#21feb1963

Extract from my diary, February 1963:

Wednesday, Feb 20 

Liverpool. Miles: 241 - Cash Petrol - £3 0s 11d. Hotel - 15s 0d. 

Thursday, Feb 21 

Liverpool. The Beatles - Honey mag. Miles: 67 - Cash Petorl £3 9s 6d. Coventry. Photocall - ‘See You Inside Show’. Hotel £2 10s 6d. Drinks 7s 6d. Garage (parking) 10s 6d.

Friday, Feb 22

Return from Coventry. Miles: 147. 

I drove up to Liverpool in my 1938 drop-head Rolls Bentley. I loved jazz but I didn’t like pop music and I had no idea why Honey magazine should want to send me all that way to photograph a group called the Beatles. 

I met them in a pub and the looked as though they were still at school. We rushed about Liverpool taking pictures. They were very helpful as I tried to think of shots to do - except Lennon, who seemed very bored and kept looking away as I tried to line up a picture. In the evening I went to the Cavern Club for more shots. I can't remember a note of what they played. I gave the pictures to Honey magazine and lost the negs. In 1964, the Beatles’ welcome-home at Heathrow from their American tour made headlines and even I could see that they were phenomenal. Only then did I desperately search for - and eventually find - the Liverpool negatives. The cheques are still coming in. 

[Michael Ward, Mostly Women: A Photographer’s Life]

Photos by Michael Ward of the Beatles, taken in Liverpool in 1963. According to the photographer’s diary, as above, the date was the 21st February and not the 19th February, which is the generally accepted and published date. According to Beatles Bible, the Beatles played the Cavern on the 19th and were in Birkenhead for the 21st, but why would Michael Ward’s diary be incorrect? (Although, I suppose, it’s possible the boys played the lunchtime session on the 21st where the photos could have been taken? The diary suggests Michael Ward left before an evening show would have started to get to Coventry).