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I was given a sense of wonder as a kid by a love of science-fiction and produced my own fanzine called Biped and also contributed to and illustrated dozens of others, particularly ones run by my pen pal Mike Moorcock, who became a noted science-fiction author.

After winning a scholarship to the Junior Art School in Gambier Terrace, Liverpool, I found they didn’t have a magazine, so I proposed one, became the editor, was given a tiny room in the attic, desk, chair, typewriter and duplication machine and produced a magazine called ‘Premier.’

 

When I entered the College of Art in Hope Street, I borrowed the duplicating machine there and produced a magazine called ‘Jazz’.

I heard good things about a new student called Stuart Sutcliffe and sought him out as a friend. Then one day I noticed another student in the canteen. He stuck out because he was dressed like a Teddy Boy while most of the other students conformed to ‘art school’ dress of duffle coats and turtle neck sweaters. I also sought him out, his name was John Lennon and I introduced him to Stu and, together with another friend, Rod Murray, we hung around together at our local pub Ye Cracke, in student’s flats and at parties.

One evening we all went to see a poet called Royston Ellis perform at Liverpool University. We retired to Ye Cracke to discuss the evening and came to the conclusion that Ellis was just copying the Stan Francisco Beat poets.
We began to discuss outside cultural influences and how creative artists are better suited to exploring their own experiences and surroundings rather than parroting other peoples.

 

The Liverpool 8 area we felt had vitality about it and Liverpool itself had a history. That’s when we made a vow to make Liverpool famous. John would do it with his music, Stuart and Rod with their painting and myself as a writer. I coined a phrase for the four of us that night – the dissenters.

One night when John and I went out to Ye Cracke I told him I’d heard he wrote poetry and asked if I could see something he’d written. Initially he felt embarrassed, then he showed me some paper on which he’d written a rustic poem, satirising country dialogue with lines such as ‘Ee be the son of ‘is owl Dad.’ What struck me was that John wasn’t doing what all the other poets were doing – copying the San Francisco poets: he was his own man.

A local musical instruments store, Frank Hessy, wanted to produce a magazine and I began to write, design and illustrate it. Taking notes I began to realise that something unique was happening in Liverpool.
Stuart had joined John’s group and Paul McCartney and George Harrison from the Liverpool Institute, next door to the college, used to rehearse in our Life Rooms. We looked on them as the college band and began to book them on our Saturday night dances.

As Stuart and I were on the Student’s Union Committee we proposed and seconded that we should use union funds to buy amplification equipment, which the group could use. At that time they were experimenting with different names. At the Gambier Terrace flat they finally decided on the name Beatles. Stuart had proposed a name like the Crickets, as they played a lot of Buddy Holly numbers. They began to think of names of insects and came up with beetles. John added the ‘a’. The name changed a few times to include Beatals, Silver Beats and Silver Beetles.

I’d thought of producing a jazz magazine called Storyville and 52nd Street, but was becoming more and more interested in rock and roll. John Ashcroft, a friend at the college, had gotten me interested in Elvis Presley and I went to friends’ houses to listen to Buddy Holly records. Work on the Frank Hessy magazine ‘Frank Comments’ made me realise that youngsters in Liverpool were pounding out an exciting style of rock ‘n’ roll.
John, Stuart, Rod and I used to hang around the Jacaranda coffee bar and when the Beatles played there for the first time, I met my girlfriend Virginia. She was interested in my plans to produce a ‘what’s on’ of Liverpool music and we decided on a newspaper, not a magazine.

Jim Anderson, a local businessman, lent us £50. We rented a small attic office above a wine merchant’s shop in Renshaw Street. Virginia became the only full time member of staff and I took no salary at first because I was living on a grant I was awarded for a Senior City Scholarship. I used to work at the office round the clock, through the early hours of the morning and the time came when I had to think up a name for the paper. It was in the office at around 2 o clock one morning that the name came to me. I was considering the area that the paper would cover. It would stretch ‘over the water’ to the Wirral area and also cover all the surrounding towns such as Southport, Formby, Crosby, St. Helens, Warrington and Widnes. As I began mapping out the area in my mind, I visualised a map of the entire region and then saw a policeman covering it – a policeman’s beat. I was covering the entire Merseyside area, which would be my beat – and the name Mersey Beat popped into my mind.

For the first issue I commissioned John Lennon to write me a history of the Beatles. We were sitting in the Jacaranda when he handed me the two pieces of paper with his untitled article on it. I decided to call it ‘On The Dubious Origins Of Beatles, Translated From The John Lennon.’ (Could anyone have realised that decades later, his mention that ‘a man came down on a flaming pie’ would inspired a multi-million selling album?). I also asked another friend, a singer called Cilla to write me a fashion column. I penned an article about her called ‘Swinging Cilla’ in which I wrote ‘Cilla Black is a Liverpool girl who is starting out on the road to fame.’ As I wrote it I couldn’t remember Cilla’s surname, but knew it was a colour. I took a chance and called her Cilla Black – but her name was Priscilla White.

Cilla came into the office to tell me I’d got her name wrong, but she liked the new name and decided to keep it. As Cilla herself has said: “The Black bit came when a local paper, called the Mersey Beat, had a misprint. They knew my surname was a colour but guessed wrong.”
Two years later I was to get Cilla to sing for Brian Epstein at the Blue Angel club and he signed her up. His publicist was later to put out a press release stating that Epstein conjured up the name Black for her – yet it is printed in Mersey Beat in the first issue, long before Brian ever knew of her existence.

 

 

An edition of Mersey Beat

 

 

It’s just like the Raymond Jones story. In his book ‘A Cellarful Of Noise’, Brian says that he first heard of the Beatles when Jones came into his store asking for the record – on October 22 1961. When I first went into Nems in July 1961 to ask them to stock Mersey Beat, I requested to see the manager. Brian Epstein came down and agreed to take a dozen copies of the first issue. He then ordered dozens more over the next week. With issue No 2 he ordered 12 dozen copies, an unprecedented amount, because the local kids were queuing up outside Nems to get copies.
The entire front cover of issue No. 2 on July 20 1961 reported the story of the Beatles recording in Hamburg under the headline ‘Beatles Sign Recording Contract.’ The cover photograph was the one taken of the Beatles at Der Dom in Hamburg by Astrid Kirchherr, which Paul McCartney had brought back from Hamburg for me. It was the first time Astrid had a photograph published.

Epstein was intrigued and called me into his office to discuss the contents of Mersey Beat. Like so many other people, he was amazed that such a vibrant musical scene existed on Merseyside (no one else, not even the local newspapers, covered it).
Brian asked me if he could become my record reviewer and his review columns began in issue 3 dated August 3 1961. He also began to take advertisements for Nems and his advert is the only one to appear on the full-page story about the Beatles by Bob Wooler in the August 31 1961 issue, which ended with the words “Such are the fantastic Beatles. I don’t think anything like them will happen again.”

My Beatles coverage was extensive, I wrote about them more than any other group which resulted in Cavern disc jockey Bob Wooler coming to the office and reporting that all the groups were complaining about the coverage I gave to the Beatles, saying that I should re-name it Mersey Beatles (I later introduced a full page each issue under that title).
Brian then phoned me up and asked if I could arrange for him to go down to the Cavern to see the Beatles, which I did. Therefore, I was surprised years later, on the publication of ‘A Cellarful Of Noise’ when Brian made out that he hadn’t heard of the Beatles until the lad came into his shop – yet I’d been discussing them with him for months before this alleged incident because he was intrigued about their extensive coverage in Mersey Beat. He’d even taken me out to lunch at the Basnett Bar in Basnett Street to discuss them. John was so delighted with the fact that I’d printed his first published work in its entirety and brought me everything he’d ever written, saying I could have the material to do with as I wished.

I decided to run items as a regular column, which I called Beatcomber, because I liked the humorist Beachcomber in the Daily Express newspaper. I encouraged John to write special pieces for me, which later became the basis for his books.
Paul McCartney also used to write to me whenever he was away from Liverpool and sent me letters from Paris when he and John went there (when Jurgen Vollmer first cut their hair) and also from Hamburg. I found Paul’s style of writing also had a sense of humour and printed excerpts from his letters – illustrated with photographs by Francis Michael (Mike McCartney).

In addition to having photographs from Astrid Kirchherr and Jurgen Vollmer, I commissioned Les Chadwick, a schoolmate, now worked for a local photographer, Peter Kaye to take pictures. I did a deal with Bill Connell (Peter Kaye) whereby I gave him display and classified ads, photo credits and the opportunity to sell photographs in Mersey Beat is exchange for me commissioning Les to take photographs for me. Les started taking photos of the Beatles on stage in Liverpool and on outside locations, which was innovative for British music papers at the time. Other local photographers such as Dick Matthews, Graham Spencer and Harry Watmough were also taking photographs for me.

 

 

The Beatles used to come up to the office to help Virginia out, answering the phone or just generally hanging around. Rod Punt of Steve Day & the Drifters remembers how he was standing in the office when John Lennon rushed in, leapt over the counter and started throwing papers in the air! Ringo Starr, who was with Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, also used to drop in regularly when he was on his way to the dole office which was also in Renshaw Street. Mersey Beat soon became the focus for local music activities and during the day the office would be a meeting place where members of groups, Brian Epstein and other managers such as Ted Knibbs (Billy Kramer’s manager) and Joe Flannery (Lee Curtis’s manager) would get together to swap notes.

During Mersey Beat’s first year I decided to hold a poll to discover who was the most popular group on Merseyside. Apart from the Beatles there were great bands such as Kingsize Taylor & the Dominoes, the Big Three, Derry & the Seniors and Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. When Virginia and I counted the votes, the winners were Rory Storm & the Hurricanes. I went over the coupons once again and discovered a large batch of about forty votes that were all written in green ink in the same handwriting. I decided to make them void – which made the Beatles the winner.

The full results of that first poll were:
1. The Beatles. 2. Gerry & the Pacemakers. 3. The Remo Four. 4. Rory Storm & The Hurricanes. 5. Johnny Sandon and the Searchers. 6. Kingsize Taylor & the Dominos. 7. The Big Three. 8. The Strangers. 9. Faron & the Flamingos. 10. The Four Jays. 11. Ian and the Zodiacs. 12. The Undertakers. 13. Earl Preston & the TTs. 14. Mark Peters and the Cyclones. 15. Karl Terry and the Cruisers. 16. Derry and the Seniors. 17. Steve and the Syndicate. 18 Dee Fenton and the Silhouettes. 19 Billy Kramer and the Coasters. 20. Dale Roberts and the Jaywalkers.

   

Issue 13 of Mersey Beat, published on January 4 1962 devoted the cover to the

story ‘Beatles Top Poll!’ an event which Brian Epstein had anticipated keenly and which he was to use in his promotion of his newly signed band.

   

There is so much to tell. Over the next few years Virginia and I attended around 200 gigs by the Beatles – most of the Cavern appearances, and their performances in almost every other Liverpool venue from the Odd Spot club to the Plaza, St Helens. We also travelled with them to their first radio and TV shows and their early theatre concert tour appearances.

 

 

Bill and Paul

 

 

Virginia and I settled in London in 1966 and I was soon engaged as press officer for the Kinks and the Hollies. For the next 18 years I became personal PR to a host of acts, including Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Ten Years After, Procol Harum, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, the Beach Boys, Free, Mott The Hoople, the Pretty Things, Christine Perfect, Supertramp, Hot Chocolate, Suzi Quatro, Kim Wilde and many others.

Currently I have re-launched Mersey Beat online at www.mersey-beat.net

     
Mersey Beat - Merseyside's Own Entertainment Paper
The Beatles, The Liverpool Sound, The Swinging Sixties...
It's still happening, man: http://www.mersey-beat.net

Imagine, and it's true.™

Many thanks to Bill for the article contributed to Digger for retrosellers