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Did you meet the Fab Four? BBC local radio announces hunt for Beatlemania memories

Fiftieth anniversary celebrations also include best Beatles track survey and new TV/radio documentaries

Jack Seale

17 September 2012

Did you see the pre-fame Beatles play live in a small venue as they toured Britain, trying to crack the charts? Did you once have that Paul McCartney in the back of your cab, or serve John Lennon in a shop?

If so, you've probably got the anecdote well and truly honed by now – and BBC local radio stations are on the lookout for people like you.

A nationwide celebration of half a century since the release of Love Me Do – the single came out on 5 October 1962 – includes a trawl for listeners' memories. All 39 BBC local radio stations will hold a My Beatles Story Day on 5 October this year.

The Beeb has also commissioned a survey of 12,000 local radio listeners to determine the nation's favourite Beatles track.

Programmes warming up for My Beatles Story Day include Love Me Do – 1962, an hour-long BBC4 documentary fronted by Stuart Maconie. To be broadcast on 4 October, the programme analyses how Liverpool's combination of a busy port – the first landing place for imported American records – with high unemployment and a buzzing pop culture made it the ideal breeding ground for the biggest band in the world.

Radio 2 will also run a Beatles Season from 3 October, including David Quantick's Blaggers Guide to the Beatles and a documentary presented by original Beatles drummer Pete Best entitled The Casbah Club: Birthplace of Merseybeat.

Also on Radio 2, Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough tells the story of the Beatles' breakthrough in Year in the Life: Beatles '62; and Craig Charles presents Beatleland, in which he revisits his home town to investigate the group's legacy and how Liverpool informed their music.