It was 60 years ago today: Looking back to the night The Beatles played Harrogate on March 8, 1963

At this point on Friday, March 8, 1963, it was just two hours or so before John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr would step on stage in a packed Royal Hall of teenagers looking, in the main, to dance.

The Beatles at that point had only released two singles and were paying a fleeting visit to Harrogate during a year of non-stop touring and incipient Beatlemania.

But their concert at the Royal Hall was not part of a tour - it was a unique, two-set, stand-alone appearance of the sort the Fab Four would rarely, if ever, repeat as the whole world fell for their charms well, everyone except the waiter in the Leeds hotel they would stop for a drink in later the same evening, as local witnesses testify.

This special night only took place because of Harrogate record shop owner Derek Arnold.

He had booked the then little-known Beatles in December 1962 to come to Harrogate even though he’d never heard of them because his customers kept asking for the single Love Me Do.

Having hit number one a month or so before their Harrogate date with Please Please Me, the four Beatles had just recorded the follow-up From Me To You three days before the Royal Hall concert.

These were the very earliest days of Beatlemania.

The band were paid £75 for the gig with £25 going to their manager, Brian Epstein.

The Harrogate show gig was sandwiched between concerts hundreds of miles away.

The support acts, led by Barry Corbett and the Mustangs, and including female vocal group The Chinchillas, were all young and local.

George McCormick, who played rhythm guitar in another of the support acts, Ricky Fenton and the Apaches had a good chat with The Beatles before they played that Friday night and even invited them to come to his parents' house in Harrogate for a bite to eat!

They declined.

John Lennon told him that The Beatles were heading straight to London after the show but the Fab Four actually went to Leeds, Ripon woman Beryl Fletcher later told the Harrogate Advertiser in 2016.

She was just a teenager the night she had a cosy chat with The Beatles in the wee small hours.

Beryl said: “We sat in the car after the show waiting for The Beatles and followed them to Leeds.

“George Harrison went home to Liverpool on the midnight train so there was John, Paul and Ringo in the hotel in Leeds.

"The entrance was on a corner. I’m not sure if it was the Metropole or the Majestic.

“They didn’t go to bed or anything, they just sat around talking at a table in a dining room. It was wonderful.

“I was sitting near Ringo who was lovely. John was nice, too.

"Ringo had the radio on very loud, playing it at full blast.

"An Italian waiter came across pointing his arms at them, telling them to turn it down“Ringo just said calmly “it is Elvis you know.”

”Beryl adds: “I remember coming back to Ripon at around 6.50am wondering what I was going to tell my mum and dad.”