Glasgow • 9pm show

…BUT 65 GIRLS FAINT AS SCOTLAND GOES WILD

The start of the Beatles’ tour in Glasgow on Friday went as smoothly as any of the group’s concerts can.

Manager of the Odeon cinema, Mr. George Chantrey, knows the pattern of the Beatles visits. And the teenage grapevine was working overtime so he would be deluged with applications from girls seeking jobs as usherettes. And he knew that he would have to call assistant managers and commissionaires from more than a hundred miles away to add to his normal staff of 45.

Job applications from the fans were turned down — as a matter of course — and the extra “bouncers” were alerted. Mr. Chantrey told me: “The Nems organisation control the show as soon as they arrive. They secure themselves backstage with the artists and our only contact with them is by intercom.”

Before the group arrived police took over with an escort into the town. More than 200 policemen were drafted into the City Centre to control the 6,000 fans waiting to pack both shows and thousands of ticketless teenagers trying desperately to catch a glimpse of their idols.

Motorised and mounted patrols were used with officers using walkie-talkies for crowd control. The Beatles get the same treatment as an international football match or visiting VIPs.

Ready to deal with hysterical fans outside the cinema were 130 first-aid and ambulance workers. During the first performance 65 girls fainted, five of them were taken to hospital suffering from acute hysteria. There were another 70 at the second performance.

One of the girls who passed out, Sandra Shields (17), of Pollok, said: “I couldn’t bear it any longer. I wanted to rush closer to the stage. I was crying so much that I couldn’t see properly and can only remember staggering up the aisle with one thought in mind—to get closer.”

The Beatles’ show brought an estimated 40 bus loads of teenagers from all over Scotland. Susan Fallon (18), a clerk, from Falkirk, said: “Tickets and seats on the coach were snapped up as soon as word got round that we had organised a trip from a local youth club.”

Top star shows form one of the perks of life as an usherette in the right cinemas. Marjorie McCormish, of Glasgow, has been working at the Odeon for more than a year. She said: “We are the envy of thousands of our friends at a time like this.”

But even the insiders of the organisation cannot penetrate the security without permission from Beatles’ Press Officer, 29-year-old Tony Barrow.

Barrow said: “We make all our own security arrangements. Our overnight stays in top class hotels are left to the discretion of the managers—and they know as well as we do the standard of protection and service we require.”

After clearing hundreds of screaming fans from the doorsteps of the Central Hotel in Glasgow, when the group moved on to the second leg of the tour a hotel management official merely said: “Oh, they are the Beatles. Well, they did stay here overnight, but then we cannot discuss anything connected with their visit.”

From Disc And Music Echo – December 11, 1965