[Beatles Christmas recording, 1963]
# [Christmas song]
Hello, this is John speaking with his voice.
We're all very happy to be able to talk to you
like this on this little bit of plastic.
This record reaches you at the end of a really dear year for us,
and it's all due to you.
I'd like to say thank you to all of the Beatle people
who have written to me during the year.
I'd love to reply personally to everyone,
but I just haven't enough pens.
This is Paul here.
We're all dead pleased by the way you've treated us in 1963,
and we're trying to do everything we can to please you
with the type of songs we write and record next year.
Well, I'm running out of my time
and people are telling me to stop--
[all] Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop shouting those animals!
So I'll finish now with wishing everyone
Happy Crimble, and a merry new year.
Ya Ringo!
Hello, Ringo here. As you know,
I was the last member to join The Beatles.
I started to play gongs in the group 1962.
# [singing]
Thank you Ringo, thank you Ringo. We'll phone you.
# [George Harrison singing]
[laughter] I'm George Harrison!
Nobody else has said anything yet
about our secretary, Freda Kelly in Liverpool.
Good old Freda!
So on behalf of us all, I'd just like
to say a great big "thank you"--
# [singing together]
[Freda] I was just a secretary then,
and, funny enough, I'm still a secretary now,
and who would want to hear the secretary's story?
# [music]
[Freda] Millions of girls around
the world wanted this dream job:
they wanted to be the secretary.
She epitomized all their dreams and all their hopes,
and all these girls wanted to be Freda Kelly
and to be that close to The Beatles.
Well, I didn't expect to talk, maybe grab one of them,
but I wouldn't hurt 'em, I wouldn't hurt 'em,
I'd just talk to them maybe, but I wouldn't, you know, grab--
like, everybody says they're gonna
cut their hair and everything--
we wouldn't do that.
[Bill Kinsley] If you look at what is history now,
The Beatles were together ten years.
Freda worked for The Beatles for eleven.
She was there right before they made it,
and right after they finished,
so that says it all, basically.
Tell me, when you hear a Beatles record,
what thoughts run through your mind?
Beauty, sheer beauty.
The Beatles bring joy into the world:
they're happiness; we forget our cares when we hear Beatle records.
[old man] Freda was far more than a secretary to the Beatles;
she was a family member.
She's never had the same recognition
that a number of people within the inner circle have had,
simply because she never pushed herself,
she never wrote a book, she never agreed to do interviews,
she's always kept a very very confidential existence.
[fan girl] We came here at 6 o'clock
in the morning, 5:30, to see them,
and all they do is push you farther and farther away
and then they don't even let you see them!
A lot of people didn't take these girls seriously,
but I did, because, you know,
I was one of them -- I was a fan meself.
So I knew where they were coming from.
We grew up with them.
You know, they started
when they were younger and we were younger.
And all through these years, we've just
developed with them and grown up with them,
and they belong to us, you know?
But there could never be another Beatles.
Never.
[old woman] She's one of the last survivors
of the whole Beatles era, and you know,
this story of Freda Kelly's will be, surely,
one of the last true stories of the Beatles
that you'll ever really hear.
[Freda] I've been a secretary for half a century,
fifty years, and that's quite frightening.
This job is interesting, but it's not as exciting as my last job.
I don't get the phone calls that I did in the 60's,
like, you know, an invite to a premiere,
you know, "Roy Orbison's having a party
and we've managed to get a few tickets,
do you want to come to that Fre?"
And I'm like "Yeah, okay, I'm on the next train!"
[Good Ol' Freda]
# [xylophone music]
I left school when I was sixteen,
and my first job was at a firm called Prince's.
I was in the middle of a typing pool,
which is rows of secretaries just typing away.
The lads from different levels of law
would come down and give me work to do,
but most of my day was just spent typing contracts,
typing letters -- it wasn't the most glamorous of jobs,
but I was a working woman now.
# [indie rock music]
[Freda] One day, two guys from upstairs
came down and came over to my desk
and just said "Come on Freda, we're going to take you out for lunch."
I didn't know where I was going, and I ended up in The Cavern.
Now, I'd never been to The Cavern before,
I didn't even know what I was going into, because it was a cellar.
It had a unique smell:
there was no ventilation, and sometimes the toilets overflowed,
and it was opposite a fruit market,
so it was probably a mixture
of disinfectant, rotten fruit, and sweat
all rolled into one.
There was three archways,
and in the middle archway was wooden seats,
all different types of wooden seats,
they weren't all in rows and all the same.
There was a little wooden stage at the back,
and The Beatles were playing on the stage when I first walked in.
And I'd never experienced anything like that --
it was everything about them,
it was just the way they dressed, with all this leather gear,
they were larking about, and dancing on stage,
and mucking about with the audience,
and on top of everything else, there was the music.
It was just unlike anything I'd ever heard.
I was hooked.
I just was amazed by everything I saw,
and I thought "That's it, I'm going to go tomorrow."
Well I think it's put down that
they played something silly like 294 times.
Out of that, I would say, I probably saw them about 190 times.
# [rock music]
[Bill Kinsley] Freda was definitely a staple of The Cavern,
she was always there,
and she always sat in the same seat.
[Freda] I used to like the second arch on the lefthand side,
because it was just that handy.
You could pop in and out the band room all the time.
There was about two rows in the front,
they would leave their rollers in
until before the lads would come onstage,
and then they'd take their rollers out
and doll theirselves up and everything.
It was conversation all the time with the audience.
Somebody came in, a different hairstyle, they'd pick on them.
They'd go "Have you been the hairdresser's?"
or "Who got you up this morning?" [laughter]
But he answered them back.
They liked the razzmatazz between you and them.
People used to write down a number,
give it to them, and ask them would they right play that number.
Now, if you gave it to John, Paul always went over to John
and leaned over his shoulder and read the request out.
I thought "Can John read, or--?"
He looked pretty arrogant, to be honest--
he'd look at the crowd like that
as if he was going to kill everyone in the crowd.
And then I mentioned it to somebody
and they said "Oh, no, no, John's as blind as a bat.
He wears glasses and he never wears his glasses,
so he can't see further than his nose."
I liked George singing Three Cool Cats, I loved that one.
Or The Sheik of Araby, because he used to do a little dance
and I liked him doing the little dance.
He used to sort of kick his feet along the stage.
[laughter]
A few times I rang Paul up,
because one of my friends fancied him
and I wanted him to sing for her.
We used to just dial Garston
and then the number 6922.
He'd say "Hello," and you'd go, "Oh hi Paul, it's Freda.
It's Linda Shepherd's birthday on such-and-such a day,
can you play Love of the Loved for her?"
"Yeah, okay."
I got to know them personally through just talking to them,
going in the band room, because when they came off-stage,
they used to either sit in the band room,
talking to different people who ever came in,
and then you would just sit by them,
and you would just ask them where they were playing,
or how come you weren't here yesterday.
Paul was always nice and always friendly,
and any time you'd ask Paul to sing something, he would do it.
John... a man of many moods.
It depended on what side of the bed he got out in, in the morning.
He could be really grumpy,
but he was always himself, he never put an act on.
People say George was the quiet Beatle,
and I suppose he was in one way,
but he was never quiet with me.
He was more quietly-spoken, I think, than the others.
He was very thoughtful.
Ringo hadn't joined the group yet; Pete Bass was on the drums.
Pete was very shy, and he was also very handsome,
so he had a big following around town, from the girls.
They loved Pete.
They all lived my way home, on the south side of Liverpool,
and Paul and George had cars,
and then they'd say "Do you want a lift home?"
My father wasn't keen on them, he saw them
and what he saw he didn't like.
If they'd had suits on, or somebody
had a suit with a collar and tie,
he probably would've approved of them,
but he didn't approve of The Beatles.
# [worn vinyl sensual music]
But I was always late back from work,
I was always pushing and puffing and panting
and sitting down and starting to type.
I couldn't say I was somewhere else
or I got held up in a restaurant or trying to get some food
because I had the Cavern smell on me,
so they knew exactly where I'd been.
The girls in the typing pool had photographs up on the wall
of Pat Boone and Elvis and Tommy Steele and Cliff Richard,
and I didn't like any of them,
so I found a little picture of The Beatles,
but it was only dead small,
and I remember putting it up on the wall,
and the personnel manager caught me
when I was putting it up on the wall, Mr Mold, and he said,
"Oh, what are you doing, who are they?"
and I said "Oh, they're The Beatles,"
and he went "Who's The Beatles?"
and I said "They're a Liverpool group,"
and he went "Never heard of them,"
and I said "Oh, you will one day."
Bobbie Brown was the girl who went to The Cavern
and started a fan club for The Beatles.
Now, I couldn't understand why The Beatles had a fan club,
because they were just a local group,
but I eventually ended up helping Bobbie,
and then Bobbie got a boyfriend
and lost interest in running the Beatles fan club,
so I took over from there.
I was buying stamps and salve in the beginning,
and I remember being in the band room one day lunch time
and saying to Paul, "You owe me seven six for stamps,"
and he went "I haven't any money."
And then Bob Waller paid them,
and I sat in the band room until Bob Waller paid them,
and I said "You've now got money."
So he give him his due and paid me.
I just had this faith -- and there wasn't just me --
you just knew they were going to be famous one day,
but I couldn't visualize the fame that they got.
To me, being famous was playing on The Empire,
having a record in the charts.
Cliff Richard was big in those days,
and being as big as Cliff Richard,
that was as far as my vision went.
[Billy] Everything was new, nobody knew what was going to happen.
People who ever say to you, "We knew
they were going to be a success,"
they're lying through their teeth.
Nobody knew it was going to be the world phenomenon that it became.
# [music]
I got to know Brian Epstein through The Beatles.
I was going to see The Beatles all the time,
and then Brian Epstein started to come to see them
and that's how we became friendly.
Everybody in Liverpool knew who he was,
because he was manager of NEMS Ltd.,
the biggest record shop in the north of England.
I do remember it was by St. Barnabas's Hall in Penny Lane,
it was a Saturday night, I walked in,
I just know Eppy coming up to me,
and he then told me that he was signing The Beatles
and he was starting his own firm and he needed a secretary.
Then he said, did I want to come and work for them,
and I said "Oh, go on then." I just remember saying, "Oh go on then."
And I was so excited because I was starting my dream job,
working for The Beatles.
[Tony Barrow] I think what Brian Epstein saw was somebody who was a fan
without being an over-the-top fanatic.
I would call her more of an admirer;
she appreciated The Beatles, and that fitted perfectly, I mean,
Freda was there on the scene and ready to take over.
We had a lot of respect for Brian,
obviously, we thought he was really posh, you know,
we were all Liverpool screw-offs really, but Brian was very posh,
and for him to choose Freda to be the secretary,
we thought "Hey, wow, she must have something,"
you know, he could have picked anybody.
That's when I had to tell home,
'cos I didn't want to tell home, 'cos I just knew the reaction.
My mother died when I was eighteen months, and she died of cancer.
I had a good relationship with my father,
but also he was very protective towards me because I was his only child.
I was 17, so I managed to pluck up the courage
this particular night at tea time,
and I just said casually "I'm starting a new job on Monday."
And I do remember him saying "Has it got
anything to do with The Beatles?"
and I just blanked it, I must have turned it back
'cos I know I didn't lie, but I didn't answer the question,
and all I remember was the teapot going down with a big slam.
[Freda] We used to call him Daddy Eppy;
he was Brian Epstein's father, and it was his business.
We were on the top floor of his shop.
The first floor was what we used to call
the "white goods": it was televisions
and washing machines and things like that,
and then on the second floor, that was Brian Epstein's office,
and then there was a store room behind his office,
so I worked in the store room.
They changed that into an office for me.
In the beginning, the lads were
in the office nearly every single day,
you know, they just popped in and out.
They would sit by my desk for a chat
or while they were waiting to go into Eppy's office,
so I got to know them more.
I was 17, so naturally I did have crushes on them.
The way I describe it, and this is the truth,
if Paul looked nice or sang a song for me or something,
I was in love with Paul that day, I fancied him that day,
but then the following day, if Ritchie asked me how me dogs were
(because he knew I had Yorkshire Terriers,
he'd say "Oh, how are the dogs?")
I'd think "Oh, yeah, I fancy Ritchie,"
and then I think, if George offered me a lift home from work,
I'd be in love with George that day,
and I'd think "Yeah, yeah, I definitely fancy George."
But then if John came in and started talking about various things,
I'd think "I like his nose, I like the Roman nose,"
but it would only be for a day or two.
Did you go out with any of them?
No.
Pass.
No stories there?
Oh, there is stories,
but I don't want anybody's hair falling out or turning curly.
That's personal.
It was the end of a working day,
and Eppy just came in and said,
"Come on Freda, put your coat on,
I'm going to take you somewhere."
I had no idea where.
And next minute we were at The Empire,
and then next minute we were in the box,
I'd never been in the box of The Empire. It was this one on the left.
He'd managed to get The Beatles
a spot on the Little Richard show,
and I think somebody was sick or something
and he'd managed to get them on.
And I remember sitting in the box,
it was just Eppy and I, and I was to the left,
and then I looked down on the stage
and the whole theatre and the stage were in darkness,
except for this light shining on Paul's face,
and he was singing A Taste of Honey.
I don't cry, but my eyes sort of filled up
and I just couldn't believe that The Beatles were on The Empire,
the biggest theatre in Liverpool,
and I thought "This is it. They've made it.
They're going to be famous one day."
# [harmonica music]
The Beatles' first hit, as far as I'm concerned, was Love Me Do, I mean,
I was one of the ones that bought it,
and I didn't have a record player,
and there was loads of girls like me
that didn't have record players,
but we bought it just to boost the sales.
You didn't have pop stations then,
but we had one station called Radio Luxembourg,
and they used to do the charts,
and I remember staying up late,
sitting by the radio, holding the knob,
trying to keep it on the same wavelength,
and waiting to hear The Beatles' record.
And when it got to 17, that was amazing.
I know it only stayed the week, I think, but it didn't matter.
They were in the charts.
I was working for Brian Epstein, doing a normal day-job,
but I also had to do the fan club overnight.
Silly me, I gave out my home address as the fan club address.
The postman knocked on the door
and he said to me, "Who gave this address out?
You've got 200 letters here."
And I said, "Sorry, won't do it again time."
Little did he know, within the next
few months The Beatles became more famous,
and instead of just 200 letters, they were coming in bundles,
and those bundles came in sacks, so the van rolled up.
My father wasn't keen on The Beatles anyway,
and his own personal mail, you know,
your telephone bill, electricity bill,
your gas bill, all in the fan mail.
So he just looked at me and said,
"You've got to put a stop to this.
What possessed you to give our home address out?"
I didn't think at the time.
My mother has never played the fame game.
If she had, things would be completely different now,
and she might not be working six days a week
9 'til 5 o'clock at night, very stressed,
when other people have retired, and she hasn't got that joy.
These are all Christmas decorations.
Oh, success.
I kept a couple of scrapbooks
with theatre tickets in, and newspaper cuttings in.
A few fan club letters.
Yeah, they're old.
I think it's records, and, oh, me scrapbook.
Yeah. Cuttings book.
I mean I have a lot of these.
I don't know.
Forty years since Rachel was born.
I could have been a very very wealthy woman,
could be a millionairess if I'd have kept everything.
I had loads of autographs, photographs,
all the fan club stuff, Apple stuff, fan club records,
but over a period of time, I gave it all away.
But I don't regret that,
because I know when I gave the majority of the stuff away,
I gave it in 1974,
and I actually handed the stuff to Beatle fans myself,
so I knew the Beatle fans got all the fan club stuff that was left.
I've got these four boxes anyway.
I didn't even think I had four boxes.
As I'm flicking through,
there are so many memories coming back to me.
I'll just pick something up, and I'll remember that day.
Oh, this is George Harrison's real hair.
# [rock and roll music]
A few months after Love Me Do,
the lads had their first number one hit, which was Please Please Me.
We were gradually getting letters,
from 50 a day, 200 a day, to my home,
and then it worked up to about 800 a day,
and then eventually we didn't even count them,
we just threw the mail in the corner.
I would put loads of photographs in front of them,
and they would go in to Eppy,
and they would take the photographs in with them,
and while they were talking to Eppy,
they were all signing.
But they never complained about signing things,
never ever.
I think it was because it was early days
and they were all excited by it all,
so nothing was a problem.
Out of all The Beatles, I'd say George
was the best one for signing things.
He would come in and he'd go,
"Do you want me to sign anything?
What have you got in your cupboard?"
The Beatles called him Eppy, we all did,
but to his face, he asked us to call him Mr Brian in the office.
He was the boss so it was Mister.
He had an aura about him.
I know he was probably only 27 then,
but he was old. Ten years was a big difference in those days,
where I'm 17, he's 27.
He came from a well-off family and he had nice clothes
and spoke with a posh accent, so you had respect for him.
He threw a few tantrums in the office,
and you just kept out of his way.
Well, I did.
Probably that's why I lasted ten years.
Some people didn't, or retaliated,
and they were sacked on the spot.
He was the boss, and he was the boss.
Brian Epstein was notorious for his dreadful tantrums.
He would hire and re-fire his top executives
at the drop of a hat.
Freda was sort of immune, if you like,
to the temper tantrums.
She was never hurt by them.
# [music]
We had a new dictaphone,
and he gave me this tape to do while he was out,
and I'd done about two letters and the tape got stuck.
So Neil Aspinall came in and I said,
"Oh God, I've got this tape and I've got it stuck,
and there's a load of work on it."
We pressed two things, and we erased all the work.
He came in the office, and I just saw John at the back of him,
and he went to hang up the coat,
and he said, "Have you finished the tape?"
and I just said "No. I'm sorry, no.
I've wiped it by mistake."
He just looked at me, and then shouted "You stupid girl!!"
and John Lennon saved the day,
because he was behind me,
and he must have seen how shaken I was,
and Eppy about to erupt.
He started laughing, and going "Oh, what have you done, Kelly?"
and when a Beatle laughed, Eppy laughed.
But it wasn't a proper laugh.
He wasn't amused at all.
And I just remember looking at him
and saying "I'll stay late to do it."
and he said, "I know you will,
you'll definitely stay late, until all this work is done."
I was very naive for my age;
I just came into the music business when I was 17,
up until I was 16, I'm camping with the Guides and things like that.
Once I joined the Beatles organization,
I grew up overnight in more ways than one,
and I remember saying to John,
"You know what? I don't know what it is about him--"
I said "I can't put me finger on it,"
and I know I was rabbiting on for England,
and John started laughing,
and then he went "Have you no idea?"
and I said, "No idea about what?"
He put it to me very innocently,
and I always respect him for that,
he said, "Well let's say this, Fre,
if you're on a desert island with him, you'd be safe."
And the penny dropped.
Where nowadays it's legal, and quite rightly so,
but in those days they had a lot to put up with.
Probably that had a lot to do with his mood-swings as well,
and trying to keep it from his parents
and other people.
The music industry was a man's industry in the '60s.
In The Beatles' circle,
there wasn't any high-ranking women.
Women, or girls, worked on the admin side,
but the highest you can go in admin
is just be secretary to the main guy.
I was secretary to Brian Epstein,
but there wasn't a hard road to climb,
you just had to stay there.
There was a lot to get done,
so anybody that came into the office,
I would put them to work.
I would get them slicin' the envelopes,
tearin' the foreign stamps off,
stickin' photographs in envelopes,
and groups around town
-- because they never had any money, musicians around town --
they used to come into my office for a free cup of tea,
or if it was raining, or to hear the records,
so while they were sitting there,
nobody sat there doing nothing.
They all used to help out.
I bumped into the lead singer of
The Cryin' Shames, Ritchie Routledge,
and he had a big post bag on his back,
and I said "Where are you going?"
he said, "I'm going to the post office,"
I said "What for?", he said, "I've got all The Beatles' vinyl stuff
in the bag, Freda told me -- not asked me, told me --
to go and post it."
She just had this way about her,
a bit like a schoolteacher really.
You know, you had to do what the schoolteacher said,
and you had to do what Freda said, really.
Well, you didn't have to do it, you wanted to do it for her,
'cause she'd just give you a little smile,
and you did it.
When Ringo first joined the band
-- I think he was only in the band about two weeks or something --
I came into the office, he said
"I'm getting letters to my house,
and if I bring them in, will you do them?"
And I went "No, I won't," I said, "I've got too much to do."
I said "Get your mother to do it,
you know all the other parents do,"
and he went "Oh, me mum doesn't know what to do."
He put the sad eyes on, and just like
"Oh, go on, please? You know, I don't get many."
To shut him up I went "Oh go on then, bring them in."
He brought about nine letters in this little poly bag,
and he actually put the answers to the
questions that they'd asked in the letters
on the top of the letter to help me,
'cos he said to me, "If you don't know the answers
I've put the answers down for you and everything."
He must have thought I was terrible,
'cos I looked at him and I said to him "Is this all you get?"
I couldn't believe-- he must have wanted to shoot me,
and I went, "You've only got nine letters."
He said, "Will you help me?
Will you come and show me mum what to do?"
I ended up going 'round, knocking on 10 Admiral Grove,
and Elsie opened the door, and I said, "I'm Freda from the office,"
and she went, "Oh, thank God for that, come in, love, come in."
And I said, "Well, I've just brought stuff
for you, to show you what to do."
She said, "Have you had any tea?"
And I said "No," and she went, "Would you like egg and chips?"
and I said, "Oh, I'd love egg and chips, yeah."
And then we started talking, and we got on like a house on fire.
Every week, for years, I went to that house.
Will the neighbors not become envious
of all the wealth that's been accumulated by the Beatles?
No, not the neighbors 'round here,
they're all very good and all quite proud.
Comin' back now, just everything is flashing in me head
about just how much joy and happiness
and laughter went on in this house.
I had a great time here. I loved it,
I loved coming here every week.
It's probably... I haven't been in this house
for about 46 years.
I spent a lot of my life here.
I used to stay 'til about 1 or 2 in the morning,
going through the mail, and talking, and laughing,
things about my life as well, and who I was going out with at the time.
And it's not one of The Beatles, before you start.
Elsie'd give me advice, motherly advice.
She was very jolly, very outgoing,
and a really strong laugh.
I told her all my secrets when I was a teenager.
Maybe she looked on the daughter that she didn't have,
maybe she looked on me as that.
She decided I wasn't getting enough money, wages,
and she was at a party, and Eppy was there,
and then she, few drinks down, and then she starts in on him
and said "You don't know what you've got there,
you've got a good worker there."
And she was going on and on, and I was going "Well, shut up."
And she was going, "You should pay her some more money, you know.
You don't pay her enough money. You should give her a rise."
I really got a rise, two weeks later.
His words were, "We've reviewed your wages, Freda,
and we've decided to give you a rise."
Well, you asked me about a mother figure before --
she was the nearest to a mother figure for me.
I just adored her.
Once The Beatles were in London
and criss-crossing the globe,
Freda became probably the link
between the Beatles' families in Liverpool and each individual Beatle.
I was surprised when I met her,
because I thought, to have taken on this mammoth, ridiculous job,
she must have been some 50-year-old,
settled-in-her-ways old secretary
with bad feet and a large bosom, but she was anything but:
she was vivacious and fun and just a snip
of a teenager, this young, thin girl.
I suppose you could say that The Beatles saw her as a sister,
and the families saw her as a daughter.
NEMS used to close on a Wednesday afternoon,
but I never told home that I was off on a Wednesday afternoon.
We used to go out with Paul's dad, we used to call him Uncle Jim,
we used to go to a place called the Bassnett Bar.
He was trying to educate me
on the cures and cheeses and coffee and things like that.
Well, I would stay there and get sozzled,
you know, 'cos I'd be trying all these different things with them,
and then they would just put me in a taxi
and I'd go home and go straight to bed.
Now, John's family.... he only had Mimi.
Mimi was John's aunt.
She took John in when he was about five, when his parents split up.
Mimi didn't let anybody in that house; very few people got in.
You had to go 'round the back, you know, like the tradesmen's entrance,
but I actually went up and knocked on the front door,
and I got in the front door.
It wasn't that you were frightened of Mimi,
you just watched your Ps and Qs.
To me, Mimi was like my father, she was old-school.
Any time I saw her with John, which wasn't very often,
she was quite stern but he did obey her.
I think the Harrisons enjoyed the fame
more than any of the other parents.
Mr and Mrs Harrison loved it. They took to it more.
She was excellent with the fans,
would let them into her house, would give them a cup of tea,
you know, every day, she just sat down
and wrote letters to all these kids.
But they were very protective of George,
maybe it was because he was the youngest Beatle.
Mr Harrison -- Harry Harrison -- was always saying to me,
"You should learn to dance properly,"
and I said "I don't wanna learn ballroom
dancing, I don't really like it,"
and he said "No, I'm going to teach you."
He would get me up to dance and show me how to do the quick-step
and the waltz and everything.
so we were like there-- I was really self-conscious about it,
I just did not want to learn to ballroom dance.
You know, all the families and all the boys believed in her.
She was 'good old Freda' to them, in other words.
# [music]
Seeing them on a regular basis, coming in
and out the office, going to their homes,
it didn't hit me how big they were or worshipped they were
until the civic reception,
which was at the Town Hall in Liverpool.
The only people that were invited really
were The Beatles themselves and The Beatles' families,
and that was it, but Ritchie's family put me down
as one of their family.
We were picked up in a car from the counsel,
we must have come in the back way,
and the lads were already here,
and we had a meal, so we were all relaxed and everything,
and then next minute, they then had to go out onto the balcony
and, just as they opened these doors,
the noise hit us, with the shouts and the screaming,
[crowd screaming]
and then I came to behind the door here
and I just couldn't believe Castle Street.
# [music]
[crowd screaming]
It was just full of people;
as far as the eye could see was people, everywhere.
I mean, the noise was deafening, there was chaos in the street,
girls were wriggling and pushing to get through the crowd,
and they were fainting, and the ambulance men and police
were just passing them over the crowds
to get them into the ambulance.
It was unbelievable.
[crowd screaming and chanting]
I think the penny actually dropped
with me then, how big they were,
'cos it hadn't really hit home until I saw that amount of people,
it was about 200,000 people -- I couldn't even visualize 200,000 people
until I saw it that day.
I think now, and I think the parents
must have been so proud of 'em,
that their sons were out on the balcony,
and Liverpool was reacting to them.
I'm very proud that I worked for them.
[interviewer] So what was Beatlemania to you at the height of it,
when it was its busiest, what, 1964, '65?
[Freda] No sleep with all the mail.
[interviewer] How many letters a week were you getting, roughly?
[Freda] Oh, God, thousands, two to three thousand a day.
Must have sat up 'til 4, 5 o'clock in the morning
just answering -- I used to do all what we call detail letters --
I used to just bring all them home
and then go back to work with me little parcel the next day.
I don't know how I lived.
# [music]
In the wake of the outbreak of Beatlemania,
there was a very very sudden increase in interest amongst fans,
people writing in, asking for autographs,
asking to join the Beatles fan club, etc.
Brian Epstein decided that we would have a stamp.
It looked like a proper signature.
And I remember, sometimes, I would roll it across the autograph book,
and only half of it would turn out,
or it would smudge.
I ruined so many kids' autograph books.
And of course, I'm a Beatle fan,
so I'm thinking the way they're thinking,
and I thought "I'd go mad if that was me."
I know I was against them and John Lennon was against them as well,
I think he thought because of the falseness.
I remember John coming in, and I asked him to sign something,
and he said, "I did that,"
"You don't normally sign it that way,"
and he said "I've decided to sign that way from now on,"
and I said, "Is that because our stamps
look like you wrote the signature?"
He went "Yeah."
In the end, I thought, "Oh, I'm dumping them."
I never told Eppy, I just thought, "Right,
I'll just keep all these autograph books
and photographs in the cupboard,
and when the lads come in, I'll still carry on."
I would know when they were staying at home in their own houses,
I would know in advance that, oh, George is coming home tonight,
so I'll nab him, I'll go from the office straight to Mackets Lane,
so I would go 'round and get them
to sign stuff in their own house,
say, "Oh, while you're sitting there,
watching the telly, do us a favor.
Can you just sign that bagful?"
So, if some of the fans, especially in the foreign countries,
they didn't have the address of the fan club,
so they just knew that they lived in England somewhere,
so they would just put 'To Paul McCartney'
or 'To George Harrison, England,'
but it would come through the system.
The post office, give them their due, were very good,
they just knew where the fan club existed.
# [music]
The type of questions kids would ask
in the fan club letters was, you know,
'Can I have a piece of Paul's shirt?'
or 'If I send you a map, can you ask
Paul to come 'round at 6 o'clock?
Because I'm having a party and I'd like him to come.'
But then it got a bit out of hand,
because then people wanted hair,
and it was the same barber that cut
their hair, it was always this one guy.
I mean, it was their hair, they'd probably do DNA on it now.
He would have a mat down on the floor
or something, and cut their hair...
'cos he thought I was mental.
And he'd just say "There you go, do you want that bit?"
I'd go "Yeah, yeah, thanks."
Somebody sent a pillowcase in
and said "Can you get Ritchie to sleep on this pillowcase
and then send it back to me and get him to sign it?"
I must have known that he was going to be home for three days,
so I just threw that in the bag and took it to his house
and said, "Will you sleep on that tonight and sign it then?"
And I remember saying to Elsie -- that was his mum --
"Can you make sure he sleeps on it?"
Anyway, he brought it in, just said "Here,"
and then I just sent it out again--
whether she believed me or not that he'd slept on it, but he did,
he put his head on that pillow.
Honestly, if I could do it, I would do it,
'cos I was one of them, I was a fan meself,
so I knew where they were coming from.
There was one particular fan
that stowed away on a ship from America to Liverpool docks,
finished up on our doorstep.
Freda had many episodes like that to deal with,
of fans that were just crazy.
# [music]
They would just open the mail and flip through the mail,
and go "Oh, this kid wants such and such,"
or "This girl wants a piece of my shirt,"
they'd just laugh, and I said, "Oh, just leave it there,
'cos I've got a bit of your shirt," and they'd go "Good."
When I typed the wages, the balance went in the bank Fordham,
and they all got £50 in an envelope, cash,
for them to play around with whatever way they wanted.
Now, I used to take that money sometimes:
if they didn't come in that week, Eppy'd just say to me,
"Now you go to one of the bookings."
I knew they were playing at The Empire
and I was trying to get through the crowd,
and in those days, policemen were always big,
and this guy was a big guy and he was on a horse
and I was trying to wriggle through the crowd,
and I just said to him, "I need to get into The Empire."
He just blanked me.
And I said "No, no, I work for them,
honestly, I've got their wages,
I need to get into The Empire."
And he went, "You and thousands of others. Hop it."
Which one is this? Oh, it's a Beatle one.
My mum is the most private person I've ever met in my life.
She would never sit down and put dinner on the table
and discuss just idle chitter-chatter
about what's gone on with The Beatles
in the past, or anything like that.
That's just not her nature.
You know, Freda, unless you knew her,
you would never know what she's done,
'cos she never tells anybody at all.
We did a gig the other month in New Brighton
and Freda was in the audience.
I saw her come in, and I was on the microphone,
I said "I'd like to welcome Freda Kelly, The Beatles' secretary,"
and she just turned around and walked straight out,
so nobody knew who she was, they're all looking 'round
but she wasn't there; she'd walked out.
A lot of people in my mother's life
don't even know her previous life,
so to speak, i.e. her job, and she's always kept it like that.
It was a time of her life, and things changed,
and then she became a mother so things moved on,
so if they do happen to find out, they are
rather surprised, to say the least.
You know, some things are very personal,
and I do respect the word privacy. I like my own privacy,
and I think even The Beatles, they're
entitled to part of their lives
that really people shouldn't invade.
# [acoustic guitar and birds chirping] ?
Ritchie started going out with a girl called Mo Cox
who was from Liverpool, she was a hairdresser,
and we just got on very well together, Mo and I.
I think it was because she was just
an ordinary girl from Liverpool.
Mo and Ritchie got married in '65,
and then she had Zak in the September, I think.
I happened to be in London the day he was born,
and I was in the office, and Ritchie called into the office,
and he said, "I'm going to see Mo now,
and Zak. Do you wanna come with me?"
and I went "Oh yeah, yeah,"
So I think I was the second person
to see Zak, soon after he was born.
John's girlfriend -- well, she was
his wife when I got to know Cynthia --
she was out of the picture, she was very low key.
We were told -- but that we weren't to say
anything -- that John was married.
Brian Epstein was sitting on it for as long as he could.
I even had a friend that was going out with John,
and she would go to bookings and he would take her home,
but I couldn't tell her that, "Oh please, end this now.
It's not gonna go anywhere."
You really want to say something. You're dying to say something,
because it is your friend,
but you work for a company
that have asked you not to say things,
so you have given your word.
Freda had this Liverpool trait of loyalty
in her love life and other people's love lives.
Relationships were amongst the top
priorities of being personal things
that you did not publicize.
You certainly did not kiss and tell.
I was out with Paul, walking somewhere,
maybe he gave me a lift home or he walked me to the bus stop,
somebody saw us, and then it was, you know, I was marrying Paul,
and then they got a quote
"Well, Paul McCartney is not marrying Freda Kelly."
When it was released that Paul had got married,
because people didn't know that he was getting married,
phone call after phone call was all Paul fans, crying down the phone,
"Why didn't you tell us he was getting married?"
"We didn't know he was getting married!"
and, oh, some of them that wanted to kill themselves,
and "Oh, I'll never be a Paul McCartney fan again!
He's gone and married somebody else!"
so you just had to calm them down
and say, "Well, you know, he's still Paul McCartney,
he'll still be making his records,"
and they'd be "No no no, but he's
got married now and it's not the same."
I do remember the guy from one of the papers.
He lived near me, you know, he knew what my job was --
that I was working for The Beatles --
and I remember him saying to me, could I tell him anything?
"Freda, you just have to put an envelope
through my door with things written on it,
and then there will be an envelope through your door."
This was just before George got married,
'cos I thought "Well I ain't telling ya
that George is going to get married,"
but I just looked at him,
and then I just said, "Oh no, I wouldn't do that."
Everybody needs money, and we all like money,
or we'd like to have more money
than we have, but not to that extent.
I'm not prepared to sell me soul to the devil for a few pounds.
That's just me though, isn't it? You know
everybody doesn't think like me.
Maybe some people think I'm silly or stupid or...
She was a girl and then a woman
with absolute integrity and faithfulness.
So many other people have, over the years, told, I would say,
dirt digging type stories, and Freda never did do that
and never would.
In the beginning, you know, I was just a fan and everything like that,
but once I started working for them, the loyalty set in.
It wasn't there from day one, 'cos I'm just a seventeen-year-old,
but then, as I'm maturing with them, the loyalty is setting in,
and you don't break loyalty.
I think if you're loyal to something, you should stay loyal.
If she had to be tough, she would certainly be tough;
if she had to be sweet, she was sweet anyway,
and she was intent on getting the facts right all the time,
and lo and behold, if you didn't get the facts right,
you were in her bad books,
and I wouldn't like to be in Freda's bad books.
I think that Freda's motto in life
was "I'll be nice to you, but don't cross me.
I'll not deal with you, in fact, if you're
trying to tell lies about my boys."
# [music]
I was quite nervous around Freda,
'cos to me she was like an idol.
I was about 14, there was three of us worked together,
oh it was just absolutely an amazing
thing to do at the time, you know,
to think that one of The Beatles could possibly walk in,
it was just-- oh, I just can't explain it now.
It was amazing at the time.
[Freda] They would put photographs in envelopes
and they would open certain letters,
and then bring the letters in for me to answer,
and I would really frank in the mail,
and this particular day, one of the envelopes
that I put through the franking machine
was a bit bulky, so I opened it,
and when I opened it, there was hair fell out,
and the girls were still in the office,
and I just said, "What's going on here?"
She was absolutely livid.
I mean, being the innocent party,
I didn't know nothing about it,
and then my friend Lorraine, she owned up and said it was her.
It materialized that she'd cut her sister's hair
and put her sister's hair in the envelope
and pretended it was going to be Paul's,
and I just said, "Well, I just can't trust you after this."
I still remember thinking, "I've done nothing wrong,
it wasn't my fault!"
I just done a clean sweep, didn't just sack the girl that done it,
I said, "That's it, sorry. Can't trust you anymore."
That was the only time I've been sacked.
Wouldn't wanna live that day again, that's for sure.
It was horrible... awful day.
The thing about Freda is that if she found out
that somebody was telling lies about somebody,
it'd just be "Come here you," in front of everybody
and she would castigate them right down the banks,
and so she's a bit judgmental, if you like, but so? That's Freda.
The bottom line was, I had to run a tight ship --
I had to answer to Apple and to The Beatles,
and if anything went wrong, it was my head
that went on the chopping block,
nobody else's.
# [rock and roll]
It was August 1965, and The Beatles were playing on The Empire,
and The Moody Blues were also on the bill, with them.
I had popped in to see the lads,
I just opened the door slightly
and their band room was just full of relations,
so I thought, "Oh, I'm never going to get in here,"
so, I was involved with one of The Moodys at the time,
so I went into their dressing room, which was next door,
that was just them and they had alcohol and drinks,
so I decided to stay there for a drink,
but probably I stayed a bit longer than I shoulda done,
and then I realized that I had to get autographs signed
and photographs signed, so anyway,
I came back, knocked on the door, and I just walked in.
And as I walked in, John said to me, "Where have you been?"
And I said, "Oh, I've been next door,
I've been in the Moodys' dressing room,"
and he went, "Whose fan club secretary are you?"
and I went "What are you talking about?"
I said, "I'm your fan club secretary,"
and he went "Not anymore."
He said, "You might as well go back to The Moodys
and be their fan club secretary,"
and I said "What are you talking about?" and he went "You're sacked."
And then I looked at the other three,
so I said, "Are you sacking me as well?"
and they went, "No, we're not sacking you."
So I got on my high horse then,
probably because of the drink, and I looked at him and I said,
"Well, I'll just work for the other three; I won't do your mail anymore."
He said "Oh, I was only joking," I went, "No you weren't,"
and he went "Oh, I'm begging you, come back!"
and I said, "Well, I'll tell you what, get down on your two knees
and beg me to come back, you dumped me."
He said, "If I get down on one knee?"
and I said, "Go on then, get down on one knee,"
and he did, and I said, "Oh, all right, I'll come back to you."
There has been quite a degree of loss in her lifetime
which not many people have gone through,
so, obviously, her mother dying when she was very young,
my brother dying, then my mum and dad getting divorced...
A lot of people have gone under for less, and she hasn't.
She's a strong character, and she's come out fighting every time.
Over a period of time, people have said "Oh, why don't you do a book?"
or "You know, you should do a book,"
and my son did ask me -- Timothy did ask me --
to do a few things, and I just--
it was because I never talked about The Beatles, or my past,
and then something would come on the television
and it would jog my memory, and I would say, "Oh, I went to that,"
or, "Oh, I remember the civic reception,"
or "I remember this," and Timothy used to say,
"But mum, you never talk about it,"
and I said, "Timothy, I haven't got time to talk about it.
I'm more interested in going to shops
and thinking what to put on the table
tonight for dinner, not to sit down
and talk to you about The Beatles."
And he just shook it off, and then,
when my grandson came along, I thought
"Well, I didn't do it for Timothy,"
and then Timothy passed away a few years ago,
and then when Nial came along,
I thought, "Well, I'm definitely going to do it now."
Shh, I can hear the birdies singing,
yeah, can you hear them singing?
You know, because one of these days, he might just look at me
in the corner with the shawl and the grey
hair and a cat sitting on me knee,
and probably think, "Oh, you know,
she never done anything, or..."
I would like him to be proud of me
and see how exciting my life was
in the '60s, and the fun I had.
If I hadn't 'a done it now -- and this is the truth --
If I hadn't 'a done it now, I know I wouldn't ever have done it.
She could always say tomorrow, tomorrow,
and she'll never sit down and sort it out.
When Nial was born, things definitely changed,
and I think that when anybody has a child in that respect,
it does open a lot of doors for people
and changes their position in life in general,
and you can suddenly reinvent yourself to a degree,
because Timothy isn't around now,
and you don't know what tomorrow brings.
When they came back from America,
Brian Epstein decided then that we had to move to London,
and you did, because in those days everything happened in London,
wasn't happening up north.
We were planning on where we were going to live
and what we were gonna do, and what clubs we would visit,
and we were just -- all the excitement and the adrenaline
was, ooh, we're going to the big city, the capital city.
So I went home and said, "Oh, well, I'm going to London,
the fam's going to London, and I'm going
to London with the fam and everything,"
and I'm all bubbly, and me father,
he just sat in the chair and he was just listening,
and he said, "London is a city of vice. You're not going."
I knew I could go, you know, he couldn't stop me going,
but when I started looking in me own mind,
he wasn't very well at the time,
so that's when I thought "No, I can't do this to me father.
A job's a job, even if it is The Beatles, a job's a job."
And that's why I handed in my notice.
He had a beautiful desk in the office, really big desk,
he didn't even look up when I walked in,
I just stood in front of him, and I said, very quietly,
"I want to hand in my notice please."
He'd never heard that before, and he went,
"Don't you want to come to London?"
I said, "Oh, I desperately want to come to London,
I'd love to come to London,"
and I said, "But I can't come to London,
'cos me father won't allow me."
I know for a fact that Brian Epstein was seriously concerned,
and I also know that the individual Beatles
were most upset that she wasn't coming to London.
And then Eppy sent for me.
He said, "I've had a talk with the lads,
and we don't want to you leave."
And I was just stunned.
He said, "I've had a word with your father, and you can come
to London on a regular basis. You stay up here."
And he said, "You can go back to NEMS, let me see it done,
you can have my old offices in White Chapel."
# [music]
And that was how I didn't leave.
[She's the girl the Beatles had to leave behind]
Before they moved to London, I wanted to get their autographs,
so, George was in this day, and I had
autograph book upon autograph book
for him to sign, and I slipped mine in the middle.
So he's signing them, and I'm saying, you know, "That's to Rita,
that's to Barbara, that's to Steve, and he gets to mine, and he said
"Who's this to?" and I said, "Well, just sign that,"
'cos I just wanted it out of the way,
and he went, "Well, no, who's it to?"
and I think it was because I was going,
"Oh, it doesn't matter, just sign it,"
and I remember saying to him, "Oh,
just sign the book, just sign the book,"
and he flicked it to the front, and he went, "Is this yours?"
and I went, "Yeah, I haven't got your autograph,
I just want your autograph before you go to London."
So he signed it, and he pocketed it, he took it,
and I went, "What are you doing with me book?"
and he went, "I'll get the others for ya."
And then next time he came in, he just threw it on the table,
he went, "There you go." And they'd all put little comments in it.
Oh, Beatles Monthly.
Before the days of the internet and
Twitter and Facebook and everything,
the way we got news to the fans
was through the Beatles Monthlys.
I would get information from their parents,
little gossipy snippets, I would also ask them what was going on,
and little bits of juicy information from them,
and I would put it in my newsletter,
that was, in The Beatles Monthly.
Dear Beatle People,
I'd really like to thank each and every one of you
who have sent presents for John's birthday.
John was really pleased that so many of you remembered him.
During his 10-day trip to America,
Paul looked in on a Beach Boys recording session.
Tarrah for now, Freda Kelly.
# [rock and roll]
Dear Beatle People, July 1964 will go down in Beatle history
as a hard day's month.
At last the first feature film starring our fabulous foursome
is ready for showing, and will be coming
to your local cinema quite soon.
At the beginning of March, you will see, Beatles at Shea Stadium Show,
filmed in New York last August,
when the boys starred in the largest-ever concert of their career
before 57,000 fans.
Thank goodness the rumors about Paul are over.
Paul is still with us, and is likely to be with us for a long time.
Congratulations to Ringo and Maureen,
who are expecting their second baby
shortly after Maureen's next birthday.
George has been to the dentist again.
Dear Beatle People, after nearly four months
of solid session work, the new LP, called
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
is ready.
Beatles are hoping to acquire their own private recording studios
at a secret location in central London.
New Beatles recording every week.
In one short period of just over
four months, The Beatles have released
no less than sixteen new recordings.
John hated his passport photograph so much
that he tore it up and had a new picture taken.
Dear Beatle People, quite a lot of letters sent in
discussed John, Cynthia, and Yoko Ono.
At least as many members have written about Paul and Jane.
Everyone has dozens of questions to ask,
and many of you have only been too
ready to put forward your opinions.
Here at the fan club, we believe
that The Beatles deserve their separate and individual private lives,
which should remain their business, and no other people's.
I am sure both John and Paul will
work out their problems in their own ways,
and I think they should be allowed to do so
without the help or hindrance from millions of Beatle People.
Tarrah for now, Freda Kelly.
[thump]
# [acoustic guitar music]
Over the years, we could see the effect
that his job was having on Eppy.
It was taking its toll.
The odd time that I went to London and saw him, he was just changing,
you know, you could just see things weren't right.
He became obsessed with trying out, initially,
experimenting with drugs, and then
becoming very reliant upon them,
and becoming more and more of a mess.
The 27th of August, 1967, I was at home.
There was something up with our phone,
and I know I had to use a neighbor's phone,
and the neighbor came over to me
and said, "There's a call for you,
there's a girl, Pat, wants to talk to you,"
and Pat said, "Oh, have you heard about
Brian, have you heard about Brian?
He's just been found dead."
The media were on this one that he committed suicide,
and I just didn't believe that he committed suicide.
Somebody said that he choked on his vomit,
and I tend to believe that tale.
The Beatles were actually in Wales,
they'd gone there to see the Maharishi,
and they were informed there,
and I just remember John, out of all of them,
he was the one that was sorta stunned.
Although I was still young meself, I could still visualize
the devastation that it was going to cause.
He was the anchor for everything,
and it was just... where do we all go from here?
What happens now?
So Paul had this meeting set for September the 1st,
within a couple of days of Brian Epstein's very tragic, premature death,
and when I got there, nobody else had arrived yet,
and he said, "Before the others get here, I just want to tell you,
I think that if The Beatles do not get together and work together
very very quickly now, the group is going to disintegrate."
# [music]
Magical Mystery tour, it wasn't the best-organized thing,
well, it wasn't organized, because Paul had a rough idea,
but just a very rough idea.
This coach rolled up, and there was all
different types of people milling around,
like a guy dressed up as a bit of a clown,
and he had a spotty, funny-type suit,
and I thought "What's going on?"
and then this man -- I didn't know him, I found out his name then,
it was called Ivor Cutler -- and he come over to me
and he just said to me, "You've got a nice-shaped head."
We all eventually got on the bus, and I dived for the back,
I thought, "Well, I'll go on the back seat,
and, you know, you're not really seen on the back seat,"
and then Paul eventually got on the bus,
and he sat by the driver, and then he called my name,
and he went, "Freda, where are you?"
and I went, "I'm here, I'm on the back,"
and he went, "Can you come up the front?"
and I went, "Do I have to?" and he went, "Come up the front."
I thought, "Well, he's getting severe here now, do as you're told."
You couldn't book the hotels in The Beatles' names
because they wouldn't have you,
so you always had to book them under false names,
and Neil was doing some of the hotels,
and I said to him, "Why don't you book it in the Women's Institute
or the Catholic Women's League or something like that?"
and he went, "Oh, that's a good idea,"
so I had to go up to the counter in the hotel
and say, "Hello, you've got a reservation
in the name of the Women's Institute,"
and then they went, "Oh fine," I said, "Well, we're just come in now."
The shock on people's faces when we all
trooped in -- because it was The Beatles,
it was people dressed weird -- it was a very mixed bunch,
very odd bunch, and I was one of them.
But where, I think, Paul was decided to do it there and then
was 'cos it was so quickly after Brian Epstein's death.
He thought it might hold us all together, or hold them all together,
but I don't think it worked.
That's just my opinion.
You know, you don't wanna think about that,
you can be big-headed, and say,
"Yeah, we're gonna last ten years,"
but as soon as you've said that, you think
"We're lucky if we last three months."
Well obviously, we can't keep playing the same sort of music
until we're about 40. When I as at 40, we
may not know how to write songs anymore.
I hope to have enough money to go into a business of my own
by the time we do flop.
I've always fancied having a ladies' hairdresser.
I string them, in fact, and strut 'round in me stripes and me tails,
you know, "Like a cup of tea, madam?"
The Beatles stopped touring in roughly 1966, I think,
then Brian Epstein died in '67, and
Magical Mystery Tour was in '67,
and Apple had started by then.
In the beginning, when Apple first opened,
it was great: the fun and the madness
and all different nationalities in the press office.
People didn't act as if they were
working in an office or a business,
and then it became more settled down, more normal,
and there wasn't as much fun.
I loved the beginning part of it,
'cos it was fun in the beginning,
and it was fun for them, they enjoyed it so much.
Every group wants to be in the charts, or wants a hit record, or...
Everything was exciting in the beginning: they got a number one,
and then they were asked to appear
on the Royal Command Performance,
and they saw the queen, and they were a hit in America,
and the civic reception, and it was all these landmarks,
and... where does it stop?
You can't keep carrying on like that, can you?
Towards the end of the '60s,
it wasn't what The Beatles were doing as a group anymore,
it was what they were doing individually.
I know Paul's was-- he was bringing out his own LP,
John and Yoko were doing the peace movement,
and George was doing things, I think
with Clapton, I can't remember,
Ritchie had two sons by then,
and he was more interested in, sort of, a family life.
And then the penny was dropping with me,
that we aren't gonna be Beatles as a group anymore.
Are you still the Beatles' fan club secretary? How's business?
Fine, except for the post day.
They don't have a group anymore.
Well they've still got four members, haven't they?
I don't like to lie, but it was trying to bend the truth,
when people were asking you questions about what was going on,
you had to more or less say, "Well yes,
The Beatles are still together,
and everything's great," but it wasn't great.
And now, what's the arrangement today?
Well last August, Paul rang me up
and said he didn't want people to be writing about him as a Beatle,
which I was doing, and he wanted to split this word, Beatles, up.
They are four individual people now, recording and everything,
and we'll write all about Apple artists,
so we're still writing about the four Beatles
'cos Paul is still an Apple artist.
Is the atmosphere today anything like it was ten years ago?
No, no.
What's missing?
The closeness.
It was all fun when we were teenagers, but your life changes,
and my life had changed, I was then 27, I mean,
I was married now, had a baby son,
and I wanted more children,
and I was, we'll say, concentrating on that.
I then found out I was pregnant.
I'd been trying to get pregnant for a while;
I desperately wanted this baby,
and I just wanted to make sure that everything was gonna be all right,
so that was more important to me than my job,
was my married life, my son, and the baby on the way,
and then that's when I thought, "Well, I'm out here."
# [music]
I went to London, had a discussion
with Neil Aspinall, the head of Apple,
who was their road manager in the beginning,
and George and Ritchie were there;
it was just-- that was all, I remember we were 'round a table.
I told them that I was pregnant, and they said,
"Well, do you think you would be going back to work?"
and I said, "I won't be going back to work,
you know, I'll have two children then."
And then George finally spoke up
and said, "Freda, you were there in the beginning,
you're there at the end, let's call it a day.
Let's end the fan club."
You're still involved in the fan club?
Well, I'm sorta trying to wind it up.
This is what I wrote:
"Well, this is it. John, Paul, George,
and Ringo have each gone their separate ways,
and they are no longer collectively
an item. There it is. Eleven years.
Eleven years in which we have become a very strong,
happy, and close circle of friends.
There will not be another official fan club
for The Beatles as individual artists.
Please do not write again.
Yours faithfully, Freda Kelly."
I haven't read that since it went out.
I actually felt quite sad, reading it.
With me being a Beatle fan myself,
I just knew that this is going to
break a lot of girls' hearts, so I musta
put a lot of lights out for people.
Well, the lights went out, didn't they?
At the back of all this, I am still
-- or was -- am still a Beatle fan,
so I do think the way they think.
We were still getting a lot of letters every day.
I took them all home with me, 'cos I couldn't leave them in the office,
and although I said I wouldn't write again
and I wouldn't answer any letters,
between running my home and doing
the normal things a mother does,
I did answer the letters. Slowly.
You know, I'd maybe do three one night,
I might do none the next night,
I might do five on the Saturday.
But it took me, on average, about
three years to answer all those letters.
# [acoustic guitar solo]
Once I ended the fan club, that was it.
I was then not Freda Kelly anymore,
and I just lived a normal life like everybody else,
nothing to do with The Beatles anymore.
When I look back, it is shocking how many people that have gone
that I knew from those days.
Well, we lost Eppy first of all.
You've got the main two-- you've got John and George,
you've got two wives-- Mo Cox, Linda McCartney,
you've got all the parents, you've got Neil Aspinall,
Derek Taylor, my friend Laurie McCaffrey...
it brings it home to me.
I think fame and money doesn't mean anything.
All the wealth doesn't cure cancer, does it?
I worked with a lot of good people, I did, I loved them.
# [music and singing]
Giving a job like that, to what became the biggest band in the world,
to a girl of 17, that was an unbelievable thing to do,
and she never let 'em down.
The tide washes the sea in every day.
Freda was the tide -- you saw the effects
of the tide like you see the effects of Freda --
but you never actually see a tide as such, it just happens to be there,
and Freda was, so tell the story.
I don't know why Eppy picked me.
Maybe it was just fate. And I was taken along
for this ten-year, exciting ride,
and then dropped off on the corner where I started it.
You know, I'm not famous, I'm not wealthy,
I'm still working for a living, I'm still a Beatle fan,
so although there's a 50-year gap since I started it,
I still like to think that I'm back where I was in the beginning.
I don't ever have to tell this tale again.
It's down now, on record, isn't it?
End of.
Peace and love.
My name is Ringo, and this is a message
to all of Freda Kelly's grandchildren.
Freda was a great friend to The Beatles, she was the fan club leader,
and we've known her for a long time.
Anyway, we all loved Freda. She was great,
and Freda was like part of the family, and she knew all our families,
she was just one of the best. Peace and love. Peace and love.