Gavin and Stacey star Alison Steadman was at the first concert Sir Ringo Starr played with The Beatles.
The 78-year-old actress – who played Pam Shipman in James Corden’s hit sitcom – grew up in Liverpool and as a teenager would regularly go The Cavern Club to watch the Fab Four perform at the start of their career.
Alison can vividly recall being at one afternoon show at the now iconic venue when Sir Paul McCartney told the audience that Pete Best wouldn’t be playing with The Beatles that day and would be replaced on drums by Ringo.
The first recorded performance of Ringo with The Beatles at The Cavern Club is 19 August 1962.
Speaking on the Rosebud podcast, Alison said: “We would go into town and say we were going shopping. Well, we did go shopping but we also went to The Cavern for lunchtime sessions. We saw The Beatles. They were amazing, and I’m not just saying it.
“We used to sit on wooden chairs in a row, they were like school chairs, and they were on stage and I can remember it was ‘1, 2, 3, 4, red sails in the sunset…’ because they hadn’t written any songs then, they hadn’t recorded anything. This red sails in the sunset, the rhythm of it, it was just such fun, and it was exciting. And yes I did have a bowl of tomato soup and a bread roll included in the price of entry – which was next to nothing – and it was just brilliant.
“We were there the day that Paul said, ‘Hi everyone, say hello to Ringo Starr, sorry but Pete can’t be with us today so Ringo is standing in.’ Poor old Pete had been given the elbow.”
Alison also revealed that one of her most treasured possessions is an autograph book which has been signed by McCartney and the late John Lennon.
The actress met the two music legends after waiting outside The Cavern Club with her friends for The Beatles to come out and then followed Paul and John to the post office to get their signatures.
She said: “What happened was I’d taken my autograph book and there was three of us and we were like, ‘Right, we’re going to get their autographs.’ We stood outside The Cavern for at least an hour in the rain, and they didn’t come out, but this is the only way they can come out, so they must be going to come out. So we stood there and eventually Paul came out with John and they just walked past and Paul had a big black umbrella and they walked down the street and we started chasing them and we were shouting, ‘Paul! John!’ Paul looked round and he just went, ‘Hi girls,’ with the umbrella and carried on. They went into the Liverpool main Post Office in town which was a big old Victorian Post Office which had huge oak desks with ink wells in, it was really ancient. We followed them in and hid in the corner.
“My friend said, ‘Go over, go over to Paul.’ So I went over with my autograph book and I said, ‘Excuse me Paul, can I have your autograph please?’ And he said, ‘Yeah love, what’s your name?’ So I said ‘Alison’. So he put ‘to Alison, love Paul,’ and a couple of kisses and handed it back. He didn’t ‘McCartney’, he just put Paul, and he said, ‘Hey, give us that back a minute.’
“So he took it back and he put ‘Beatles’ in brackets underneath his name, and as he handed it back he went, ‘I thought I better put The Beatles because in the future someone’s going to look at that and say ‘Who the hell is Paul?”’
“With that I said, ‘Paul could I have his autograph please?’ And I pointed at John and he said, ‘Yeah sure, hey sign this for the girl,’ and gave it to John. And John without looking up, without looking at me, took this nib pen and wrote ‘John Lennon’ and handed it back and carried on filling in his form.
“So I’ve got this autograph of John’s with a nib pen. It means a lot, I’ll tell you, it was such a moment.”