The Beatles travel from Essen to Hamburg

Neil Aspinall, Road Manager to The Beatles, continues his account of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s most recent German tour and their journey on a specially chartered train.

FROM Essen we travelled on the special train, through the night, towards Hamburg. After our lavish four-course dinner, we all tried to think of new names for the L.P.

By two in the morning George had gone off for a sleep and the rest of us — me, Paul, Ringo, Brian Epstein plus Peter and Gordon — had gathered round the table for a concentrated game of cards. John wasn’t in the mood to play so he sat and watched — coming up with further album titles from time to time.

“You’re beginning to lose your voice,” said Ringo suddenly. “I’m not… am I?” replied John. “I’ve been smoking too long today. Still, my throat does seem a bit funny.”

“I’ll see if they’ve got any honey,” I said. On any other train the honey might have presented a catering problem. But three minutes later John was soothing his throat with honey mixed into warm lemon juice.

At 5.30 a.m. we found a huge crowd waiting to greet the boys outside the station. Another, even larger, crowd of Hamburg fans gathered round the gates of the Tremsbunel Schloss Hotel, twenty miles to the North of the city. From seven until noon everyone slept.

Just after midday John called my room. “It’s worse,” he began. “My voice has gone.” I could hear from the husky croaking that this was no joke. In three hours’ time John and the others were due to face an afternoon concert crowd of six thousand in Hamburg’s Ernst Merck Halle. Something much more potent than honey and lemon was needed. We got hold of a local doctor who gave John a shot of calcium. It worked like magic. Within ninety minutes John’s voice was fine again and we settled down to a belated breakfast in the impressively furnished surroundings of the Tremsbuttel Schloss.

“That’s a fabulous tapestry,” commented John, looking at a massive and probably very valuable old hanging which covered half of one wall. “I’d like to wrap it up and take it home!”

Beatle dressing-rooms often get busy, but Hamburg was more like a railway station! Of course there were dozens of old friends dropping in all through the afternoon and evening. For the boys it was a night to get together again with a lot of the people they’d known best — four, five and six years ago when most of their work was in the clubs of Hamburg.

GIRLS they had known at the Star Club turned up to say “Hi!” and exchange news. Astrid, the lovely blonde girl who was once engaged to Stu Sutcliffe, came along with Gibby (who went over to Germany when Paddy, Klaus and Gibson folded up as a group last May). A photographer brought in a pile of 1960 photographs which showed John and George on stage at the Top Ten Club. Another visitor was Bert Kaempfert, composer of Strangers In The Night, who produced the boys’ earliest Hamburg recording sessions.

And just to complete the evening, a German group called The Faces brought The Beatles a gift of a new Swedish bass instrument — a fantastic cylindrical object with an electric keyboard which fascinated Paul at once!

From Fabulous208 – January 14, 1967