Memory Lane - November 10
Alan and Steve, Albert Docks
Roll up, roll up...
Steve says hello to Eleanor Rigby
On the weekend Jo and I had a 'busman's' holiday, taking none other than the Magical Mystery Tour around the haunts of Liverpool made famous by the Fab Four courtesy of our tour guide Neil and the ever resourceful Mr Alan Hewitt.
I felt like a teenager again, boarding the last surviving bus from the actual Magical Mystery Tour movie. It's definitely worth the trip if you're a fan.
From Albert Dock, via Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane to the Cavern, it was a ghost hunters' and nosy parkers' special... a memory lane memorial to the very best of rock and much more. I gather that Bob Dylan made a similar pilgrimage a while back to reconnect with the roots of his old Merseyside mates.
'Let me Take you Down'... and indeed the sharp gradient of a hill takes you to the very gate of dreams still painted a distinct red as the mellotron flutes pipe you down to what seems like a disused and overgrown garden where irreplaceable John used to play as a boy...
'The Long and Winding Road' has weaved through many of our childhoods. When I was a young kid I remember thrilling to so many of their songs. From 'I am the Walrus' to 'Eleanor Rigby'. At a time when music was magic it seemed as if the whole world was their colouring book. The ordinary made exceptional with a few deft flicks of the plectrum.
In later years I befriended Peter Blake who designed the most iconic collage on the famous Sergeant Pepper sleeve. He Is a self effacing yet brilliant artist who showed me the actual wax effigy of Sonny Liston he procured from Madame Tussauds.
The Beatles were our surrogate older brothers in a world of cosy magic that took everyone for a ride. We never came back quite the same. 'She's Leaving Home' could have described my mother June doing a moonlight flit as she left the bosom of her family to fall into the arms of my Dad. Eleanor Rigby could have been an old lady I once knew still haunted by the London blitz in a perpetual state of shell shock. The lives of Beatles characters extended well beyond the frame. Vignettes drawn from all our lives and all our 'Yesterdays'...
Gates to Strawberry Field
