It was a long and winding road, but a picture of The Beatles playing in Great Yarmouth that had never been seen before has finally been printed - after spending 55 years in a drawer as an undeveloped negative.
Peter Harrison, 75, had salvaged the negative while working in a photographer’s studio in the summer of 1963, when the Fab Four played in the town.
He was 17-years-old at the time and working in Fisher’s photography studio under the ABC Cinema, where The Beatles had already played a concert on June 30 and had returned to the resort for a second show on July 28.
The Liverpudlian quartet were at the height of their powers that summer, having recorded mega-hit ‘She Loves You’ the day after their first visit to Great Yarmouth and ‘All My Loving’ two days after the second show.
They had already toured the UK three times in 1963 with a fourth tour to take place at the end of the year.
Mr Harrison said that his manager, the photographer Mr Fisher, had taken some publicity shots of the band and was about to dump the negatives but instead the young apprentice took one home.
“I could do my own black and white prints at home but I never got around to it,” he said.
And for 55 years the negative had sat in one of Mr Harrison’s drawers until earlier this month his son completed a black and white photography course.
“I said ‘I’ve got a negative you might be interested in’ so I sent it to him,” Mr Harrison said.
His son, Richard, 43, then developed the negative and printed the photo.
That night The Beatles played two sets, at 6pm and 8.15pm, and tickets were priced at four shillings and sixpence, and nine shillings and sixpence.
Also on the bill were The Kestrels, The Trebletones, Freddie Starr and The Midnighters, Barry Barnett and Glenda Collins.
The compere was comedian Alan Field.
A crew from Italian television network RAI filmed the band from the cinema balcony.
The ABC Cinema was demolished in 1989 to make way for the Market Gates shopping district.
Mr Harrison, who now lives in Leeds, said he had heard of the Beatles but did not go to the concert that night.
“I was too busy working,” he said.
Do you have any memories of the Fab Four in Great Yarmouth?
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