The day John met Paul...

It was in a sleepy Merseyside village that music changed forever when John Lennon met Paul McCartney.
By Paul Coslett

The centre of Woolton village has changed little since the day over half a century ago when John Lennon and Paul McCartney met at the church fete on 6 July 1957.
The church hall (above) where the two first met is still in use, although the stage that John Lennon and the rest of the Quarrymen performed on is absent, now dismantled and in storage.
Lennon and McCartney were introduced by mutual friend Ivan Vaughan after the Quarrymen’s evening performance in the church hall.
St Peter’s Church has organised several events to commemorate the meeting of John and Paul including performances from the surviving members of The Quarrymen and a musical festival featuring young local acts.

Prior to the evening meeting McCartney had watched The Quarrymen perform in a field behind St Peter’s Church.
The spot where Paul saw John and the Quarrymen perform in the afternoon, which features in the famous black and white photograph of Lennon wearing a checked shirt playing guitar, is now the site of Bishop Martin School.

Returning to St Peter's in 2007 the surviving members of the Quarrymen Len Garry, Rod Davis and Colin Hanton (above) recalled that day back in 1957.
"I was in there messing about on the drums," remembers Colin Hanton.
"One of the boy scouts was playing the bugle and Ivan Vaughan came in with this other dark haired lad that I didn't know, and they stood for about five or ten minutes talking to John."
The band then played an evening performance in the church hall with McCartney stood next to the stage watching.
Lennon accidentally impressed McCartney because of his habit of making up lyrics where he hadn't been able to make out the words when listening to the original.
Rod Davis says this happened with one particular song "We were playing this number and we'd had lots of problems trying to get the words of the songs.

"We were still schoolkids and we didn't have any money anyway.
"So John would fill the gaps in occasionally 'Come come go with me, down down to the penitentiary'. We did a lot of songs about trains and jails so that worked.
"Apparently Paul said how cool John was because he was throwing in these old blues lyrics and he thought he was improvising the words.
"But in fact we always sang it that way because we never got them right in the first place."
The actual lyrics of the song, Come Go With Me were 'Come go with me, please don't send me 'way beyond the sea'.