Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Kenwood: June 12, 1965.


John and George, pictured outside the front door at Kenwood, apparently (see comments) on June 12, 1965. This was the day news broke (widely) (again, see comments, if you like) about their being awarded the MBE. Note the naked-lady knocker. Note too George's get-up: the same (sans hat) as the back of Rubber Soul and the UK Help! album (I don't know about the US version - I don't have a copy of it). The photos of John on the rear of both of these were certainly taken at Kenwood, and I wonder (though not very often) if any of the others were too.
Another artefact associated with this date is the warrant sent to Ringo to inform him that he was also being so "honoured", marked the twelfth day of June, 1965:


Obviously, the other three would have received a warrant too, but, as far as I know, Ringo's is the only one to surface so far. John's MBE was recently discovered lurking in the bowels of Buckingham Palace during a spring-clean; there's talk of putting it on display somewhere or other.

Thanks to Simon, and to M.

8 comments:

  1. This is an interesting shot. What's previously known about the day is that they met at Twickenham for a press conference. John was over an hour late and Brian drove out to pick up John and Cyn. (car trouble perhaps?) They arrived an hour late.
    I wonder what conversation John and George must have had that morning.
    And yes, one of the George photos was on the US Rubber Soul. Nothing on the Help! LP.

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  2. Wow, this is great - never seen it before!

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  3. Doubts have been expressed about whether this picture is actually from June, 12. The clothes don't match those worn at the Twickenham press conference. So it could be either the evening before (when the press actually learned of the MBE thang) or the day after. Possibly.

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  4. It looks like an evening shot to me looking at the shadows against the doors and the light.

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  5. Phil the Greek signed the declaration as well her madge?

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  6. Back of the photo said "Day of the announcement of the MBE". My money's on the evening- especially as John was late getting out of bed. There's another shot from the same reel of the pair in the garden.

    Simon

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  7. Could well be. However, both Paul and Brian were apparently interviewed about the MBE on the evening of the 11th, so, technically, that too might count as the "day of the announcement".
    Interesting that there is another pic of them in the garden - there were bound to have been others taken, in that case (though whether any of these have survived is another matter).

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  8. This shot and the one in the garden were the only two I could find from that session. There were probably others, but none(certainly in the archives of Getty Images) seem to have survived the ravages of time.

    Si

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