Here I am at
Penny Lane made famous by The Beatles song which was released in 1967. It was
written by Paul McCartney on his piano in his new house, the lyric on two pieces
of paper. It was done in response to John Lennon's affectionate Strawberry Fields Forever. Both songs
were released on a double “A” side record. Two catchy timeless songs both
sharing one 7" piece of plastic – you don’t get that these days.
The lane is about a mile long and I drove down it in three minutes. The
Sefton Park end was quiet with open fields but the other end, the Penny Lane
area, was dense, busy and marked by the bus terminus mentioned in the song.
I parked up and got out for a walk round the area. Traffic was busy
and the cafes and pubs were busy. I crossed the road to an empty ex-bus
terminus building on an island. The song mentions the "shelter in the
middle of the roundabout" and this is it. When John and Paul travelled to
each other’s houses it took two buses with a change at this terminus. Sometimes
they would meet here to board a bus into Liverpool city centre.
In their day the terminus included a purpose-built bus shelter, waiting
room and toilets. In the 1980s it was bought privately and converted to the
Sergeant Pepper's Bistro. It doesn’t look like it has been used for decades.
When I passed it in July 2010 it was abandoned. In November 2015 it was still
out of use. Was Paul sat in here when he jotted down a few lyrics? In the song
"four of fish and finger pies" in the song is slang four-penny-worth
of fish and chips while "finger pie" is parlance for sexual fondling.
Did Paul or John eat chips at this terminus? Did they meet and grope some girls
here?
I took a few
photos. People sat in cars at red lights looked on with a passing interest that
told they were accustomed to visiting Beatles geeks. I touched one of the
walls. Who would have thought this decrepit building would be sang about in
Studio 2 at Abbey Road, London on 29th December 1966?
In the row of shops was Tony Slavin’s barbershop. This used to be
Bioletti’s mentioned in the lyric, "barber showing photographs of every
head he's had the pleasure to know." Paul and his brother were taken here
to have their hair cut.
Mmmm this part of Allerton was abuzz for a Sunday afternoon. It seemed
a little trendy and buzzing around here, I thought; I’m sure it draws the
students from the nearby universities student halls of residence. A woman with
a foreign voice and three peers asked if I had a map so I wasn’t the only
visiting geek. They were trying to find the L1 nucleus of the city but this was
L18 a distant outpost. I’d have offered a lift but I had many graves to visit
at Anfield Cemetery.
I got back to the car, put on a Beatles CD and had a coffee. I drove
up Penny Lane wondering how many "Penny Lane" street signs had been
stolen over the years and when was the last time a Beatle drove along it. When
Paul met his latest wife surely she would have been curious to see where he’d
grown up and written about?
I flicked manically through the CD to Penny Lane so I could listen to
it while I was on it. This jaunty cheerful song was released in a jaunty cheery
1967 : England had the World Cup, class barriers were melting like ice cream,
optimism was bubbling, and art, fashion, design and music were flowering in
concert. Even my mum and dad decided to have another kid despite my older
sister crying every single night for four years.
Penny Lane
(Sefton Park end)
Penny Lane,
November 2015…
The bus terminus
which is the “shelter in the middle of the roundabout”…
Looking down
Penny Lane from the bus terminus…
Note the bank on
the right. The lyric is “on the corner is a banker with a motorcar”…
From the bus
terminus you can see the barber shop (now Tony Slavin’s) which inspired the
words, “barber showing photographs over every head he’d had the pleasure to
know.”…
Tony Slavin’s
barbershop was Bioletti’s when John and Paul were young lads. Paul’s dad his
sons for haircuts here….