The Beatles were one of most popular bands of the 1960s, the queues to buy tickets and the concert itself was described by the Huddersfield Daily Examiner as ‘manic’.
The band was known for attracting large crowds of teenage girl fans, which caused a policing problem for the town’s police force. The paper wrote, ‘There was no other word for it, it was frightening. Girls, otherwise quite normal, seemed to be possessed of emotions hitherto unknown’. Three thirteen year-olds, Susan Ogden, Katherine Baxter, and Maria Barrett explained the attraction: ‘It’s their hair’ they said, ‘you just can’t sit in your seat, can you?’ Katherine Moira thought ‘It was the beat combined with the personality of the group that caused the hysteria.’59
Anne Fleetwood recalled waiting to get tickets, she said, ‘Me and some friends camped out overnight with flasks and sleeping bags. It was manic when they came on stage – you couldn’t hear them sing because of the screaming…’60 This performance was one of the biggest events in Huddersfield in the 1960s.
