About The Beatles

October 27, 1962 - 8:45 P.M.
The Beatles
Interviewed By Monty Lister, Malcolm Threadgill, & Peter Smethurst
Hulme Hall
Port Sunlight, Birkenhead, United Kingdom
Broadcast October 28, 1962 On Sunday Spin Radio Program



At 8.45 pm, prior to going on stage, The Beatles recorded a radio interview for the patients of local hospitals Cleaver and Clatterbridge,
quizzed by Monty Lister and two teenage friends, Malcolm Threadgill and Peter Smethurst. The item was broadcast on the closed-circuit radio station within the hospitals, the first occasion being the next day on Lister's regular show Sunday Spin.

MONTY LISTER: Well, it's a very great pleasure for us this evening to say hello to an up and coming Merseyside group, the Beatles. And I know their names, and I'm going to try and put faces to them. Now, you're John Lennon, aren't you?
JOHN: Yes, that's right.
MONTY LISTER: What do you do in the group, John?
JOHN: I play harmonica, rhythm guitar, and vocal.
MONTY LISTER: Yes, mmhmm.
JOHN: That's what they call it.
MONTY LISTER: Harmonica, rhythm guitar, and vocal. Then there's Paul McCartney. That's you?
PAUL: Yeah, that's me. Yeah.
MONTY LISTER: And what do you do?
PAUL: Play bass guitar and uh... sing? I think. You know, that's what they say.
MONTY LISTER: Oh, that's quite apart from being vocal?
PAUL: Well, yes, yes.
MONTY LISTER: Then there's George Harrison.
GEORGE: Mm, how d'you do?
MONTY LISTER: How d'you do. What's your job?
GEORGE: Uh, lead guitar and sort of singing.
MONTY LISTER: Mmhmm. By playing lead guitar, does that mean that you're sort of leader of the group, or are you -
GEORGE: No, no, just - well, you see, the other guitar's the rhythm.
MONTY LISTER: Yeah.
GEORGE: Ching, ching, ching, you see.
PAUL: It's solo guitar, you see. John is in fact the leader of the group.
MONTY LISTER: Yeah. I don't know whether we caught that or not, but I hope it went in.
PAUL: Yeah.
MONTY LISTER: And over in the background here, and also in the background of the group, but making a lot of noise is Ringo Starr.
RINGO: Hello.
MONTY LISTER: You're new to the group, aren't you, Ringo?
RINGO: Yes, um, nine weeks now, I've been...
MONTY LISTER: Mmhmm. Were you in on the act when the recording was made of "Love Me Do"?
RINGO: Yes, I'm on the record.
MONTY LISTER: You're on that disc.
RINGO: I am! It's down on record, you know!
MONTY LISTER: Now, um...
RINGO: I'm the drummer! Hmm mmm.
MONTY LISTER: What's that offensive weapon you've got there? Those are your drumsticks?
RINGO: Well, it's um... just a pair of sticks I found that I've just bought me, you know, 'cause we're going away, and they put me name on. And it's good, you know.
MONTY LISTER: When you say you're going away, that leads us on to another question: now, where are you going?
RINGO: Germany. Hamburg.
MONTY LISTER: Mmhmm.
RINGO: Yeah.
MONTY LISTER: Now you have...
RINGO: For two weeks.
MONTY LISTER: ...standing engagements over there, haven't you? At...
RINGO: Well, the boys have been there quite a lot, you know. And I've been there with other groups, but this is the first time I've been there with the Beatles.
MONTY LISTER: Mmhmm. Well, Paul, you tell us. How did you get in on the act in Germany?
PAUL: Well, it was all through an old agent. We first went there for, uh... a fella who used to manage us, a Mr. Allan Williams of the Jacaranda Club in Liverpool. And he found the engagement, so we sort of went there, and then went under our own...
JOHN: Steam.
PAUL: Steam...
JOHN: As they say.
PAUL: As they say, afterwards, you know.
MONTY LISTER: Mmhmm.
PAUL: And we've just been going backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards.
MONTY LISTER: You're not dizzy at all?
PAUL: Well, yes, actually, yes.
MONTY LISTER: Yes, yeah.
PAUL: It's me left leg, you know, the war.
MONTY LISTER: George, were you brought up in Liverpool?
GEORGE: Yes. So far, yes.
MONTY LISTER: Whereabouts?
GEORGE: Well, born in Wavertree, and bred in Wavertree and Speke. Where the aeroplanes are, you know? Yes, you know the aeroplanes!
MONTY LISTER: Are you all Liverpool types, then?
RINGO: Yes.
JOHN: Uh, types, yes.
PAUL: Oh, yeah.
RINGO: Liverpool types.
MONTY LISTER: Now, I'm told that you were actually in the same form as young Ron Wycherley, now...
RINGO: Ronald, yes.
MONTY LISTER: Yes, now Billy Fury.
RINGO: In Saint Silas.
MONTY LISTER: In which?
RINGO: Saint Silas.
JOHN: Really?
MONTY LISTER: Yes, I'm sure it was. Now...
RINGO: It was. It wasn't Dingle Vale like you said in the Musical Express.
MONTY LISTER: Oh.
PAUL: No, that was wrong. Saint Silas school.
MONTY LISTER: Well, now, I'd like to introduce, if I may, a young disc jockey, who, uh, helps us out with programmes at Cleaver and Clatterbridge Hospitals. His name is Malcolm Threadgill, he's sixteen years old, and I'm sure you'd like to ask some questions from the teenage point of view, Malcolm.
MALCOLM THREADGILL: Yes, thank you. Um, I understand you've made other recordings before on a German label.
PAUL: Yeah.
MALCOLM THREADGILL: Is that right? What ones were they?
PAUL: Well, we did make, first of all, we made a recording with a fella called Tony Sheridan. We were working in a club called the Top Ten Club in Hamburg. And we made a recording with him called "My Bonnie", which got to number five in the German hit parade, but...
JOHN: Achtung!
PAUL: It never, it didn't do a thing over here. You know, it was, uh... it wasn't a very good record, but sort of the Germans musta liked it a bit, you know. And we... begging your
parding! And we did an instrumental which was released in France on an LP - on an EP of Tony Sheridan's, which George and John wrote themselves. That didn't, that wasn't released
here. We've got one copy, that's all, you know. It didn't do anything.
MALCOLM THREADGILL: Uh, you composed "P.S. I Love You" and, um, "Love Me Do" yourself, didn't you?
PAUL: Yeah.
MALCOLM THREADGILL: Who does the composing between you?
PAUL: Well, it's John and I. We write, you know, sort of the songs between us. It's, you know, we've sort of signed contracts and things to say, that now if we sort of...
JOHN: It's equal shares.
PAUL: Yeah, equal shares and royalties and things, so that, you know, really we just both write most of the stuff. George did write this instrumental, you know, as we say. But mainly it's John and I. We've written about, over about a hundred songs. But we don't use half of them, you know. We just happened to sort of rearrange "Love Me Do" and played it to the recording people, and "P.S. I Love You", and uh, they seemed to quite like it, you know. So that's what we recorded.
MONTY LISTER: And that was Paul McCartney telling you all about it.
MALCOLM THREADGILL: Is there any more of your own compositions you intend to record?
JOHN: Well, we did record another song of our own when we were down there. But it wasn't finished enough. So, you know, we'll take it back next time and see how they like it then. And that's all from my end!
MONTY LISTER: Well, thank you for asking the questions, Malcolm. Now, I would, in
closing, I would like to just ask you - um, we're recording this at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight. Did you, did any of you... I'll start again in English.
PAUL: Yeah.
MONTY LISTER: Did any of you come over this side before you became famous, as it were? Do you know this district?
PAUL: Well, we played here, I don't know what you mean by famous, you know. If being famous
is being in the hit parade, we've been over here, uh... we were here about two months ago. Been here twice, haven't we?
JOHN: I've got relations here. Rock Ferry.
MONTY LISTER: Have you?
JOHN: Yes. Oh, all sides of the water, you know.
PAUL: Yeah, I've got a relation in, uh, Clorton Village.
MONTY LISTER: Yes.
PAUL: Upton Road.
RINGO: I've got a friend in Birkenhead!
MONTY LISTER: I wish I had.
GEORGE: I know a man in Chester!
MONTY LISTER: Now, that's a very dangerous thing to say. There's a mental home there, mate. Well, never mind! Peter, Peter Smeth... Peter Smethurst is here as well, I'll get me right teeth in...
PAUL: Yeah, okay.
MONTY LISTER: And he looks as though he's bursting to say a question.
PETER SMETHURST: Yeah, well, there's just one question I'd like to ask you, you know. I'm
sure it's a question everyone's asking. I'd like your impressions on first appearance on television.
PAUL: Well, you know, strangely enough, we thought we were gonna be dead nervous. And everyone said, "You suddenly, when you see the cameras, you realize that there are two million people watching", because there were two million watching that "People And Places" that we did, we heard afterwards. But, you know, strangely enough, it didn't - you know, it didn't come to us. We didn't think at all about that. And it was much easier doing the television than it was doing the radio. It was still nerve-wracking, but it was a little bit easier than doing radio because there was a full audience for the radio broadcast.
MONTY LISTER: Do you find it nerve-wracking doing this now?
PAUL: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
MONTY LISTER: Anyway, we hope we've got a full audience in both hospitals, Clatterbridge and Cleaver. And over at Cleaver Hospital, a certain record on Parlophone, the top side has been requested for Eileen in Robert Cart Ward from Maddie, and, strangely enough, for Maddie from Eileen in the same ward. So perhaps the Beatles themselves would like to tell them what it's going to be.
PAUL: Yeah. Well, I think it's gonna be "Love Me Do".
JOHN: Parlophone R4949!
PAUL: "Love Me Do".
RINGO: Buy it, folks!
MONTY LISTER: And I'm sure from them that the answer is "P.S. I Love You".
PAUL: Yeah.