Street house where George first bashed out Within You Without You on his mate’s pedal harmonium. Just across the border in Islington, you can even check out the bar on Holloway Road where John and Yoko somewhat strangely swapped their locks of hair for a bloodied pair of Muhammed Ali shorts with black activist Michael X.
Mad days? Seems like The Beatles had plenty of them.
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