.: What We Did On Our Holidays: Cornwall 2020-21

Wednesday, 29 September 2021

What We Did On Our Holidays: Cornwall 2020-21

Operated by Cavern City Tours, the colourful Magical Mystery Tour bus is a common sight on my travels around south Liverpool, our paths crossing as it takes its latest passengers on another fun and fascinating two hour tour of the Beatles' Liverpool, which, according to their website, promises to visit all the places associated with John, Paul, George and Ringo as they grew up, met and formed the band that would take the pop world by storm.

Well, all the places that would more than satisfy casual fans or cruise-ship tourists with a couple of hours to spend on land, and that's fair enough. But as regular readers of this blog will know, that's really only the tip of the iceberg. By my current estimation I think there's in excess of 800 places in and around the city and the Wirral with a Beatle connection. Try cramming all of those into two hours!

The livery of the modern tour bus is of course based on the coach used by the Beatles in their 1967 television special Magical Mystery Tour which featured several scenes filmed in Cornwall, south-west England. As the pandemic has pretty much restricted any foreign travel for the last two years, Cornwall has also been the destination for my own family holidays. (I refuse to use the word 'staycation', and so should you. It will fall out of use soon with any luck).

Liverpool, Merseyside (top centre) and Newquay, Cornwall bottom left (Google Maps image)

Newquay, a town on Cornwall's north coast is one of the UK's most popular holiday destinations. I spent several summers there as a child with my family, and several more with my wife before we had children. Last year was our first time back since 2003. I love the place. It's full of happy memories, playing on the beach, swimming in the Atlantic Ocean, bodyboarding, day trips to St. Ives, Land's End, the grey seal sanctuary and the Poldark mine, and in later years, drinking with friends on the beach. Away from Liverpool it's probably the place I feel most at home and certainly the most relaxed.

Newquay was (purely co-incidentally I promised my long-suffering wife) where the Beatles stayed for the three days in September 1967 during filming. And so, in a dramatic break from the usual Beatles' Liverpool Locations I bring you:

There Are Places I Remember Holiday Edition:

Cornwall Beatles Locations 1967 and 2020/1.

Here are those locations, in the order the Beatles visited them.

Tuesday 12 September 1967

The first full day of filming for The Beatles’ television film Magical Mystery Tour in the southwest of England. The day started at the Royal Hotel in Teignmouth, Devon where the Beatles and their coachload of actors, friends, fan club secretaries and extras had stayed the previous night.

After breakfast the coach set off with the intention of visiting the Widecombe Fair on Dartmoor. Unfortunately, they never made it, the coach becoming wedged on a narrow bridge which resulted in a number of cars getting caught behind them. Tempers flared as the coach had to reverse half a mile back up the road, John Lennon reportedly ripping the signs off the sides of the coach to deter the cavalcade of vehicles from following them any further.

Changing route, they instead headed for Plymouth where they stopped for lunch at the Berni Inn inside the Grand Hotel, and then posed for photos sitting on the world-famous Plymouth Hoe, not, as some of your young hip-hoppers might assume, a renowned local lady of ill-repute, but a much-admired beauty spot, 'hoe' being the old English for 'high ground'. And get high the Beatles did, probably.

The Beatles on the Plymouth Hoe (David Redfern)

After waving goodbye to Devon, the coach crossed the Tamar Bridge, entering Cornwall. Their first stop was somewhere in Liskeard. No filming was done there, and it has been suggested that they may simply have stopped here for refreshments and to look at maps to decide where to go next.

Back on the road, the next stop was Bodmin. The coach pulled up outside the West End Dairy at 57 Higher Bore Street, where the delighted owner, Mr D G Medland, sold ice-cream, fruit and lollipops to The Beatles and their party. The scene was filmed but left on the cutting floor. The dairy is now a spiritualist church. After refreshments the coach pulled away but stopped minutes later in Paull Road, a quiet cul-de-sac. It's uncertain whether they were there by design or because they were lost but they decided to take advantage of the location and film the scene where the courier Jolly Jimmy Johnson (played by Derek Royle) boards the coach and greets the passengers. This sequence was used at the very start of the finished film.

The coach then returned to the A30 and headed for Newquay , where it arrived during the afternoon at its final destination for the day, the Atlantic Hotel on Dane Road.

The rear of the Atlantic Hotel looking as it did in 1967 (on the left in the photo)

Paul arriving at the Atlantic Hotel, Newquay. Note the cross of the huge War memorial behind him.

As Paul got off the bus he gave a brief interview to Hugh Scully, today remembered as the longest serving presenter of the BBC programme Antiques Roadshow but in 1967 a presenter for the 'Spotlight', the BBC's regional TV news programme for the Southwest of England.

The Beatles stayed in our annexe which (was) across the car park and over a little bridge, which also gave them a bit more privacy and allowed them to have a room of their own.

The whole time they stayed we had to have the curtains on the ground floor drawn because otherwise there would be girls staring through all the windows. [1]

A local businessman Ted O’Dell, who would later run a Beatles-themed Magical Mystery Tour around Newquay, met John, Paul, Ringo and George when they were having a drink in the Sailors Arms on Fore Street, a short distance from the Atlantic Hotel. This is likely to have been on the evening of the 12 September.

The Beatles had intended to stay in Newquay for just one night, but after considerable private discussion where they weighed up the merits of either moving on to a new hotel each day or staying put in one location and using it as a base, they opted for the latter alternative and decided to remain at the Atlantic for three nights: Tuesday to Thursday. This private discussion may well have taken place over a pint here, away from the majority of the cast and crew.

Interior of the Sailors Arms (2020)

Wednesday 13 September 1967

John at the top of the steps leading down to the beach at Watergate Bay

The first of three days filming for Magical Mystery Tour around the Newquay area began at Watergate Bay, Tregurrian, a beach 5 or so miles north of the Atlantic Hotel.

In the late morning the bus took the Beatles and some of the hired actors to the bay. There, Ringo's 'Aunt Jessie' and Buster Bloodvessel (Ivor Cutler) filmed their romantic interlude on the beach as well as an unused segment intended as the introduction to the scene where they step off the bus and make their way down the stairs to the beach. Ringo looks on in alarm, before wandering over to the telescope seen briefly behind them.

Mr Bloodvessel (Ivor Cutler) leads Jessie to the beach. Note Ringo at the telescope above them.

Ringo was also filmed separately, peering through the telescope. The sequence didn't make the final cut so we can only guess how it might have played out. Perhaps the intention was to intercut this with the beach scene, Ringo keeping an eye on his amorous Aunt's antics from a respectful distance, or maybe, given the spirit of the film, what Ringo saw through the other end of the lens was to be completely unexpected!

I think the telescope was sited in what is now the Phoenix car park overlooking the beach. My 2020 photo (below) was taken slightly above on the hill behind Ringo. Sadly, the telescope looks to have been removed when the present Surf School Academy and other premises were built on the beach directly in front of it, obscuring the view. I wonder where this piece of memorabilia is now?

A long-distance view of the Beatles filming the telescope scene, taken by Nigel Jarvis. There has been quite a lot of building on the land around the Watergate Bay Hotel (top right) in the 54 years since their visit.

Mr Jarvis, who was 16 in 1967, was on holiday with his parents and witnessed the Beatles filming the scenes for MMT in Watergate Bay. On rediscovering the photographs he took that day he gave an interview to the Daily Mail in October 2012.

'There was all this to do in the car park, so I borrowed my dad's camera and went up to have a look.'

To the teen's surprise he came within touching distance of Paul McCartney, dressed in a crochet waistcoat, and Ringo Starr, with only Neil Aspinall blocking his way (see below).

'It was a bit of a shock. There was a melee of people. I just snapped off some pictures and followed them around for a bit.'

There was lots to-ing and fro-ing. I didn't see it, but they were filming on the beach. You could hear them, but not what they were saying. 'They did have very funny accents. You didn't really see that many people with northern accents in the South in those days.'

He added: 'Paul seemed to be quite friendly. Ringo was certainly there, but I didn't see the other two. It was rather exciting, and I was the envy of all my friends.'

John was certainly there but I've yet to find any of George, either at the telescope, or at the next location (on the beach).

The Watergate Bay Hotel today.

Moving down on to the beach itself Paul filmed the aforementioned romantic, tongue-in-cheek scene between Ringo's Aunt Jessie and the eccentric, and slightly sinister, Buster Bloodvessel (Ivor Cutler). In the film this is accompanied by an instrumental version of 'All My Loving'.

I couldn't quite get the correct angle with the rocks on the beach because the tide was coming in too quickly.

Paul with one of the film crew on Watergate Bay beach. Note Aunt Jessie and Mr Bloodvessel above Paul's head. Truly, love on the rocks.

The BBC cut this scene, singling it out amongst all the other peculiar imagery in Magical Mystery Tour for being in bad taste and unsuitable for their Christmas viewers. As Ivor Cutler later remarked, ‘Maybe they felt that people of our age had no business to be doing that sort of thing’.[2]

Two more of Nigel Jarvis's photos. Neil Aspinall does his best to manoeuvre Paul through the crowds of autograph seekers and well-wishers on the beach at Watergate Bay. This was a problem throughout the filming.

The coach party returned to the Atlantic Hotel for lunch, during which it was decided that the cameramen would split into separate units so that two scenes could be shot simultaneously at different spots in the afternoon.

On this afternoon, following lunch at the Atlantic Hotel, Paul and Ringo took the coach and most of the passengers a short distance to Porth, with about 15 cars in hot pursuit, during which Starr and Aunt Jessie ad-libbed an argument for the cameras.[3]

Porth is my favourite beach in Cornwall. When I was about 10 years old my family spent several summer holidays staying in a hotel just behind the beach on the left of the above photo (It's now holiday flats). Every afternoon the tide would come in and fill the 'channel' that ran the length of the north side of the beach (pictured closest to camera above) and I have vivid happy memories of my Dad rowing me and my sister along it in an inflatable orange dinghy.

Surfers head for the water's edge, where Paul and Little George were filmed. The Atlantic Hotel is visible on the horizon.

In the late afternoon, on the beach at Porth, McCartney was filmed walking and cycling on a tandem with Little George the Photographer, played by George Claydon.

The tandem belonged to Sylvia Brice from Plymouth, who took her bike to Newquay on the roof rack of the taxi sent to fetch it by The Beatles.

In the finished film the Porth footage was intercut with the night-time sing-song (filmed as the coach returned to London on the evening of the 15 September). And as for why Paul was riding a tandem across the beach, surely difficult under any circumstances but no doubt made harder here by the fact he was doing all the pedalling while carrying Little George as a passenger well, your guess is as good as mine!

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, John directed 'Nat's Dream', a slapstick sequence in which Happy Nat (the Rubber Man) Jackley chased bikini-clad girls around the Atlantic's swimming pool and the Huer’s Hut, a white, lime covered, fisherman's look-out dating from the 14th century, which sits on the cliff just below the hotel, overlooking the sea.

The Huer's Hut today

With the exception of a one second clip, which we'll get to in a minute, John’s entire afternoon's work was scrapped, not surfacing until 2012 when 'Nat's Dream' was included as a bonus feature on the DVD reissue of Magical Mystery Tour. This sequence shows many parts of the Atlantic Hotel which have since been lost through modernisation.

It is probably impossible to place the footage in the order it was filmed (there are some indications that the pool scenes were taped before the Huer's hut) so we'll look at it in the order in which it appears in the apparently finished bonus scene on the DVD.

We first see Happy Nat approach the Huer's Hut, A pretty bikini-clad brunette leans out of one of the windows, Nat kisses her and she points towards the camera.

This girl, apparently nicknamed the 'Lovely Linda', made the final cut in a blink and you’ll miss her split-second appearance, waving from the Huer’s window during the opening title montage of Magical Mystery Tour.

Following her directions Nat walks around the hut to the entrance (gated off in 2021) showing his bizarre comic gait. He enters and heads for the window where he'd just seen the brunette. She's disappeared but when he turns around there's another young lady (who looks very young) sitting on the ledge opposite.

This is likely to be Judith Rogers, aged 15, a local Newquay girl who was playing truant from school and hanging around the Atlantic hoping to see the Beatles. Judith was spotted among the fans outside by film production manager Peter Theobald, who approached her and asked “Have you got a bikini?” (without getting himself arrested as he surely would today).

The schoolgirl said she had brought one along to sunbathe and was wearing it underneath her skirt and blouse. “Well, change into it quickly and you can be in the film,” said Mr Theobald. Judith did just that – and then found herself talking to John Lennon, who gave her instructions about her scene.

Later in the afternoon we went up to film at Huer’s Hut, a sort of fisherman’s look-out points on top of the cliffs behind the hotel. George Harrison was supposed to come into the hut, pick me up and put me on a ledge.... God knows why!. and I remember thinking I’m being picked up by a Beatle! [4]

George may well have put Judith on the ledge that Nat finds her on, but he is nowhere to be seen in Nat's Dream.

Happy Nat gives Judith a kiss and she disappears, in the nick of time if you ask me. She looks too young for the scene, and it would certainly be frowned on today, if not in 1967.

Another girl appears outside and leads Nat up the stairs onto the roof of the hut where she disappears, replaced by Maggie Wright (who plays the role of 'the starlet' in MMT).

From personal experience I can tell you that getting onto the roof is harder than it looks! For anyone thinking of trying, I would suggest crawling up the narrow stairs using your hands and feet, and I'd recommend coming down either on your backside or with your back firmly against the wall. Tune in next week for more health and safety tips.

From his vantage point on the roof, Nat, who is presumably becoming less happy, and twice as confused at the sequence goes on (aren't we all?) spies another girl on a swing in the Atlantic's playground.

The Atlantic Hotel today from the same angle. The swing park has long since disappeared.

Nat momentarily joins the girl on the swings only for the door in the adjacent wall to open and there is Miss Wendy Winters (the 'hostess'), dressed in a black negligée, beckoning for Nat to follow her through to the swimming pool area of the hotel. Which of course he does.

The pool area today (photo: Brian Lewis)

Wendy orders him to get in the swimming pool, which is now full of girls in bikinis, some of whom Nat had encountered earlier. He strips down, through multiple pairs of shorts before he jumps into the pool. This all takes place to the accompaniment of the tune Shirley's Wild Accordion a Lennon/McCartney original performed by accordionist Shirley Evans (from Birkenhead) who stands poolside dressed in a purple showgirl's costume.

You'll notice that the pool area is now surrounded by onlookers, even in the 'finished' clip.

John directing the scene wearing his Afghan Coat while the girls huddle to keep warm, their skin getting bluer by the minute in the September chill.

Once again Miss Wendy Winters signals for Nat to follow her, and the rubber man, the starlet, and assorted girls climb out of the pool and exit through another at the opposite end of the swimming pool, (this one close to the Beatles' apartments / main car park) climbing the stairs before the sequence ends.

The same stairs today (photo: Brian Lewis)

According to Judith Rogers she was also filmed being chased over the clifftops at Holywell Bay, 6 miles south of the Atlantic Hotel. No footage of this has surfaced.

George during the filming of Nat's Dream.

George Harrison also remained at the Atlantic to assist John, throwing in the odd idea when required, and keep an eye on the girls. He also found time to give a lengthy radio interview to the BBC’s Miranda Ward, which was broadcast in two parts on Radio One’s Scene And Heard on 30 September and 7 October 1967.

George Harrison talks to 17 year old Catherine Osbourne (left) of Stanstead Abbots, Hertfordshire, and her friend who are on holiday in Newquay, and after they'd been persuaded to put their bikinis on.

Catherine made the following day's newspaper.

A girl called Catherine Osborne was given a part in a Beatles film yesterday. It was only a little part in a relatively modest television film to be screened at Christmas.

But the Beatles have an allure which is probably unmatched in the world, and Catherine spoke of her good fortune with the breathless excitement of a star about to be born.

"I was flabbergasted," she said, "I couldn't believe it. I'm taking three A-levels next year in science subjects, but I'd rather do something like acting."

Catherine is 17, lives in Stanstead Abbotts, Herts., and is on holiday at Newquay, Cornwall, where the film, Magical Mystery tour was being shot yesterday.

She got the part, in which she has to splash about in a swimming pool, after asking Beatle Paul McCartney for his autograph. She was wearing a bikini at the time.

Catherine added, "This makes it the greatest holiday I think I will ever have."

She certainly seems to have caught the Beatles' attention. Some of you with a keen eye will recognise Catherine as the girl on the swings in Nat's Dream.

In the evening the Beatles were visited by Spencer Davis who was on holiday with his family in nearby Perranporth. Davis recalled:

The Spencer Davis Group had just finished a tour and I was having a holiday, staying with my wife and daughters at the Tywarnhale pub in Perranporth, which was owned by the parents of our road, Alec Leslie. I knew the Beatles quite well, so when I heard that they were filming at the Atlantic Hotel in Newquay I called up and asked Mal Evans what was going on. Mal immediately invited me over, so the whole family got into the Mini and drove over there. [5]

John, Spencer Davis, Jessie and Paul (see 15 September)

Thursday 14 September 1967

On the morning of the fourth day of filming for Magical Mystery Tour the coach party set off to look for a secluded field. They ended up a cornfield in Tregurrian, not far from Watergate Bay, where George was filmed meditating to his song Blue Jay Way, while wearing an oversized blue jacket.

In addition to George’s sequence, which did not make the final edit, the Beatles filmed all the passengers from the bus crowding into a small tent. In the finished film this tent leads into a small theatre where the Blue Jay Way sequence is shown.

Liverpool Beatles' Fan Club Secretary, (Good Ol') Freda Kelly gets back on the bus after filming the field scene, with Ringo right behind her.

Once again, the crowds of onlookers meant police had to deal with a traffic jam.

The coach returned to the Atlantic Hotel in Newquay for a late lunch at 4pm, with music in the dining room provided by a resident band. Although the lunch was filmed, it was left out of the final cut though a couple of clips of Aunt Jessie and Happy Nat Jackley appear on the DVD as bonus features.

Atlantic Hotel

Apparently the Beatles had been in the ballroom the night before having a drink and got chatting to this bandleader chap. Paul asked him what he was doing for lunch the next day and when he said ‘nothing’ he was recruited to play while we ate. [6]

Speaking in 2002, Doris Freeth, who danced with Paul McCartney in the Atlantic Hotel ballroom, said that it had all been like a dream – even though he was not the best dancer in the world.

Mrs Freeth said that she knew the owner of the hotel, and he had telephoned her to ask if she would like to meet the band.

She said: “My friend put us at a table next to them, and when the music started my husband asked Paul McCartney if he would dance with me.

“But he said that he couldn’t dance. Those were the days when it was all rock and roll and jiving, but this was ballroom dancing instead.

“I had brown suede shoes on and he kept treading on my feet. I didn’t brush them for a week afterwards.”

Chris Parkin said that he sneaked into the hotel with a friend by pretending to be a waiter.

They met Paul and Ringo in the hotel cocktail bar, and Chris ended up playing billiards with Ringo for much of the evening.

He said: “They were really down to earth. They were really friendly and easy to talk to.

“It was a huge event at the time. They were world superstars, above everyone else in the pop and showbusiness world.

“I remember coming out of the hotel at 11.30pm and the crowd which had been waiting outside had gone. [9]

Some views of the Atlantic Hotel's restaurant and ballroom (2021)

We had a little three-piece band with a violin, piano and drum, and all four of the Beatles danced waltzes and fox-trots to their music with the hotel residents, most of whom would have been in their fifties.[7]

In one of the bonus features on the Magical Mystery Tour DVD we get to see a clip of Aunt Jessie demonstrating her talent for playing the drums, accompanied by the Atlantic's house band.

Perranporth

The Tywarnhale Inn, Perranporth

While we’d been chatting during the day I invited Paul back to the pub in Perranporth for a drink. So that night, I’m sitting in the bar when in walks Paul and Ringo. The punters in the pub just couldn’t believe it. Paul, being the sort of character he is, just grins at everybody, shouts out ‘Evening all’, and then installs himself at the piano, where he sat belting out pub songs all evening with everybody singing along until about two in the morning. That was such a great night. [8]

The actual piano the actual Paul actually played in 1967, still going strong 54 years on.

Also present was Neil Aspinall and BBC radio reporter Miranda Ward who later recalled that Paul sang “every pub standard bar ‘Yellow Submarine’, which he refused to play”.

Perranporth is 8.5 miles south of Newquay and it takes about 15 minutes to drive there. We made several visits to the Tywarnhayle during 2020-21, for once somewhere with a Beatles' connection which was enjoyed by the whole family. I strongly recommend their Sunday carvery followed by a walk on the beach at sunset. It's a beautiful spot.

That same night, a brick was thrown through the window of the Magical Mystery Tour coach outside the Atlantic Hotel, and George Harrison’s denim jacket was stolen. Local bobby PC Brian Curnow went to the hotel and interviewed several people and examined the coach for any clues. The culprit was never found, and George Harrison never got his jacket back.

Friday 15 September 1967

The coach party had stayed for three nights and now it was time to return to London. Following breakfast on this morning, a brief scene was filmed in front of the coach and hotel in which the entire party cheered and waved to the cameras.

Paul and George take their places for the group shot. Paul hams it up for the local crowd.

Me in 2020 sitting roughly on the same spot as George Harrison in the photo below.

During our 2021 holiday we visited the Cornish seaside town of St. Ives. While browsing in one of the shops I found, of all things, a Corgi Magical Mystery Tour replica bus. I'd already taken my exterior shots of the Atlantic Hotel in 2020 but seizing the opportunity to use a 'prop' I bought the bus and returned to the hotel to take some more pictures. Note how the top-line of the hotel has been remodelled since 1967.

(Above) The Beatles in and around the Atlantic Hotel on 15 September 1967.

The Atlantic Hotel guestbook which, like every other guest, the four Beatles signed on the day they checked out. Amusingly, Paul has given the fictitious Hungry Hall, Herts (Hertfordshire) as his address which has prompted George to write his as Hampton Court, a genuine royal palace which was the home of King Henry VIII. Not joining in the joke , Ringo has simply put Surrey, the county where he genuinely lived. John has put the northern county of Yorkshire. You might put this down to John just being John until you realise that throughout the filming of Magical Mystery Tour, in every scene where he's playing himself, he speaks in a Yorkshire accent. Clearly he was in his method acting phase!

(Below) Two views of the Atlantic Hotel taken across the bay and harbour from Towan Beach. Note the white Huer's hut on the cliff to the right of the hotel.

Some more views of the Atlantic Hotel

The annexe where the four Beatles stayed is behind the bus. The entrance to the main hotel is top left. In 2021 a new building stands where the annexe once was.

The coach then left for London, stopping for several scenes en route. A second week of filming for Magical Mystery Tour began the following Monday.

An overview of the Beatles' week in Cornwall (image: Google Maps)

Tregurrian
Watergate Bay/Tregurrian beach
Porth beach
Newquay town centre
Holywell Bay
Perranporth

On 19 October 2002 a plaque commemorating the Beatles' visit was unveiled by the Mayor of Restormel Council. The plaque can be found in the heart of Newquay at the KIllacourt, a green open space above Towan beach in the town centre, with views of the Atlantic Hotel across the bay.

When I went looking for the plaque in 2020 I was dismayed to find it behind heras fencing, within a construction site. Thankfully the building work was completed when I returned this year and the plaque is now accessible again.