Glasgow • Friday, December 3, 1965 • Afternoon show

Neil Aspinall, continues his daily diary of The Beatles’ U.K. tour.

THURSDAY, 2nd DEC.

And we’re on our way to Scotland. A lorry driver has just told us that a guitar dropped out of the boot a few miles back.

We turn and start searching the road, Alf’s headlights full- up so that we don’t miss anything.

Thirty minutes are wasted before we come across the debris of the guitar. Fragments are scattered all over the place. 

“It’s not the twelve-string.” Says George, sounding very much relieved. 

“It’s not my bass, is it?” asks Paul. 

“No. My spare Gretsch,” replies George, holding up a few inches of splintered wood and tangled strings.

It could have been worse. 

The Gretsch was not one of the guitars George needed on stage, although it was one which he was particularly fond of for practising.

As it so happened, that fragment which we picked up came in handy. It included the “machine head” of the instrument-the metal screws used to tighten and tune the strings.

When part of Paul’s machine head broke during the tour, we were able to replace it with bits taken from George’s broken Gretsch.

FRIDAY, 3rd DEC.

Today we arrived in Glasgow after an icy drive from Berwick-on-Tweed.

The N.E.M.S.  office had organised accommodation thirty miles north of the city so that we would get a bit more privacy.

When the weather turned bad, the office switched everything and brought us into the centre of Glasgow, to the city’s main hotel-The Central.

Tonight, at the Odeon theatre, Glasgow’s Beatle People gave John, Paul, George and Ringo a terrific welcome.

I noticed that the strength of the security inside the theatre had been trebled since our last visit. Everywhere you looked there. were attendants keeping the kids in their seats.

I was watching one of the other acts from the wings when the stage-door security man tapped me on the shoulder.

“There’s some bloke at the side door claiming to be John’s cousin,” he said.

This sort of thing is always happening. By now I know where to expect relatives of The Beatles and I know them all, at least by sight.

George and Paul have relatives centred around Merseyside. Ringo has more in London where his step-father comes from. 

John has relatives in Liverpool, London… and Scotland.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to bother John. I’m sure he’s a fake. I didn’t even ask his name.” I went to the stage-door.

It turned out to be John’s cousin Stanley who lives in Edinburgh and has an accent which is an odd mixture of Scottish and Scouse!

The security man was amazed when I recognised Stanley and took him off to see John!

Before tonight’s shows there was a big press conference.

Afterwards the boys relaxed in their dressing room and watched television. A set has been installed for them in every theatre throughout the tour.

They had a visit from deejay Mike Berry, of Radio Scotland, the pirate radio station. When the station goes on the air for the first time from a ship in the North Sea the voices of John, Paul, George and Ringo will be the first sounds heard.

The boys recorded those historic first words for the station in their dressing room this evening.

SATURDAY, 4th DEC.

Snow was falling fast in Glasgow this morning, so I woke the boys an hour earlier than planned so that we could make an early start for Newcastle.

The boys can’t stand bright and cheerful waiters first thing in the morning. It takes them at least an hour to make friends with the world once they’ve opened their eyes.

The worst start to their day is when a waiter breezes into their bedroom and flings open the curtains.

I always arrange for the breakfast trays to be left outside each room-in the lounge when we have a suite.

Then I go round telling them that the food has arrived and they crawl out of bed to get it in their own time. 

For breakfast they like orange juice and cereal followed by boiled eggs. Or scrambled eggs on toast.

I’ll never forget the occasion in Chicago last August when John decided to join Paul and try a pair of fried eggs. He lifted the lid off the dish and there was a ghastly-looking embryo chicken in one of the eggs. 

Seeing this, Paul was nearly sick. 

In his usual placid and poker-faced way, John turned to him: “It’s not Easter or anything, is it?”

But it will take a bit of persuasion to make John or Paul order eggs in Chicago again!

Newcastle City Hall is one of those open-platform places without proper stage lighting or curtains.

The balconies are directly over the stage at each side so that the kids up there can just spill bags of jelly-babies over the boys without any effort.

The Moody Blues, who are the main supporting attraction on “The Beatles Show,” got their own share of the jellybaby barrage tonight.

They used a tambourine to bat the sweets back into the crowd!

Tonight the press have been complaining about the difficulty they had penetrating the cordons of police outside the City Hall.

One journalist claims he was frogmarched all the way down the street when he tried to get in to see the boys.

From Fabulous208 – June 25, 1966