It may be half a century since the Fab Four checked in at Holdsworth House but the event remains just as memorable today as back then.
Between 1963 and 1965, The Beatles undertook six amazing UK tours and among the fans was Gail Moss, co-owner of Holdsworth House. The day The Beatles came to stay is an occasion that Gail will never forget. The beautiful old Yorkshire manor house hotel was owned by Gail’s late parents Freddie and Rita Pearson and was formerly known as The Cavalier Country Club. The Pearsons’ good family friend just happened to be Stanley Corbett, the Beatles’ road manager.
“They had been playing at the Gaumont Theatre in Bradford and they needed a place to stay,” recalls Gail, who was 14 at the time. “My father told me a couple of days before they arrived that they were coming and I think it was probably the hardest secret I have ever had to keep,” she laughs.
The night in question was Friday, October 9, 1964 – John Lennon’s 24th birthday – and Gail recalls how it was around 11pm when the four Liverpool lads arrived after a bit of a diversion and the help of a police escort to keep their destination a secret – a plan that worked.
The original restaurant bill reveals that they tucked into prawn cocktail, melon, smoked trout and turtle soup, followed by steaks and duckling. Including the chauffeur’s dinner, the entire bill came to £17 6s (£17.30) – more than a week’s wages at the time. The bar bill, including whiskies, stouts and pints of Whitbread, came to £2 15s (£2.75) but it was only Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr who unwound in the bar until 1am – John Lennon had a toothache and went to bed early.
Because the business was just a country club and not a hotel, the Pearsons had to find beds for their visitors. “They actually ended up using ours.” says Gail. “John and Ringo slept in what was mine and my sister’s room and Paul and George slept in my parents’ bedroom. I remember we had set up for them to have breakfast the following morning and they didn’t come down. I was walking up and down the corridor waiting. Eventually my mother grabbed me by the hand, knocked on the bedroom door where Paul and George were sleeping and pushed me inside saying ‘My daughter has been waiting all morning to see you’ she said and left me there. I don’t know how she dared.”
Gail adds that George offered her a cigarette “which I refused” and asked if the old house was haunted. We’d been to Ibiza on holiday and I was chatting to Paul about that.
Kim Pearson, Gail’s sister was just eight at the time and admits the visit was “a little over my head”. “I was very shy and remember not wanting to meet them so I hid in the ladies’ cloakroom under a dressing table. All of a sudden this hand came through the curtains, a hand with rings on practically every finger. It was Ringo and he just said ‘come out and meet the lads’.”
Because it had been Lennon’s birthday the girls gave him a Cavalier Country Club tie. “I don’t know if he ever wore it but he did remember the visit because he sent us a copy of his book In His Own Write.
Once news of the visit became public, the Pearson family was inundated with requests for souvenirs. “We still have the brass bedsteads which were on the beds they slept in and at one time the little gold knobs on the top used to disappear from time to time,” says Gail.
Written by Virginia Mason for The Halifax Courier.
