#pat hodgett

[harrisonstories]

Above: The Beatles playing at The Cavern (1962), Below: Some of George Harrison’s letters to Margaret “Maggie” Price (2019) [click to enlarge]

NOTE: This is a lovely piece written by Anne for the BeatlesTalk blog. It was originally in Dutch and can be found here (if anyone would be willing to provide a better translation, let me know). Pat Hodgett is referenced a few times, and if that name sounds familiar, it’s because this is the same Pat who wrote about the Cavern days in the 60s, here and here.

“When George Harrison looked at me, I forgot everything around me” - in conversation with Margaret Price

We are still in Ye Cracke, the Liverpool pub where John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe came to drink many beers during their student days. There are old stories of wild scenes. Of a drunken John Lennon who, swimming, made a splash of beer on his stomach. He will undoubtedly have had the laughters on his hand: young, challenging, full of bravado, a life ahead of him. Where would Lennon have been, I think. On the floor or perhaps on the small bar that is to the left of the entrance? There are not many more options. Soon my attention is back with the lady who has just joined our company and Mark Lewisohn shifts a pencil drawing.

Puzzle pieces

She appears to be called Margaret Price and from her conversation with Mark I notice that they have known each other a little longer. “You’ll definitely have to talk to Margaret later,” Mark tells me. “Margaret is one of the girls who first followed The Beatles in The Cavern.” That sounds interesting. Apparently Margaret helps Mark to put a number of puzzle pieces in that great Beatles story in place. The conversation is about Polythene Pam, who was immortalised by John Lennon with a short song in the great Abbey Road medley. “No Mark, that’s not Polythene Pam either”

As far as we know, Lennon based his Polythene Pam on two women he met in his younger years. One of them was probably Pat Dawson (Hodgett), who belonged to the group with earliest Beatles fans. Just like Margaret, she was one of these Cavernites. Mark is still looking for a photo of Pat. Her features are engraved in Margaret’s memory, so she made an attempt to mark Pat in a pencil drawing. It turns out that Mark regularly emails Margaret with a photo. Always with the question: “Is this then Polythene Pat?” Email after email, photo after photo. Margaret’s answer is always: “No, Mark, that’s not Pat either.” The drawing must ensure that the flow of e-mails stops. Unless of course Mark really thinks he found Pat. “I once had her daughter’s phone number,” Margaret involves me in the conversation. “But I never called again.” A track can end up dead. Years pass and people disappear in the past.

284 steps in 4 minutes

When Mark and Margaret have finished talking, we get the chance to get to know her more extensively. She was about 15 years old at the time and everyone still called her Maggie. Small in stature, timid and … head over heels in love with George Harrison, who was just a few years older. Maggie went to work immediately after high school, at the regional office of department store chain FW Woolworth. Her lunch break began at noon and together with her friends she was, exactly 284 steps and 4 minutes later at The Cavern in Mathew Street. They showed their membership card, threw the required entrance fees at the counter and rushed down the stairs. There was no time to lose: coats and bags on the front seats and quickly to the bar for a cup of tea and a sandwich. At 12. The Beatles (with Pete Best in their ranks) would start playing for 15 hours. Until 1.15 p.m. Then Maggie and her fellow Cavernites had to return to the office quickly. Undoubtedly full of adrenaline, after seeing their favourite band.

“Without The Beatles there would be no blow in Liverpool”

“We all liked the Beatles, but I had something special with George,” says Margaret. His look was so special. When he looked at me, I forgot everything around me: “He was very warm, he drew you in.” Or George knew she was crazy about him …“Yes, he knew that, he also knew me by name. I wasn’t sure about the others. ” Margaret started to correspond with George and always received a faithful response to her letters. “It was incredibly boring when The Beatles left for Hamburg for extended periods,” she says. We didn’t feel like going to look at other bands, we were bored to death.” Maggie George also said that in her letters, which also dealt with everyday life:

George shares the news about the EMI contract with Maggie

From the letter that George Maggie sent from The Star Club in Hamburg, Mark Lewisohn quoted an important passage that was relevant to his historiography about The Beatles. As I write this story, I grabbed the Extended Edition of Tune In, I open part two and slide my finger along the letter P in the index: Price, Margaret. There she is! With references to pages 1192, 1452 and 1515. Presumably in May 1962, George writes to Maggie from Hamburg: “We are all very happy about Parlophone, as it is a big break for us. We just want to work hard & clean for a hit with whatever we record. We don’t yet know what the producer will want.” The passage refers to the good news that The Beatles in Hamburg received from Brian Epstein: he had finally managed to arrange a recording contract for them: on 6 June 1962 in London. From the other letters from Hamburg, George Maggie regularly says that life is over there and longing for home. “Are you also in the theater tomorrow at Mark’s lecture?” Margaret asks me. “Then I’ll take the letters.” A promising offer.

In a plastic bag

When we have climbed the stairs of the Epstein Theater the next evening, I can already see Margaret on the lookout above. “I have the letters with me,” she says, laying her hand on her shoulder bag. “Maybe we can talk further later.” After the show we take a joint taxi to Hope Street, for a seat in the lobby of the hotel where Mark Lewisohn is staying. Wibo, Michiel and Jan Cees talk to Mark, I’m fine: on the couch next to Margaret.

The letters arrive on the table

Her bag opens and she places a number of copies and a thick manuscript on the table. ‘I had to sell the original letters when I got divorced in 1995 and needed the money. Moreover, I wanted them to be better preserved. They had been in a plastic bag for years and I saw them slowly but surely perish. Based on the copies and Margaret’s personal memories, a friend of mine wrote the manuscript of what could become her book: “He supplemented my memories with a good story about the context, just as Mark would.” I browse through the A4 pages and see a very well written story.

Dignity and pride

Margaret explains what it was like to lose The Beatles to London and to the world: “Everything changed. In The Cavern it became more and more crowded, we as friends of the band lost our places to the real fans, and thus pushed a bit further back. When The Beatles went to London, we were angry with the city government. Why didn’t Liverpool have good recording studios, why couldn’t we keep The Beatles? Why did we, as friends of the band, have so enthusiastically purchased that first single Love Me Do? Had we made The Beatles too big for that?” Margaret went on with her life, just like the other Cavernites: “For us, those world-famous Beatles were no longer the guys we were laughing and waving shyly in a local coffee shop. Once we were boys who, after their evening performances, which I also visited, said to me: ‘Shall we take you home? Get on in.’ That is how our contact with them was. We were not fans, we were their friends at the time and we did not want to run after them. When they really became famous, I didn’t follow them anymore. It wasn’t the same anymore.” I listen carefully and witness a beautiful piece of Liverpool dignity and pride.

With a birthday cake to George

One of Margaret’s most precious memories of George is his gentleness: "Pat Hodgett’s mother had a Bed & Breakfast on Mount Pleasant, was able to cook and bake well and was prepared to make a birthday cake for George. Pat and I took bus 74 on Georges birthday to his parental home on Macketts Lane to offer him that cake. Although George himself was not at home, his parents let us in. They apologised for the bare walls of the new social housing where they had recently moved into. The plaster still had to dry, no paperwork was allowed. We didn’t care. We were allowed to browse in George’s record collection, which contained a lot of music by Carl Perkins. The next day as I ran down the stairs of The Cavern during my lunch break, George was waiting for me at the bottom. He grabbed my arms and thanked me for the cake. George was a nice boy. He used to joke at me, while I was standing behind a group of worshipers. A few days later I received a letter from him, in which he apologised: “You know, Mag, I had too much of a drink.”

Sharing with the world

At the end of the evening I ask Margaret if she will publish the manuscript with the letters and her memories. “At the time I mainly wrote it down for my children and grandchildren. Would anyone else be waiting for my story?” she answers. "I think there are certainly enthusiasts to read your book. Maybe more than you think,” I tell her. “Moreover, you have a beautiful manuscript ready.” “Maybe I should find out if I still have the rights, or have to acquire, to quote from those letters,” she hesitates. “I never really worked on that.” We say goodbye and exchange e-mail addresses. I intend to email Margaret now and then to continue to encourage her to share her stories with the world.

[harrisonarchive]

George Harrison posing for a photo with a fan who used to deliver the newspapers to the Harrison family at 174 Mackets Lane, Liverpool, circa 1962. Photo by unnamed, © TRACKS.

This photo is from roughly the same time period as Beatle fan Pat Hodgett’s recollections:

"I knew all of the Beatles in the days before they became famous. I went everywhere they performed, just to see and listen to them. But George was the particular love of my life. I used to beg, borrow and steal pictures of him for my secret collection. […] 
I was fifteen when I first met the Beatles in the Cavern in Liverpool [in 1961]. I used to play hokey from school and go there with my girl friend for the lunchtime sessions. We didn’t dance. We just went to listen to the groups and to stare at the boys as they played. […] For years, I had a gigantic crush on George. My greatest thrill was exchanging a few words with him in the Cavern when he wasn’t playing. […] I was so crazy about him that, when I went to technical school to study millinery, I made him a hat. It was a sort of suede cap, really. He wore it very loyally till it felt apart." - Pat Hodgett, 16 Magazine, 1967 (x)

[harrisonstories]

The Beatles (with Pete Best) playing at The Cavern in 1961

The Girl George Left Behind, 16 Spec magazine (1967)

by Pat Hodgett

[...] For years I had a gigantic crush on George. My greatest thrill was exchanging a few words with him in the Cavern when he wasn’t playing. We girls used to hang ‘round the band room there - it was a really tatty little room - hoping to catch a glimpse of our favorites. Then the bouncer would come along and turn us all out. I laugh when I think about it now, but we actually tried to make the Beatles jealous by pretending to ignore them and talking to other boys. I don’t suppose we ever succeeded!

When I first got to know George, he was still an apprentice electrician. Later, he gave up his job to play full time. I was so crazy about him that, when I went to technical school to study millinery, I made him a hat. It was a sort of suede cap, really. He wore it very loyally till it fell apart. 

I was never George’s sweetheart. We were just good friends. In fact, I was friends with all the boys. We’d go to movies together, and things like that. Even in those days the Beatles had their distinct personalities. John was always the one who, if he had an idea, would stick to it through thick and thin. Paul was always the debonair one. George, the one I adored, was just nice and simple and a little bit dozy in the way he never seemed to be listening to what you were saying.

I don’t think that I ever dreamed the Beatles would be famous one day, but they often talked about what they would do if they got money. George, who was very fond of sleeping, said that he’d like a huge electric bed in which to ride ‘round the town, so that he’d never have to get up. Paul’s ambition was to have a super smoking jacket: something in velvet. And John said he’d like to have a harem!

I knew Ringo very much less than the others because he was still the drummer with Rory Storm. He looked much better with his beard. It’s a shame they made him shave it off. Pete Best was the Beatles’ drummer in those days, and when the boys wrote their number, P.S. I Love You, the girls used to twist the words and sing: “Pete Best, I love you!”

Oh, well, it was all a long time ago, and all I’ve got are my memories and my photographs [...] In those days, Mike [McCartney] was an apprentice hairdresser, and sometimes he used to cut the boys’ hair for them. George was the only member of the group who wore his hair long, really long. 

Every time Mike took a picture of George, I would pester him till he gave me a print for my collection. I kept a scrapbook of clippings, too. I spent a fortune on magazines. Anything that carried a line mentioning the boys, I cut out and pasted in my book. There isn’t a dramatic end to my story. As soon as fame came to the Beatles, I saw less and less of them. After a long interval, they came back to play at a theatre in Liverpool. I bumped into George on the street, and we had a pleasant chat. 

It wasn’t the last time I saw George. I met him later at the theatre, with Pattie Boyd. I knew she had accompanied him to Liverpool and I went prepared to hate her, but when he introduced her to me, I couldn’t help liking her. I wish George and Pattie - and John, Paul and Ringo - all the luck in the world. But I wish, too, that it all didn’t have to change - that I could still be a schoolgirl playing hookey from classes and running off to the Cavern to see and listen to the Beatles long before they became famous and left Liverpool to become teen idols all over the world.