Tate Langdon x Evan Peters 🖤

Happy McLennon day! 60 years since John met Paul at the Woolton Church Fete on the 6th July 1957 and started this whole thing off… 

“I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me. Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good. He was really the only outstanding member; all the rest kind of slipped away.”

[Paul, talking about his first impressions of John, Record Collector Magazine, 1995]

“I was on a battered old guitar, which hadn’t cost much. A bloke named Rodney was on banjo, Pete Shotton was on washboard, I think Eric Griffiths was on another guitar and Len Gary [sic] was on box bass. 

“There was a friend of mine called Ivan who lived at the back of my house and he went to the same school as Paul McCartney - The Liverpool Institute High School. It was through Ivan that I first met Paul. Seems that he knew Paul was always dickering around in music and thought that he would be a good lad to have in the group.

“So one day when we were playing at Woolton he brought him along. We can both remember it quite well. We’ve even got the date down. It was June 15th 1955 [sic]. The Quarrymen were playing on a raised platform and there was a good crowd because it was a warm sunny day.”

[John, talking about how he and Paul met, quoted in Beatles Monthly No 2, September 1963 - and obviously getting the date really wrong - on purpose or not?!]

Pics - top - the first (?) photo of John and Paul together. The Quarrymen, including Paul, playing at New Clubmoor Hall, Broadway, Liverpool on 23rd November 1957. Photo by Leslie Kearney.

Photos on truck taken by James Davis - Rod Davis’ dad, who is the Rodney on banjo that John’s talking about. Photos taken on 6th July, 1957. (John with his eyes closed in the centre of the first photo, he’s obscured by Pete Shotton in the second).

Bottom 2 photos - The Quarrymen playing on 6th July, 1957, the day John met Paul. (Last photo - Geoff Rhind, other photo - Unknown but maybe Geoff Rhind?).

“A white-haired youngster of eight, a year younger than Lennon, Pete [Shotton] was crossing a bit of wasteland one day when John stepped out of ambush and threatened Shotton with a beating if he ever humiliated John again by addressing him by his detested nickname, Winnie. Pete took up the challenge immediately, and both boys went at it with clenched fists. John, older and tougher, soon had Shotton pinned to the ground, where he extracted from him the promise he was seeking. No sooner was Pete released, however, than he ran off a safe distance and screamed: ”Winnie! Winnie! Winnie!“ John was enraged. With his face contorted by hate, he doubled up his fist and bawled: “I’ll get you for that, Shotton!” Pete hollered back: “Well, you’re going to have to catch me first, then, won’t you, Lennon?” Each boy stood there glaring at each other, until Pete observed that John’s expression was changing. “Very gradually,” Pete recalled, “his face broke into an enormous grin.” From that moment forth they were fast friends.“

i’m a loser: moodboard. requested by anonymous