1962 by Margaret Wotherspoon

The first time I heard a Beatles song I was a fourteen year old High School pupil at McLaren High School, Callander. In 1962 Callander was a sleepy little town on the fringes of highland Perthshire.  This was the time of turntables, 45 records and the start of Beatlemania.  When my best friend and roommate, Bridget, came rushing into our dorm early one Tuesday morning her announcement made me wild with excitement.

‘Guess what’, she squealed ‘I have just heard that the Beatles are staying at the Roman Camp Hotel across the river.  My idols, oh I just can’t believe they are here less than a mile from where we are now. How about going over to the Roman Camp at lunchtime?’ This hardly seemed credible, but as an impressionable fourteen year old desperate to see my idols, John, Paul, George and Ringo, I agreed to meet up with Bridget after Scratchy’s boring Latin lesson.

The morning was interminable- a double PE lesson was followed by double Latin. I was too busy wondering why the Beatles had come to Callander, so I was chastised several times for inattention, first by my PE teacher and then by Scratchy, whose nickname aptly described his irritating mannerism of scratching his head and releasing a flurry of snowy dandruff each time one of us was taking too long to answer a question.  At last it was lunchtime.

Bridget and I met as arranged and after grabbing a quick sandwich from the canteen, we made our way with several others to the Roman Camp Hotel some ten minutes walk away.  On arrival I was amazed to see so many teenage girls in the hotel grounds.  Initially they were quiet and all eyes were focused on an upstairs window of the hotel where our idols were reputed to be staying.  After a few minutes the chanting started: ‘We want Paul, we want George...’ but nobody appeared.  Some began to doubt that they were really there.  Questions like ‘Who told you they were here?’ ‘Why would they come to Callander anyway?’ ‘Why would they stay at the Roman Camp Hotel?’ were being asked.  Then, suddenly there was uproar.  Two clean shaven, smiling faces appeared at an upstairs window.  Paul and John dressed in simple blue flared denim jeans and T-shirts bearing a Beatles logo, guitars in hand, waved to us below.  We all screamed back in delighted recognition.  Then, seconds later, Ringo and George appeared at an adjoining window.  Unlike John and Paul they were in dressing gowns and slippers. They looked rather dishevelled and bleary eyed as if they had just been roused from much needed sleep and had jumped out of their beds on command. No smiles from either of them, but they, too, were treated to our ear piercing screams as they half-heartedly waved at the crowd of swooning females below. By now, we were all screaming our lungs out. The atmosphere was electrified.  We had seen the Beatles, but the afternoon bell had rung some ten minutes before.

Within seconds The Fabulous Four disappeared from view and some of us decided we had better get back to school.  Never having played truant before I wondered what sort of punishment awaited me.  I did not have to wonder long for there in the school hall entrance was the Rector.  He quizzed us about our late arrival and then, with a smile on his face, handed down his punishment- ‘Write a page for every minute you have missed of afternoon lessons- your topic: ‘The Beatles’. You have one week in which to complete this task.

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