Kenwood: guest bedroom view.

If you've ever looked at the various pictures of John on his favourite perch and wondered what could be seen from the window above (and unless you are a deeply disturbed individual, you haven't, but nevertheless), then wonder no more.
In 2006 this room was the master bedroom, but back in the day it served as the main guest bedroom. How it looked I know not, but the view from the window probably hasn't changed a great deal. Here it is in '06:


John Hallenius mentioned being able to see all the way to Guildford from the upstairs windows. If so, the large building on the left might be Guildford Castle:


Or not.

Kenwood: more greenhouse.

I have dribbled previously that the greenhouse was demolished in the mid-90's. Wrong again; here it is in 2006, very much undemolished, and its exact location clear from the panorama above.
Below - 1968, 1967, 2006:


As far as I know, it isn't there now however - but maybe Joe can confirm that.

Kenwood: attic studio - 1967 & 2006.

This, sadly and happily, represents the peak of this thus far. On several different occasions vaguely contemporary photos of this room have been almost within my grasp (Joe Baiardi's wonderful and valuable vid notwithstanding), but in each case the photographer has decided that you seeing them would violate their essential etc., so unseen they remain.
None of this matters, but if it does, it is because in this room John (and Paul) wrote many of the most etc. songs of the 20th etc. right here! Next to the stuffed bunny!
As "then and now"s go, this is the tops. That bunny occupies the very spot. Oh yes. Or no.
A veritable trove has almost literally been inserted in my hard drive this evening (steady), and the results will, due to the fact that I am unemployed, be on here imminently. But this is the best one, mundane as it may be.
(This is how the room looked a few years back. Now not. So "then and thens" then.)

Kenwood: December, 1968.

Just to prove that it wasn't all quibbling about Indica, somewhere in amongst all that hair are John and Yoko, in the garden at Kenwood in December 1968, enjoying a quiet winch (to employ the argot of Airdrie).

52 Radnor Walk: Quorum - December, 1968.

Tammy posted this over at the ever excellent Beatle Photo Blog, suggesting it might be the dressing room at Kenwood. That was my first thought too upon first glance, I must confess. But there is clearly an end terraced house outside the window, so unfortunately not.
The pic is from the March 18, 1969 issue of Look magazine, and captioned "Lennon and Ono boutique-it-up on King's Road". My guess is that it was actually taken in Quorum, which occupied a house at 52 Radnor Walk (just off the aforementioned "King's Road"). (The exterior "then & nows" above seem to match.) It's mentioned in The Beatles' London as the subject of an amusing quote from proprietress Alice Pollock, concerning a 1969 visit from the pair: "Yoko had a skirt shortened that was so short anyway there was no skirt left. John just went around growling at everything."
The mag (Look) is well worth tracking down, for a verbatim slice-o'-life at Kenwood and elsewhere in December, 1968. Though it is fairly anti-Yoko, it provides a few interesting quotes, including some bickering about their initial meeting at Indica, during which John claims not to remember meeting Yoko at the gallery at all. (He may, however, just have been saying this to irritate her, as she had annoyed him by claiming he "looked so ordinary" at their first encounter.)
"You're always changing the story," quoth Yoko, "I'm getting uptight." "What're you getting uptight about?" ripostes John, "Because I didn't remember you at the Indica Gallery? Serves you right. After sayin' I looked just like a bank clerk."
Ahh... such squabbling twas ever the stuff of young love.

Wapping Pier Head: 6↑2, part 1.

It can't still be there, can it? But apparently, it is. These new "nows", courtesy of Bert Kleersnijder, show 6↑2 very much in-situ. But what is 6↑2? What means 6↑2? No doubt something to do with Faul related nonsense. Or not.
Still, these are great:


The location is now a private garden, usually locked, of which the old filled-in Pier Head is part. Surprisingly, much remains as was:


Bert, having gained access, spent an hour meticulously capturing "nows" for all the MDO shots from this locale. He's promised to send the rest as soon as they have been edited:


Many thanks to him.

St Annes Court: Trident Studios.

Late August, 1968. Tiring of the shitty vibes, El Schnoz has walked out on sessions for the new album, opting instead for Sardinia. The remaining three decide to plough on, and are "photoed" by fannage entering St Annes Court, home of Trident Studios, to begin work on Dear Prudence.
Here's John back then (looking, in the following photos, decidedly Rabbi Saul-like), probably carrying lyrics and notes for his new song (or not), together with the obligatory nows:


Interesting (or not) to see how the buildings, though remodelled and renovated, retain echoes of earlier incarnations:


Paul is also captured (not literally) at some point on St Annes Court, heading for "drummal" duties on Prudence - hard to say exactly where, but a comparison of the brickwork (my speaking voice in no way resembles E.L.Wisty's) leads me to suspect that this is virtually the same spot as the John pic:


If so, this bit now completely different:


...which should come as no surprise. St Annes Court, in common with everything else on this blog, has been subject to a huge amount of reconstruction over the years. Take the following example: facing in the opposite direction from the above shots, we see John just outside Trident, engaging with fannage. Compare the same spot 10 years earlier in 1958:


The above black and white pic is precisely how the street would have appeared to the Beatles back then. And now?:


Trident (or the location thereof) is marked by the arrows, but everything on the right hand side has been demolished, including, sadly, the elegant St Annes Buildings, one wall of which formed part of Flaxman Court, directly opposite the studio's front door. Paul was also pictured here with a selection of his girlfriends that month. I jest:


Irritatingly, the girls get in the way of seeing what the exterior of Trident looked like back then. These days it has distinctive metal"werk", as seen above, but possibly not back then. Luckily, however, the following lucky snap (of Paul leaving post-Prudence session) gives a lucky glimpse of the lucky entrance area in unlucky 1968: again, ye must compare with the noo - no more "shit brown" decor, and a bit of remodelling seems to have occurred, but it's fundamentally the same space:


Here's a panoramic shot as it is now. The door on the right leads to an office, and then to what was the Studio 1 Control Room. To the left of that is the lift. The stairs down lead to what used to be Studio 1 itself, and the stairs up in days of yore would have taken you to Studio 2, tape rooms etc.:


But what of this fabled Studio 1 Control Room, I hear you mutter. The next photo shows how it was laid out when Hey Jude and the four White Album tracks recorded here were "done": the console faced the entrance wall, and wood strip wall furniture was much in evidence. Again, compare with the contemporary view:


When Trident upgraded the console in the early '70's, it was installed facing in the opposite direction. Note the big window, which looked down on Studio 1 below. These days, the window is covered from behind, because there are now three studios down there with low ceilings, and thus the view wouldn't be up to much:


Back then, however, it was rather different. This famous photo of Paul, George and brass players mid-Honey Pie taken from the Control Room window. The arrow, thrillingly, points to a vent of note (one of a pair), which, if you can remain conscious long enough, I shall return to presently:


This 'un is, apparently, Paul recording the vocal for the lovely Martha My Dear, looking up at our by-now-old-friend the Studio 1 Control Room window for thumbs-up-or-downage:


But what now remains of this hallowed space? It survives, though, as mentioned previously, there are three small studios occupying the area. Trident specialises in voice-over work for film and TV these days, and doesn't record music anymore.
However, there are a trio of remnants. Remember the by-now-our-old-friend-one-of-a-pair vent? Well, it's gone. But the other one is still there! And the entrance is in the same place too:


The third, thrillingly, is the door to the toilet, which now doesn't lead to a toilet, but remains in-situ nevertheless. This, o' course, was the very one El Schnoz appeared from in the nick of time to add his "drummal" to Hey Jude:


Finally, the old studio from the other angle; that far wall corresponds to one of the new rooms:


And that's it. There are other photos of les Fabs in and around Trident, but none of them show anything much of the building itself (apart from one of John and Yoko in the tape room on the third floor - I didn't get in there, as it's now part of another business).
Apparently the current owner gets various folk from Trident's golden age turning up from time to time for a nostalgic rummage, including David "Dave" Bowie, Roger May and Brian Taylor of the Queens, and even our very own Sir Paul "McCartney" Macca. You too can join them (not literally), as if the studio isn't busy and more than 4 people feel so inclined, then there is a tour every Thursday evening. White Album freaks (and I assume ye, like me, qualify) should take advantage before it's all gone for good.
Alrighty?
Many thanks to Julian Carr.

Jacaranda Club: missing missive.

Missing till now, that is; Paul's letter to an unknown tub-thumper inviting him in for an audition shortly before Hamburg. The letter shows they knew (at least partially) what they were getting into. Whether this proto-Ringo responded and auditioned unsuccessfully is unknown (though it's generally been thought up to now that the Beatles were so desperate for a drummer that they'd have taken anyone with a functioning snare).
Thanks to Lizzie.

Cavendish Avenue: refurbishment - 1965.

It took Paul over a year to move in to Cavendish Avenue, mainly because of the inevitable internal and external refurbishment. Above is how the place looked shortly after he bought it, but before he'd moved in: no gate yet, and the door still to be replaced. But comparing these 3 shots (1961/1965/1968), I don't see a lot of difference (though I'm sure all the work was "essential", not to mention, surely coincidentally, "extortionate"):

Liverpool: 1971 Merseybeat Convention.

This, my friends, is gold. Various ghosts of Merseybeat (including, in one case, an ex-Silver Beatle) are seen ruminating upon the contemporary (and moribund) "scene", as it was in Liverpool at the dawn of the '70s.
Reporter Bernard Falk pokes around the Cavern (that's the actual pre-demolition Cavern, in glorious colour), and interviews the actual Allan Williams, who, complete with pint, sports the second most spectacular mutton-chops I've ever seen (see if you can spot the pair that best his elsewhere in this).
Top-notch stuff, and suffused with both a palpable sadness that back then, at that time, no-one much seemed to care anymore, and a sense that places such as the empty Cavern, as portrayed in this priceless footage, were about to be swept away forever. Palpable, I tell ye.
(I've just realised this cuts off a bit early, but you can see the end, together with other innareshting shtuffsh, HERE.)

Kenwood: interview - April, 1965.

This most "innaresting" interview provides a verbatim slice of life at Kenwood in April '65 (or thereabouts). You can read it for "youselfs", but a few points to note: 1. Large (and doubtless good) dog Nigel, previously unknown, and now immediately to return to canine obscurity from whence he skittered. 2. Blues Rags & Hollers (as it is actually titled) was an album by Koerner, Ray & Glover, much admired by the Lenin-cap wearing brigade. 3. Bernard Levin called the then Tory Leader Sir Alec Douglas-Home a "cretin" and an "imbecile" on Not So Much A Programme More A Way Of Life, which was the follow-up to That Was The Week That Was. 4. John seems somewhat agitated (one can guess why - last man standing at the Ad-Lib yet again); Cynthia seems somewhat appalled, even given that it was very much pre-PC. 5. I can say no more.
Many thanks to Richard Morton Jack for passing this on.

Montagu Square: August 1st, 1968.

"Oh look!" quoth Ringo, upon being shown the Two Virgins sleeve, "You've even got the Times on it!" (Did he say "on it" or "in it"? The former would be more appropriate in the above example. But I digress.) Indeed they did, with the Times Business News section evident on the floor on the sleeve, and errr...not on the floor in the out-take above.
The actual date of the "Twa" Virgins cover shoot is unknown, but it may well have been the very same day as this paper was published, namely Thursday August 1st, 1968.
Leafing through any newspaper from back then is interesting, but particularly so in this case: which stories would have caught John's eye? (There really, genuinely is no pun intended.)(And in any case John, apparently, would usually read every story in whatever paper was to hand. But anyway...)
Obviously this 'un:


And clearly this one too:


John, Paul, Dylan and Nilsson all lauded.
TV that evening was a fairly uninspiring selection across 3 (count 'em) channels, with Top Of The Pops at 7.30 probably being the highlight. "All Programmes in Colour" on BBC2, though. Which must have been nice.
Finally, the back page would almost certainly have been perused to see how Northern Songs was doing:


(And if anyone out there has a copy of the Day In The Life Daily Mail, do get in touch.)

Cavendish Avenue: October 9th, 2011.

It's been quite a day at Cavendish Avenue; possibly the last old skool "great day" there (with press, camera crews, fannage, irritated neighbours etc). Ringo's been round, amongst others. But you wouldn't expect any of that here, would you? Instead, it's all about the bricks and mortar, so a then & now: Paul's place as seen in 1969, on the occasion of his first wedding, and the same spot today, on the occasion of his third.
As the sun went down every light inside came on, and it was rather nice to see the auld place full of life once again:


Good on yer, Macca.

Kenwood: kitchen.

This 'un has been on here before, but cropped and small. Here it is all uncropped and large: the only shot to have emerged thus far from the old kitchen at Kenwood, though I don't doubt that more are out there somewhere.

Kenwood: June, 29th 1967.

More John on the couch, June 29th, 1967.

Sunny Heights: Ringo's mural.

As has been seen, the mural that Ringo had "done" at Sunny Heights in 1967, remarkably, endures. Here's a closer look:


The artist turns out to have been one Dudley Edwards. He had been staying with Paul at Cavendish Avenue (where he painted the piano in the upstairs music room), before moving on to Sunny Heights. Whilst chez Richie, he "done" this:


More detail:


He also visited John at Kenwood during this period, where he managed to almost drown in the pool; John had to drag him out and revive him. Edwards was also responsible for the paint job at John Crittle's Dandy Fashions on the Kings Road, which later, o' course, turned into Apple Tailoring:


Thanks to Joe Baiardi for some o' this shizzle.

Crowcombe Heathfield Rail Station: spherical restitution.

"Please Mister, can we have our ball back?".
Crowcombe Heathfield station, part of the West Somerset line, is another place of interest (no, really). It dates from the mid-1800s, and the original signal box, past which the Beatles trotted/cycled for one of the more amusing bits of HDN, was constructed in 1879.
Here it is as pictured in the 1950s:


And a good then & then from 1966:


Soon after les Fabs made ludicrous use of it, at around the time of the above pic, the station was "rationalised" by British Rail, and began to fall into disrepair. It eventually closed altogether in the early '70s. The signal box was demolished, and this shot shows that side of the platform after it had been removed:


Happily, the station re-opened in 1979, and a team of volunteers has restored it to a pristine state. They even tracked down a similar signal box at Ebbw Vale Sidings, and moved it to the former position of the old one on the station platform. So there it now sits, marking the spot of a famous bit of Beatle burlesque: