Paul McCartney's Liverpool home to feature in new Beatles 50th anniversary documentary
Alan Weston
Oct 3 2012
THE CHILDHOOD home of Paul McCartney will be among the places featured in a new documentary marking the 50th anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ Love Me Do single.
It is believed to be the first time cameras have been allowed to film inside the small council house in Forthlin Road, Allerton, where Paul grew up.
The 60-minute documentary also features interviews with friends and associates of the Beatles from the year 1962, including Iris Caldwell, who was Paul’s girlfriend of the time and may be the person to whom Love Me Do was addressed.
Presenter Stuart Maconie is filmed in the garden and the front room of the Forthlin Road property - now owned by the National Trust - and also visits other landmarks such as the Cavern Club.
He said: “Paul’s house in Forthlin Road may appear small by modern standards, but in 1962 it would have represented a new start for people coming from slum conditions.
“It would have been clean, warm, and well-lit, all the things its occupants wouldn’t have had before.
“Council houses were means-tested, so the more important your job, the better house you got. Because Paul’s mum was a midwife, theirs was one of the smartest houses in the street.”
The Forthlin Road house was chosen for the programme, Stuart said, because it was where Paul wrote the bulk of Love Me Do while playing truant from school.
“It’s amazing to think that the history of the world was changed by what started in these little rooms,” he added.
“The programme is about what kind of place Britain was in 1962 and how the Beatles changed that.
“Popular music used to be more about light entertainment, with dinner-jacketed crooners singing for an adult audience. The Beatles ushered in a more direct, working-class culture - that was the social and cultural revolution of the 1960s that changed the world.”
The programme also investigates why Liverpool was the birthplace for this revolution.
Stuart said: “As a seaport, its pop culture was heavily influenced by the records which arrived from the United States, creating a vibrant melting pot. The Beatles as young men would have had access to those records.”
Among the lesser known characters to feature in the documentary is Iris Caldwell, who was Paul’s girlfriend from 1961 to 1963.
She describes how they would go to the pictures together and take it in turns to pay.
Stuart said: “In 1962, no-one would have had any idea how significant these friendships and relationships were going to be.
“It would have been thought preposterous at the time if anyone had said the Beatles would change the world. At most they thought it would last a few years. Ringo’s long-term ambition was to open a chain of ladies’ hairdressing salons.”
Love Me Do: the Beatles ‘62 is on BBC4, 10pm on Sunday.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario