Recording "Thingumybob"

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On the way back home

On the way home, Paul McCartney, Derek Taylor, Peter Asher, and Tony Bramwell made a stop at a pub in the small Bedfordshire village of Harrold, owned by Gordon Mitchell. Paul approached the piano and performed a few songs, among them his recent composition, “Hey Jude.”

We finished the recording on Sunday and then it was back to London. […] We were cruising along in the back of the big limo when the Stones’ new single, “Jumping Jack Flash,” came on the car radio. We couldn’t believe it, and I leaned forward to turn the radio up loud. […] We were just pulling into a gas station when it ended and Paul turned to me. Reverting to type he said, “Bloody ’ell! That’s a bit tasty. ’Ere, Tone, do you think you could go and call up Alan Freeman and get him to play that again?” […]

I called “Fluff” Freeman as directed, and almost immediately, to our surprise, he announced on air, “Tony Bramwell of Apple Records has just called in from some gas station in the middle of nowhere. He’s with Paul McCartney and they’ve made a request to play ‘Jumping Jack Flash’ again.” And he turned to his producer, Dennis Jones and asked, “Can we do that?” Dennis said, “Why not?” So they did. We just sat there in the Daimler in this gas station listening. It was still fantastic.

Tony Bramwell – From “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“, 2005

The chauffeur said: ‘Back to London?’ and we said ‘yes’, not sure that it was the right answer.

Alan Smith of the New Musical Express, Alan who had been on the Birkenhead News when I was on the Liverpool Daily Post, was travelling back with us and was taping interviews; so lively the journey became and, asked about Biafra, Paul said he had to confess, he didn’t really care about Biafra, if he had he would have gone there, wouldn’t he? […]

‘Where would you like to go?’ I asked. ‘AA Book,’ said Paul. ‘Pick the most beautiful name in Bedfordshire,’ I said, ‘that’s where we should go.’

Peter looked at the map for what seemed like two hours or more.

‘Harrold,’ he said, after fifteen seconds.

‘Harrold?’ said the driver, naturally knocked out with delight to leave the M1 and crawl down B, C and D roads to a village no one in the car, including himself, had ever heard of. We wound through Bedfordshire checking off the signs steadily until we reached the village sign: Harrold. Oh, it was a joyful Sunday sight.

It was the village we were supposed to have fought the world wars to defend, for which we would be expected to fight the third when told to, but won’t. It was a Miniver hamlet on the Ouse and there were notices telling of the fete next Saturday and a war memorial which made me weep. Thrushes and blackbirds sang and swallows dived into thatches and a little old mower wheezed as we walked down the only street there was past the inn which was closed and the church which was open nodding to a sandy man with 1930s moustache and khaki shorts as he clipped his hedge and stared at these city people with funny hair and clothes. […]

‘Welcome to Harrold, Paul,’ said the sandy man, the local dentist, downing the rich gold beer he had earned with his shears. ‘I can hardly believe it, in fact I think I’m dreaming.’

We next found ourselves in his house, below dipping oak beams, a banquet provided for us, hams and pies and multi-jewelled salads, new bread and cakes, chicken and fruit and wine; and the dentist’s wife, a jolly lady, still young beyond her maddest fantasies, bringing out her finest fare. Paul McCartney was at her table in the village of Harrold.

Hiding at a turn on the crooked staircase stood a little girl, shy and disbelieving. But she had brought a right-handed guitar and landed it in Paul’s (left-handed) hands but the wizards were producing this play by now and floating with the splendour of this, the strangest Happening since Harrold was born, the dentist and his wife, and the neighbours as they crowded the windows and the parlour, and the children, all caught their breath as Paul McCartney began to play the song he had written that week: ‘Hey Jude,’ it began.

Derek Taylor – From “As Time Goes By: Living In The Sixties“, 2018

On the balmy summer late afternoon of Sunday 30th June, 1968, I was pottering in our garden at Mulberry Lodge in the High Street. Five young men, accompanied by a large Old English Sheepdog, stopped at the gate and asked me the way to the river. One was instantly recognisable as Paul McCartney.

I observed that they did not go towards the river, but presumably, having spotted the Magpie sign, decided that they preferred to drop in and refresh themselves with Mrs Matthews’ (the landlord’s wife) beers. My wife, Pat, and I also found our way to the Magpie to join them and were greeted like long-lost friends.

We asked them why they were in Harrold. They then told us about their trip up to Saltaire in Yorkshire to do a recording with the Black Dyke Mills Band. On their way back down the M1 on this hot summer’s day, they wished to break their journey, and after consulting a map, liked the sound of the name Harrold and headed for it, and here they were.

With Paul was his manager Derek Taylor, Alan Smith ( a reporter with the New Musical Express). Peter Asher (of the pop duo, Peter and Gordon, and a brother of Jane Asher, whose relationship with Paul was about to break up), and Tony Bramwell (of the Apple organisation) , who has since written a book on the Beatles.

After a while, thoughts were on something to eat. In those days few pubs served food. Pat suggested that she could provide something, so we trooped back to Mulberry Lodge, where she managed to produce a sumptuous meal. Paul showed his humanity by visiting Pat’s father, at that time an invalid in bed, and had a long chat with him. He also played a pink piano which was in the room, commenting that he had never seen one which was pink before!

We had a lovely evening of conversation and music and food and wine. Our younger daughter, Shuna, produced a child-size guitar, which Paul tuned by putting two coins under the bridge and then proceeded to play in his normal left-handed manner. He played and sang throughout the evening and then told us he had a new song – not yet recorded – called Hey Jude, which he sang several times. Shayne, our other daughter, was so unfazed by what was happening that she retired to bed to read a book!

We had long chats about his life as a pop star and what it was like to be so famous and so well off so early in one’s life, and he related some of the difficulties it was creating for him.

They all were the nicest people one could wish to meet, and great fun, and it was a very special evening. Pat, in particular, always felt great respect and affection for Paul and took great interest in his career and life, until her death in 2002.

After many hours, and well after midnight, they suggested that perhaps they should think of returning to London, so, not having any idea where their Rolls Royce and chauffeur were, we walked back up the High Street and there outside the Oakley Arms was their car.

Frank Evans, the landlord, his wife Jean and their daughter Tessa had been told by the chauffeur who his passengers were, and knowing that they had to return to the car, they kept the pub open. Then followed another session of Paul on the piano singing Beatles songs. Eventually, perhaps at about 3 am, they trundled out to their car and we bid them farewell after a magical evening.

Gordon Mitchell – March 2008 – From Harrold History – Gordon Mitchell’s Story – Harrold Online

It was now eleven o’clock and we were still in the house and the inn was closed but a winged messenger came to say that as this was the night of nights, never to return, the inn was to be re-opened. ‘In your honour, Paul.’

It was 11 p.m. Paul had The Look on his face, the ‘do we don’t we?’ I nodded: tonight we should. The pub was absolutely full. The whole village was here. Paul played the piano until at three o’clock a woman stood and sang ‘The Fool on the Hill’ and he left the piano to dance with her and kiss her on the cheek and then I went and sat in the little garden and cried for joy that we had come to Harrold. It was a most beautiful garden, with hundreds of old-fashioned flowers, lupins, foxgloves – that sort of thing, and Alan Smith came out, pissed as a newt and said, ‘Why so sad, old friend, why so sad on such a night?’ ‘Not sad,’ I said, ‘not sad, old pal, just happy to be alive.’

Derek Taylor – From “As Time Goes By: Living In The Sixties“, 2018

By the time we got to the pub, the word had spread and it was fairly packed. We drank beer while Paul sat at the piano and played a repertoire of Beatles songs, McCartney songs and a lot of rock and roll until closing time. I think in the back of his mind Paul would have liked to put tomorrow off indefinitely. At least here in the countryside was peace. In London there was none to be had. London was business and all its attendant problems. Lately most of them seemed to be sitting on his shoulders alone.

Tony Bramwell – From “Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles“, 2005

A few days later, we received a letter of thanks signed by them all (except Alan Smith) and also received a gift of two bottles of champagne for the bottle stall at our Playing Fields Association fair on the following Saturday, which were duly raffled.

Alan Smith wrote an article for the New Musical Express about the weekend, which was for years framed and displayed in The Magpie.

Derek Taylor devotes two pages to the visit in his book “As Time Goes By – Living in the Sixties”. This is reasonably accurate, allowing for the fact that he is recollecting events through a haze, as he says himself, of a certain Dr Leary’s medicine. Tony Bramwell and Rosemary Kingsland, in their “Magical Mystery Tours – My Life with the Beatles”, make a brief and not totally accurate reference to the evening.

We simply regarded it as a very special evening, and weren’t much aware until decades later that the Harrold visit had been written about so much, and had inspired such interest.

Despite several requests to give interviews and appear on television, we have avoided and resisted, up to now, to give any publicity to this special evening. I have now considered it prudent to write down what happened so that an accurate record exists.

Gordon Mitchell – March 2008 – From Harrold History – Gordon Mitchell’s Story – Harrold Online

FROM DUSK TO DAWN with Paul McCartney

Some weeks ago I begged to be excused from the full story of Paul McCartney and the village of Harrold, which began in Bradford one hot Sunday afternoon and ended with me staggering home in London in the thin, cold light of the Monday dawn. The Cider had got me.

It was also right there in the middle of my holiday, and I wanted the time to sit down and write about it as it was. And it was, as I still remember vividly, a dusk-to-dawn encounter that taught me a great deal about the Inner Mind of the Amiable Mr. McCartney and at least a little about myself.

It all started when Paul, Peter Asher, Derek Taylor and Tony Bramwell kindly offered me a lift back to London after the recording of the Black Dyke Mills Band.

One hour and a half later we were still in Bradford, sitting in the deserted hotel, talking to people, drinking tee, being friendly. A BBC TV unit turned up and Paul stood outside in the sun to be filmed chatting up some of the local talent.

We leave. The thermometer inside the Rolls has been at 110, but a touch of the button and the window opens and a nice breeze blows around us via Paul’s giant sheepdog Martha. On and on to the M1. Miles and miles of white concrete. Conversation. Paul pushing buttons on the radio and hearing the Marmalade’s “Lovin’ Things” with eyes wide open… “Fantastic. Get that bit”

Alan Freeman’s “Pick of the Pops”. Des O’Connor’s “I Pretend”… “but he’s a nice bloke” says somebody. Esther and Abi’s “One More Dance”. “God,” says Paul, “are the charts all like this?” Push of the button — “Sing Something Simple” on Radio 2. Community singing… we all join in “Music, Maestro, Please” and “Michael Row The Boat”. Well, it’s a laugh, isn’t it?! And there’s only that damn concrete, stretching on and on along the M1.

Boredom. Brilliant wit of Apple PRO Derek Taylor (ex-Hoylake, Cheshire, ex-“Daily Express”, ex an interesting and satisfying life in America and elsewhere ever since) comes to the fore. Fills in two Diners’ Club application forms, one from Max Wax, “Professional Killer,” the other from Norman Prince, of Wallasey, “part-time joiner at Grayson, Rollo and Clover” on Merseyside. No chance!

Back to “Pick of the Pops.” Easybeats’ “Good Times” slamming out of the speaker, Paul, Peter Asher and all knocked out by the sheer guts of it.

Sudden decision to get away from the M1 and an Asher eye sees the name “Harrold,” a Bedfordshire village. We head towards it but “Good Times” is still, kicking. around in people’s heads and the car is stopped and an attempt made to get through to Alan Freeman and say what about putting it on again?

No luck. Choked faces in the call-box. It’s a live show, isn’t it, but they won’t even put you through to the studio.

All you get is some stuffed-shirt Duty Officer saying it is not possible to make contact with Mr. Freeman during the course of the programme. (And Mr. Freeman, when I tell him later, is choked about it himself. They didn’t even give him the message). Two scruffy. urchins go by, bless ‘em, with dirt on their faces and their shirts hanging out, and they look up at the big Rolls and then at the famous passenger in the back. But there is no recognition. They walk on their way.

Eventually, Harrold.

Early Sunday evening, and only the sound of feet crunching along the road and birds singing and Paul asking: “So where’s the Ouse then?” — hadn’t Derek said we could find the River Ouse somewhere around there, and what are we doing stumbling around fields when we could be in the local village pub?

Bearded man in garden shows no immediate reaction to request from Paul for whereabouts of local boozer, delivered in heavy Liverpool accent, but gives Irish-accent directions to the Magpie down the road.

This turns out to be a cosy little place the size of a bathroom, with a Jolly Joker machine in the corner and a dartboard behind the door.

All of us are speakin’ like we do in d’Pool, wack, but there is no reaction from the customers to the effect that here is an international star sitting in their pub eating a piece of pie and drinking a beer and dipping into a bag of crisps. They’re all British, aren’t they? — nobody is going to blow his cool.

The only thing is that from time to time the door opens and somebody is standing there red-faced and gasping for breath as if he’s just finished a two-minute mile, and immediately a corner of his eye falls on Paul he forcibly regains his composure and walks casually over to the bar. But what I asked myself in one case, is: that particular customer doing wearing “I Love The Beatles” badge on his lapel in his local pub on Sunday?

The Bearded Irishman arrives with his wife Pat, and we get talking to him and he turns out to be a most genial man named Gordon who is the local dentist.

I’m not too sure about the rest of it (the Cider, you see – it was the Cider), but. the memories include a visit to another pleasant pub and Paul at the piano in the half-light, gravelling out Fats Domino songs like “Blueberry Hill” and. “Red Sails In The Sunset” and then a visit to the home of Gordon and Pat for meat and rice and more cider and wine

The children came downstairs in their dressing gowns in the wee small hours and play hide and seek, bashful about being seen by their famous guest until he shows one of the little girls some magic tricks and wins her confidence.

Time drifts on. Is it 3am? Four? The room is almost dark, but Paul sits at the head of the table, head dipped over acoustic guitar singing songs I have never heard before.

The voice aches over words of sadness and I wish, only wish, I could recall them now

They have to be from the next LP, I remember thinking, and pulling out a cheque book and trying to write some notes on the back. Something went wrong somewhere. All I see now is some faint scribble.

Time to go. Farewells to Pat and Gordon and the family. The crunch of the Rolls on gravel, then out on the road to London and conversations about people and life.

St Johns Wood. The first light of dawn. Farewell to Paul outside the high walls of his home and then on in the car to my part of town.

Trip over the dustbins.

Turn the keys.

Bed.

From New Musical Express, October 8, 1968

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Session activities

1. Thingumybob

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Recording

2. Yellow Submarine

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Recording

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