CLUB SANDWICH 83

A FETED EVENT

Marking a meeting of our times

            July 6 1957 was just another day for most people. A shopping day, a laundry day, a gardening day, a stay-at-home day, a crossword-filling day, a listen-to-the-radio day.
            But, for two young boys in Liverpool, July 6 1957 turned their lives upside down.
            And they, in turn, turned the world upside down.
            That day, Paul McCartney, 15 years of age, cycled across from Allerton, the district where he lived, to neighbouring Woolton, where, at the suggestion of his school chum Ivan Vaughan, they would spend the Saturday afternoon at a garden fete in the grounds of a local church. Past, present and doubtless future, if you grow up in Britain these events are a way of life. Summer is not long and not always very sunny, so people like to make the most of a nice day. And churches, always short of money, know how to make hours of fun out of a few homemade-cake stalls and bric-a-brac tables.
            So Paul and Ivan - nicknamed, inevitably, "Ivy" - found themselves in Woolton. And here, fate pointed its astronomically-sized outstretched finger at Paul and a Woolton boy, the sixteen year old John Lennon, there with some friends to provide the fete's musical entertainment. The fete, and fate, brought them together.
            Forty years on, this July, Paul recalled the day with great clarity.
            "Ah yes, I remember it well," he reflected, invoking the words of the Maurice Chevalier song. "I do, actually. My memory of meeting John is very clear. There were the Quarry Men, playing on a little platform. I can still see John now - checked shirt, slightly curly hair, singing 'Come Go With Me' by the Del-Vikings. He didn't know all the words so he was putting stuff in about penitentiaries, and making a good job of it.
            "I remember thinking, 'He looks good - I wouldn't mind being in a group with him.' A bit later, we met up. I played him 'Twenty Flight Rock' and he seemed pretty impressed - maybe because I did know the words. Then, as you all know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We "wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together.
            "I still remember his beery old breath when I met him that day. But I soon came to love that old beery breath. And I loved John. I always was and still am a great fan of John's. We had a lot of fun together and I still treasure those beautiful memories."
            The fortieth anniversary was appropriately celebrated. The 1957 day's events were reconstructed by way of a special fete held in the same church grounds, and with an evening concert in the church hall over the road, just as it all happened all those years ago. And, entirely appropriately, the Quarry Men Skiffle Group reunited to provide the musical entertainment - all the original members from that summer's day 40 years ago, but for one.
            "Thanks for remembering," Paul declared. "There's no way that when we met here we had any idea of what we'd be starting. But I'm very proud of what we did. And I'm very glad I did it with John. So I send you all in Woolton and Liddypool my best wishes today. I hope you all have a wonderful day, and God bless all who in sail in you!"
            Paul was not the only one to send personal greetings. Yoko Ono sent a message as did, remarkably, the British prime minister Tony Blair, and Her Majesty the Queen.
            And once again, while others went about their shopping, their laundry, their gardening, their crossword or other activities, people revelled in Woolton as the sun shone down on its suburban red sandstone church.