When Beatlemania came to town - a look back at the West Midlands in the 1960s

Mary ‘Ma’ Regan was known as a shrewd spotter of new talent. In 1962, Decca records declined to offer The Beatles a recording contract, saying guitar groups were ‘on the way out’. But the owner of the Old Hill Plaza, a formidable former schoolteacher, saw it differently, and booked the little-known group for a number of appearances.

Their first appearance was a relatively low-key affair, the Fab Four sharing a stage with Wolverhampton group the Montanas. But when they returned in 1964, they were the biggest show in town. Mrs Regan always tied her acts down well in advance. Ian ‘Sludge’ Lees, the late comedian from Cannock, recalled sharing a bag of fish and chips with John Lennon at the end of the show. At the time, Sludge was a 17-year-old frontman of the Telstars, which was supporting the Beatles on stage.

“John didn’t like travelling in the limo with the others, he liked going in the van with the roadie,” Sludge recalled.

Deserted

“We were packing up and he said, ‘will you do us a favour, have a look and see if there’s anybody outside?’”

Sludge ventured out into Old Hill’s normally busy Halesowen Road, and saw that the street was deserted.

“All the women had gone chasing after the limo, which had the other three in it,” he recalled.“

John said ‘I’m hungry’, and I said there was a chip shop next door. “We went there and got some fish and chips. The staff recognised John, of course, but there were no customers in there.”

They looked for somewhere to eat, and as it was a reasonably pleasant evening, they decided to head across the road to Holy Trinity Church, an impressive grey stone building with a low wall outside.

“We sat out and chatted for a bit, I can’t remember what about, but it would probably have been about groups and stuff. It was just by chance that I found myself spending my time with a Beatle – but it was an experience I will never forget.”

In between the appearances at the Plaza, the Beatles twice appeared at Wolverhampton’s Gaumont cinema, in March and November, 1963.

They were pictured by former Express & Star photographer Geoff Wright, who recalled how Ringo Starr was sitting in the dressing room on his own, away from the rest of the group.

“When I went in there, Ringo was having a sulk. I think John Lennon had had a bit of a spat with him,” he recalls. “They were happy to pose for the picture, but what I do remember was that when it was all over, they just shot straight out the door, and into a stretch limousine.”

Their second appearance at Wolverhampton Gaumont came on November 19, 1963 – three days before the shock of the assassination of John F Kennedy.

In 1965, American Black Power leader Malcolm X visited Smethwick following the election of Peter Griffiths as the town’s MP, having campaigned on a racist slogan.

“I have come here because I am disturbed by reports that coloured people in Smethwick are being treated badly,” he told the Express & Star. “I have heard they are being treated as the Jews under Hitler. I would not wait for the fascist element in Smethwick to erect gas ovens.”

He took a walk down the notorious Marshall Street, where the council had been persuaded to buy empty houses to ensure they were sold only to white families. He stopped for a pint in one of the pubs which did not operate a colour bar. He returned to New York, and nine days later he was shot dead.

Colour supplements, new offices and sister paper in Shropshire

The swinging 60s opened in a blaze of glory for the Express & Star. For almost a 

decade, circulation figures had risen steadily, creeping tantalisingly close to the 200,000 mark. Then, on July 5, 1960, the barrier was smashed: daily circulation topped 200,000 for the first time in the newspaper’s history. By the end of the year, the figure had risen to 201,594, more than 5,500 up on the previous year. The newspaper celebrated the milestone with a huge barbecue for all employees and their families. While bigger, better-value papers, new technology and a growing, more affluent population all played their role, the achievement was largely down to an aggressive sales drive which took the paper into head-on competition with the Birmingham Post & Mail.

Circulation boss Gilbert Jarvis later recalled: “For years we had struggled in the jittery 190,000s, touching 195,000 then dropping back because of a price rise, reaching 198,000 and falling back for some other reasons.”The solution was to recruit more newsagents, expanding into areas where the paper had not sold before. A new Kidderminster edition was launched.“In particular, Kidderminster took us into the Birmingham Evening Mail area, where we got the full co-operation of all newsagents who were keen to break the Evening Mail monopoly.”

Papers were distributed from the Stourbridge office, Jarvis recalled how he and rep Frank Knowles stole a lead on their arch rival by telephoning Express & Star head office from a phone box at the back of the Evening Mail office, to get the latest racing results. They then hand-stamped them into the paper, in the back of a Commer van, before getting them into the shops before the Mail.

The new decade also saw a new editor, with Brian Whiteaker being replaced by Clem Jones. But the growth of the newspaper also came at a cost, as by now an increasingly crowded Queen Street was struggling to keep pace with demand. Malcolm Graham was convinced that the proposed Dawley New Town in east Shropshire would present a great opportunity for expansion, but where would the papers be printed? The bold decision was made that Shropshire warranted its own newspaper. A two-acre plot of land was bought for £12,000 in April 1963, and 18 months later the first edition of the Shropshire Star rolled off the purpose-built presses. The Express & Star continued to circulate alongside the new paper along the borderlands of Bridgnorth, Shifnal and Newport, where many still had a preference for the more established title. It is an arrangement that continues to this day.

At the other end of the circulation area, the closure of the Birmingham Evening Despatch in April 1963 opened up the opportunity for further sales. With the new printing presses at Ketley now freeing up capacity in Wolverhampton, the Express & Star was well placed to fill the void. A new office opened above a greengrocer’s shop in West Bromwich, and by 1964 circulation of the Express & Star reached 246,000.

Another major change in 1963 saw the masthead of the paper change from the traditional gothic script, largely unchanged since the 19th century, with a clean modern design. The 1960s also saw the Express & Star introducing colour printing, some 20 years before Fleet Street caught up with the launch of the Today newspaper. The first full-page colour advertisement, for Woodbine cigarettes, was carried in 1965. And in March, 1967, the Express & Star carried its first colour supplement, an eight-page affair that was inserted in the centre of the paper, allowing readers to pull it out.

The Stars newsagents’ chain was also launched in 1967, with a shop in Hadley, near Wellington. The decade had not only seen a family-run business in Wolverhampton outsell its counterparts in the UK’s biggest cities. It was now blazing a trail that had left Fleet Street standing.But there was still more to come. Much more