A lady I volunteer with in the gift shop was telling me of having to go through a relatives estate and having found a scrapbook on The Beatles. She then said that I was probably too young. Well you know that ain’t right. I proceeded to tell her about my love, (obsession) with The Beatles and how I collect their memorabilia. She said that it was promised to a niece but she’ll leave it for me to look at next time I came in. She said it was really nothing, just cut out newspaper articles and such. She left it for me with a note saying that if there was anything I wanted to just take it. That day I took it home and proceeded to sit on the couch for three hours going through everything in it. I laughed, I cried, I was amazed at the amount of articles cut out.
Besides the newspaper articles, the scrapbook contained a booklet I had never seen, small with pics of The Beatles, separate and maybe two at a time with politically sarcastic captions, for the time, (1964) pertaining to America.
There was also a Beatles fan magazine and a couple of picture books out of California. There were two different series of Beatles picture cards, not many at all, maybe five of each.
Here I will regress. When I was in middle school a friend and myself used to go around the neighborhood on bulk trash day and see what people were throwing out. I came upon this box of hundreds of Beatle cards. What a treasure. Of course I took them home, went through them all, put the different series in order and it was one of my prized possessions. In looking back I wonder if that was when John Lennon said that they were more popular than God. At that time people got rid of a lot of Beatles stuff. I was in NY, not the South, where most of that occurred, I guess I’ll never know and it doesn’t really matter because it was a windfall for me. Anyway, in high school when I ran away, my mother got rid of all my Beatle stuff, never to be found. She stripped my room of all things Beatles!
Okay, back to the scrapbook. I read every single article. Most had to do with letters to the editor in Richmond, VA. When The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, some journalist at the paper wrote an article badly criticizing The Beatles. The response was overwhelming! This young girl cut out every single response and it was so joyful reading them! All young people proclaiming their love and admiration for The Beatles. There was one from three college boys from Randolph Macon College, a professor from UVA and many many young girls. There was one in particular from a man that was God fearing and condemned The Beatles. He further stated that if “so called” working women stayed home where they belong, their children wouldn’t behave this way. WOW!! I started writing down the names of the young people who wrote in. I wanted to find them and ask if they remembered writing in to the newspaper. Then I just took pictures of some of the letters which are shown below. A real treasure trove.
I really felt this young lady that collected all these things deeply. It was 1964, she was living the experience. I was six years old. I didn’t experience was she did. I was so excited that this book was shared with me and I treasure the fact that I got to experience it through her. When it came to taking something, originally I had the afore mentioned small political book in my hand. As much as I would have loved to have it, I couldn’t do it. To me this collection needed to stay together. So I returned the scrapbook with a note expressing my gratitude for sharing this with me. I only hope that the niece who will receive this will recognize what a wonderful collection this is and value it as much as I do.
