It was Christmas 1964. I was four years old. My Dad wasn't into music but my mum - a big Guy Mitchell fan - was still only 24 when the Beatles emerged and so she listened to them and wanted someone to go with when she got tickets. So it was that I dutifully boarded a train to London to see a department store Santa and, after visiting Santa's grotto and collecting my neatly wrapped present, Mum took me on to the Hammersmith Odeon to see The Beatles' Christmas Show 1964, compered by Jimmy Savile.
I heard The Beatles that evening, but my memory is not of the music. I don't remember what John and Paul said, or whether you could hear them over the screams of the audience. Or indeed if the audience was screaming.What I remember is opening my present from Santa and removing the wrapping paper to find that I'd got a set of wooden skittles and balls. And then dropping one of the balls on the floor where it promptly rolled away on the sloping auditorium floor to the stage, never to be seen again. I didn't understand then why the ball couldn't be retrieved. I do now.
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