| It was June,1960 and I was on the road, touring | | | | Afternoon of Poetry" on Friday 24 June 1960 with a |
| England as a beat poet giving readings of poetry to a | | | | further session of "A Reading of Beat Poetry" to |
| rock music background. I called it Rocketry. I was in | | | | music the next day. John, more than the others, was |
| Liverpool to give a show and went to the Jacaranda, | | | | excited about the idea of performing poetry to a |
| a coffee bar, to look for some musicians to back me. | | | | beat music background. He suggested I should try it |
| I got talking to a boy with a shock of long hair and a | | | | out at the Jacaranda while his group backed me. |
| matelot-style striped T-shirt. He said his name was | | | | It seemed to work well and we spent half the night |
| George. When I told him that I was in Liverpool to | | | | afterwards discussing excitedly how we could |
| perform my poetry to rock music he marched me | | | | perform together. I said I would take John and his |
| off to 3 Gambier Terrace. | | | | friends to London to appear on television with me. I |
| And that's where I met John Lennon, as one of the | | | | asked John what was the name of his group. He told |
| bodies lying on the floor of a room where the lights | | | | me. "How do you spell it?" I asked. "B, double E, T, L, |
| were draped in red gauze to give it an eerie glow | | | | E, S," he said in surprise at my ignorance. It was then |
| and towels and clothes partitioned the room and the | | | | I suggested that John should spell the name with an |
| beds. John, who had not long returned from playing | | | | "A". |
| with Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stuart | | | | I pointed out to him that -- as he was going to play |
| Sutcliffe backing Johnny Gentle on his Scottish tour, | | | | with me and I was a Beat Poet writing a book about |
| was intrigued by the presence in his pad of a genuine | | | | The Big Beat Scene and he was a beat musician and |
| beatnik poet who had been on television. | | | | liked the Beats of the USA -- Beatles would be a |
| I stayed for a few days, sleeping on the floor with | | | | great spelling. They never got to London to back me. |
| assorted guests at the Gambier Terrace flat, meeting | | | | John sent me a message saying they had a booking |
| John's friends and getting to know George better, as | | | | in Hamburg and would I like to go with them as a |
| well as Paul and Stuart. John and I talked a lot. He | | | | sort of poetical compere? I declined, which is why I |
| badgered me with questions about the world of pop | | | | survived: an erstwhile beat poet (now living in Sri |
| music and the life we led in London as though it were | | | | Lanka). There's more about it in my book, The Big |
| a different world. And it was. My performance at the | | | | Beat Scene, just republished 50 years after I gave |
| Liverpool University Poetry Society was part of "An | | | | The Beatles their name. |