ELVIS
Fittingly, it was spring 1959; we were all on the cusp of the sixties, and I swear few could have ever predicted the social revolution that was to follow, that we were indeed to be all shook up. We had no idea.
In 1996 ….The wonderful feature writer Maureen Cleave I met for professional reasons. She was working on an article about psychotherapy and was told I could help. Maureen wrote the first ever London story about the Beatles, ‘Why the Beatles create all that frenzy’ was the headline, which appeared in the London Evening Standard, on 2 February 1963. Later, she conducted the famous John Lennon interview in which John said ‘We’re more popular than Jesus now,’ which was published in the Standard on 4 March 1966.
At first, she had no idea of my Beatles connection. We met at the Halcyon Hotel in Holland Park, London, for coffee and to talk about psychotherapy. We made small talk and, on the second cup of coffee, she said, ‘You’re Stu Sutcliffe’s sister.’ We did the professional stuff and then talked about Stuart and the other Beatles. She was so enjoyable. At the time, in 1996, I was publishing a coffee-table art book about Stuart, and darling Michael Kenny had arranged for there to be a launch party at the Royal Academy of Art. I invited Maureen. She turned up with a brown-paper carrier bag and from it she produced a battered Elvis LP.
It was ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ from 1956. On the front was the name Stuart Sutcliffe, scribbled by Stuart. He had lent his LP to John Lennon who had given it to Maureen in the sixties. More than thirty years later she had looked it out and thought it should be returned to Stuart. It is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum.
Sutcliffe, Pauline. The Beatles' Shadow: Stuart Sutcliffe & His Lonely Hearts Club . Pan Macmillan.
Book: The Beatles' Shadow: Stuart Sutcliffe & His Lonely Hearts Club.
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