Liverpool
Corporation Passenger Transport (LCPT) Social Club
Finch
Lane / East Prescot Road
Dovecot,
Huyton,
Liverpool
Trams
and buses in Dovecot during the late 1950s
Dovecot
is a small district of Liverpool situated to the east of the city and bordered
by Knotty Ash, West Derby, Broad Green and Roby.
Although some distance, and several buses away from his home in
Allerton, south Liverpool, the area was familiar to Paul McCartney as his Aunt
Gin lived in Dinas Lane off East Prescot Road, the main thoroughfare through
Dovecot.
However,
it was through George Harrison that the fledgling Beatles came to appear here.
Since leaving the White Star Shipping Line in 1936 George's father had worked
initially as a conductor and later a bus driver, for the Liverpool Corporation
Passenger Transport (known at first as "Liverpool Corporation
Tramways" when it first came into being back in 1897).
As the
committee chairman of the Speke Bus Depot social club Harry was responsible for
arranging the entertainment. On New Years Day 1959 he organised a party at
Wilson Hall in Garston for the children of LCPT employees, booking the Quarry
Men to provide the musical interlude. On another occasion he arranged for them
to play here in Dovecot at a dance held in the Corporation's social club where
he and his wife Louise ran weekly ballroom classes. The club was situated on
the corner of East Prescot Road and Finch Lane.
Dovecot
in the 1950's. This photo was taken a couple of years before the Quarry Men's
appearance at the Social Club which can just be seen through the trees on the
left hand side of the photograph to the left of the white van.
(click
to enlarge).
Dovecot
parade is on the right of the photo, the Kiosk on the corner (left on photo) was
where i bought my morning paper on my way to work. That bell tower in the
(right) background is over the Library. This hall has been updated since the
1950s Mark. The club was pulled down during the 1980s and that and the LCPT
football and cricket pitches were sold by the city council, there is a housing
estate there now. (John
Quinn)
The
screengrab from Google Maps shows the area as it is today with the new housing
estate on the left occupying the site of the former social club.
Writing
in "The Beatles Live!", Mark Lewisohn infers that the engagement took
place in the first half of 1959. With new information uncovered in Mark's
subsequent book "Tune In" this would place the show during the period
when the Quarry Men - by this time including only John, Paul and George - were
temporarily calling themselves the Japage 3 (from John-PAul-GEorge-3).
At that
time the club had something of a name for itself, reportedly being the place
where the legendary Liverpool comedian Ken Dodd was discovered (Doddy living
about a mile away from Dovecot in neighbouring Knotty Ash). Perhaps Harry had to persuade the Japage 3 to
do the gig by suggesting that somebody might discover them.
Liverpool
Corporation Passenger Transport (LCPT) Social Club
Perhaps
because the booking came through his Dad, George would always have some
memories of the place as he recalled for the Beatles' "Anthology"
book:
My
father had something to do with the Liverpool Transport Club in Finch Lane and
he got The Quarry Men a gig there once, on a Saturday night. It was a dance
hall with a stage and tables and people dancing and drinking. My dad was
pleased and proud that he'd got us to appear there. We had to play two
sets. The group were booked to play on
either side of the interval, an arrangement in common with a lot of their bookings
around this time.
Another
unfortunate feature of several engagements during this period was the groups
inability to judge how many pints of beer in the interval were TOO many:
We
played the first set of fifteen or twenty minutes and then, in our break, we
got really drunk on black velvet*, the craze at the time - a bottle of Guinness
mixed with half a pint of cider (not champagne). I was sixteen**, John was
eighteen, Paul seventeen, and we had about five pints of it. By the time we had
to go on again, we were totally out of it. With the committee chairman's son
probably in the worst state of all it was no doubt deeply embarrassing for all
concerned. As George would recall: We embarrassed ourselves and everybody else,
and my father was very pissed off: 'You've made a show of me...' and all
that. And they had...
The bar, scene of drunken debauchery
Lewisohn's
early 1959 dating of the engagement is troublesome and contradicted by two
other sources.
John
Quinn is one of my Facebook friends. Now approaching his 80s, John worked as a
bus conductor in Speke in the mid-1950s and knew George and Paul as they often
got on his bus to get to Liverpool Institute (and John says he never charged
them a fare if he was on board). John's sister went out with one of George's
brothers - Peter - while the Harrison's were living in Upton Green.
John
moved from Speke to Knotty Ash in October 1959 and, as an LCPT employee had
free entry to all of their clubs. I asked him if he ever saw the group at the
Finch Lane social club: Yes I saw the Quarry Men as they were known then in
1959,and yes I had free entry into the club. I was there that night as I was a
bus conductor, I was with friends. What Mark Lewishon didn't include in his
book is the incident that took place at the Liverpool MPTE in the November 1959
when Paul and John got a bit tipsy and wouldn't go back on stage for their
second part, Colin Hanton tried to get them back on stage without success, he
left the club,and later they had a bit of a fight in the toilets with members
of another band, at the time George's dad was the treasurer of the club.
John
also recalled that Colin Hanton was the drummer at the time. I asked him if he
was sure - in my mind Colin had left the group by this point. John responded: Colin Hanton was their drummer up their
appearance at the Liverpool Pavilion in the December of 1959, he had a row with
Paul on the bus going home, Colin got off the bus and it was the last time he
played for the Quarry Men, their next drummer under the new name of Beatles was
Tommy Moore.
Colin
has also commented on the above: I left
the Quarry Men after playing a booking at the Pavilion Theatre in Lodge Lane.
We had drunk a few beers during the interval and an argument started on the way
home on the bus. I got off to catch another bus to take me home to Woolton and
somehow or other that was that, they never contacted me again to ask me to
play. I saw John a few times and he told me that they had got a drummer called
Pete, which must have been Pete Best. After that I lost touch completely. I put
my drums away and never played them until we got together to practise for the
40th anniversary at St Peter's in 1995!
However,
on another occasion Colin has recalled the above events as taking place after
they played the Finch Lane social club. Due their drunken state John and Paul
were doing "spastic" impressions on the bus, much to Colin's
annoyance. He and Paul had words and when he reached his stop he decided enough
was enough and left the band that night.
It's
not clear just when Colin did leave the Quarry Men. In "Tune In" Mark
Lewisohn indicates that Colin left around mid-1958, some 6 months or so before
the date he gives for the gig in Dovecot.
So, in
the words of Loyd Grossman, let's look at the evidence:
· Mark Lewisohn dates the appearance as early
1959. He says Colin left the group at some point in 1958.
· George Harrison had some memories of the
venue but doesn't mention Colin Hanton. That doesn't eliminate the possibility
that Colin was there. George can't remember the date of the booking but does
remember they got drunk.
· Colin Hanton remembers that they got drunk
after a show at the "Pivvy" and this led to his subsequent decision
to leave the group. Occasionally he remembers this as taking place after the
Finch Lane show. No criticism can be levelled at Colin (What were YOU doing 60
years ago, and where?) but as we'll read below, sometimes he throws a THIRD
venue into the mix!
· John Quinn was an aquaintence of George and Paul and saw the
group perform that night. He dates the show as 1959 but says Colin Hanton was
there too. As he freely admits the problem with many of these Beatles authors
is that they were not around at the time and therefore witnesses at the time
will give different versions of an incident that they saw, even Colin Hanton
had it wrong when he said that he was drunk at the Walton MPTE**, but there was
only one MPTE and that was the Liverpool MPTE, it is very difficult for a
Beatles researcher to write when all he/she has is witnesses and doing
research, one really has to be there at that time... It was the MPTE social club on the corner of
Finch Lane,. The entrance to the club was on East Prescot Rd opposite the Granada
cinema, (Bob Wooler was the Bingo caller there during the 1980s), the sports
ground was in Finch Lane.
This is
very true, certainly in the case of Mark Lewisohn who has to shift through
statements from numerous witnesses and try and sort out fact from fiction.
Let's face it, at this point in time (2016) most of the people who worked with
the Beatles have published their memoirs and in the majority of cases they are
guilty of the same trait. Undoubtedly, for many of these people working with
the Beatles was probably the highlight of their lives but time and again those
wishing to "cash in" on this make the mistake of over emphasising
their own part in the story, some going so far as to recall conversations in
their books that they couldn't possibly have been privy to.
As a result Mark
Lewisohn has taken the decision that anything a witness tells him that can't be
verified with some kind of supporting evidence is left out of his books which
is right and the safe thing to do in the pursuit of 100% accuracy, but it does
mean some nice things get left out on occasion. Perhaps Mark should include a
chapter at the back of any future books which mention all the stories he was
told in the course of his research that couldn't be confirmed thus allowing the
reader to decide whether they need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Taking
the above into account I believe the Quarry Men - John, Paul, George and Colin
most likely performed, and subsequently got drunk, at the LCPT social club in late 1958 early 1959. I suspect Colin remained with the group a bit longer than
Lewisohn suggests.
Of
course if you have any memories which may clear this up further please comment
at the end of this post.
Cheers!
A map
of the Dovecot area. Top right is the former site of Hambleton Hall, a venue
the Beatles would become very familiar with in 1961. Bottom right is Dinas Lane
where Auntin Gin lived and the LCPT site is bottom left (Click to enlarge
image)
Whilst
there are plenty of photographs showing the shops facing the LCPT club (see
these from 1950 above) frustratingly there don't appear to be any of the
opposite side of the road.
My own
personal "Dovecot" memory:
After school one afternoon during the "Jubilee celebrations"
in the summer of 1977 I remember standing in a crowd outside the shops facing
the social club waiting for the Queen and Prince Philip to drive up East
Prescot Road towards Liverpool. She didn't have a lot to say when we eventually
saw her but she looked pretty nice.
At
least the Duke of Edinburgh waved.
Source:
Thanks
to John Quinn and Colin Hanton for their memories
Books:
"The Beatles Live" and "Tune In" by Mark Lewisohn,
"Anthology" by The Beatles.
Notes:
* Black
Velvet - is generally a mix of stout (for example Guiness) and Champagne. As
George recalls, the group were drinking a mix of Guiness and Cider known as
"Poor Man's Black Velvet".
** Or
possibly fifteen years old depending on when the booking took place.
** John
Quinn's reference to the MPTE is a slip.
The Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive was formed in December 1969,
ending the era of the Liverpool Corporation Passenger Transport.
Please Note: (May 2020) This mystery has been cleared up with the publication of Colin Hanton's own book "Pre: Fab" published in 2018.
