The Sixties (1/3) By Marion

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3).

Everyone has memories from their childhood. Some of mine involve making a union jack windmill while at primary school, then standing on Beverley Road, waiting to wave it at the Queen, when she visited Hull once. Another thing that sticks in my memory was when a new food fad came into being: frozen beef-burgers, chips, and peas. I drove my poor mum mad wanting them all the time! But being a music lover, when I look back on my life one of the things I am most grateful for was being a teenager in the sixties. I was there when history was made, the birth of Pop Music.

My earliest memories from when I was a child always involved music. My father would open our window (at the request of our neighbours I might add), 'wind up' our gramophone player, and strains of David Whitfield would echo down the terrace. For anyone who does not know who this great Hull singer was, you can check out his website: www.davidwhitfield.com. He was the first ever British singer to be awarded a Gold Disc and was also apparently the first British male singer to achieve a million seller in the U.S, and still hold the record for the most appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show.

He was my hero, and my dad took me to see him many times at Hull New Theatre. As I got a bit older I began to appreciate my brother's 78s, from the likes of Tommy Steele, Buddy Holly, Paul Anka, Perry Como, Lonnie Donnegan, and too many more to mention, and of course the Big Guns, like Elvis, Cliff, and Billy Fury.

But then one day in the early Sixties all that changed. I turned the television on that night and a new group from Liverpool were making their first performance on T.V. They were called The Beatles. There had never been anything like them before, it was so exciting and I just knew this was the start of something big. The next day as I got off the bus at school all my friends were waiting, wanting to know if I had seen The Beatles.

The whole school was buzzing all day, even some of the teachers mentioned them! Everyone was waiting for the single to be released.

The big day came along and I joined the massive queue outside Sidney Scarborough 's record shop in Paragon Street. It was great buying records in those days, going into the shop and asking to hear it, you would be sent into a booth and you could listen to it before you bought it. I drove my parents mad playing Love, Love Me Do over and over again, I just about wore the record out. I still have all my Beatles records and when I get them out to take a look through them lots of memories come flooding back.

When it came the time for their album to be released it was even mentioned on the news, and people camped all night to make sure of their copy. All the magazines and the new music papers were full of pictures of them. So down came the pictures of Cliff, Elvis, and Billy Fury, and my bedroom wall became full of Beatles pictures, to his credit I allowed Cliff to stay up. Maybe it's not 'cool' to say so but I am still a fan, much to my son's embarrassment. Things started to change, lots of other groups came on the scene, a lot of them from Liverpool, and it became known as the birthplace of Pop, the Merseysound. A typical night out then meant going to the coffee house where you would maybe have a glass of hot coke and lemon (yuk) or a drink of espresso out of a glass cup and saucer (I believe these are collectors items now).

Continued ....Next page (2/3),

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