It was sixty years ago today

The Beatles’ final show at the Colston Hall – on November 11, 1964 – was also the last night of their Autumn tour. Showbiz tradition dictates that pranks will be played on these occasions. In the words of the Western Daily Press, as the quartet played If I Fell at the climax of the second house a “mystery man opened a lighting vent in the roof and emptied a large bag of flour on the group. The audience went mad with delight as it dropped in a white stream on the unsuspecting Beatles. John, Paul, George and Ringo broke into fits of laughter as the cloud settled on them.”

One person who was decidedly unamused was Hall manager Ken Cowley. The outraged official demanded to know how his iron ring of security had been breached. It hadn’t been difficult. Turned out that no fewer than 17 schoolgirls, including ticketless 13-year-old Hilary Wiltshire, snuck in through a back entrance left open for the cleaners and crammed themselves into a toilet. Only when one of them coughed was their enterprising ruse rumbled.

As for the mystery flour bomber, the following day the Bristol Evening Post ran a story headlined ‘How We Bombed the Beatles’. Three lads and a copper’s daughter claimed they’d done it by shinning up a drainpipe, running across two roofs, dropping through a trapdoor and waiting for their moment.

The Fabs’ favourite local reporter, the Post‘s Roger Bennett, who’d been granted another exclusive interview prior to the show, wasn’t convinced. With a tenacity that would have shamed Woodward and Bernstein, he mounted a special investigation that eventually unmasked the real culprit: a stagehand.

George Harrison and Ringo Starr at the Colston Hall in 1963. Pic: Bristol Post

What Roger didn’t know, or was perhaps complicit in concealing, was that the barrage of screaming often drowned out a very different side of those lovable, cheeky moptops. In Paul Rees’s biography of John Entwistle, The Ox, he tells the story of The High Numbers (shortly to become The Who) supporting The Beatles at Blackpool Opera House a few months before this Colston Hall show. The bassist described how, as usual, it was impossible to hear a note of music above the noise, which had led to the Fabs becoming increasingly jaded by 1964.

But those old theatre dressing rooms always had a speaker feed on the wall coming directly from the stage microphones. So after their set, The High Numbers settled back to listen to The Beatles. In notes written for his proposed autobiography, Entwistle remarked: “Soon, the four of us were crying with laughter at the words they were singing and which only we were able pick up on – It’s Been a Hard Day’s Cock, I Wanna Hold Your Cunt . . .”

Bristol’s final tally? Twelve girls collapsed with what was described as “emotional stress” while a further two were intercepted attempting to make a more personal connection with the objects of their lust on stage.

The Beatles’ first headline show round these parts took place at the Bath Pavilion on June 10, 1963 – a week before Paul McCartney’s 21st birthday. They’d previously appeared at the Colston Hall in March as a support act on the Tommy Roe/Chris Montez tour.

Fascinating Fabs trivia note: In his exemplary Beatles book One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, Craig Brown tells the story of John Lennon being given a short back and sides by German barber Klaus Baruch. This was in preparation for the bespectacled moptop’s role as Private Gripweed in Richard Lester’s How I Won the War, which was filmed in 1966 and released the following year. Brian Epstein was so determined not to feed the collectors’ market that he instructed road manager/personal assistant Neil Aspinall to personally supervise incineration of the Beatle clippings.

But wily Klaus clearly held on to some of them. Fifty years later, a four inch lock was put on sale by Heritage Auctions of Dallas. It went for £35,000 – three times the estimate – to Paul Fraser of Bristol. This proved a very canny investment for Mr Fraser of Paul Fraser Collectibles on Whiteladies Road, Clifton. On his website, he will now sell you a half inch single strand from the noggin of Dr. Winston O’Boogie for a princely £399. Your loot also gets you  a photocopy of Lennon’s signed call sheet and certificate of authenticity. The strand is presented on a display card inside a frame, ready to hang or stand. “We believe these to be the only strands of John Lennon’s hair available on the market,” the company notes.

Should you be wondering, the current going rate for a full set of Beatles autographs on a single sheet or photograph, also available from Paul Fraser Collectibles, is in the region of £20,000-£30,000.

Extracted from ‘The West’s Greatest Rock Shows 1963-1978: Lost, Forgotten and Previously Untold Eye-Opening Tales from the Gigs You’ll Wish You’d Seen’ by Robin Askew (Bristol Books), available from all good bookshops.

Main image: The Beatles at the Colston Hall, 1963. Credit: Bristol Evening Post