Interview by Houston Disc Jockey Buddy McGregor at Cliveden House in Maidenhead, Berkshire. The Beatles shooting the Buckingham Palace scenes for their second film, ‘Help!’ on May 10th. 1965
Q: “Quite a race was run on the lawn here at the Astor mansion today, and the Beatles did win, as I told you earlier. And I have Paul and John here. You ran a very good race.”
PAUL: “Thank you very much. Thank you.”
Q: “Had you ever done this before?”
PAUL: “Not since school, you know. Done a bit since… I haven’t done any since, I mean. I’ve done some now, you know.”
Q: “This was quite a long course out there.”
PAUL: “Well, yes. Fifteen furlongs, I’d say.”
Q: “There was a lot of good running back there. Do you think you did your share?”
PAUL: “Well you see, the best team won.”
Q: “John, do you have any comments?”
JOHN: “No.”
Q: “Thank you. John, Americans aren’t…”
JOHN: “Aren’t they?”
Q: “…aren’t acquainted with the term ‘spanner.’ It’s a wrench, isn’t it?”
JOHN: “Wrench, monkey wrench. Yeah.”
Q: “And so your new book called ‘Spaniard In The Works’ is really a play on the word ‘spanner.'”
JOHN: “Yes. We’re playing about with spanners. (laughs) Just me laughing.”
Q: “Does it have anything to do with a monkey wrench?”
JOHN: “No. It’s just about a fella. There’s just a drawing of him with cars, you see. It’s nothing about cars. He’s a Spaniard working on a farm.”
(laughter)
Q: “What is that?”
JOHN: “It’s a whopper.”
Q: “Oh. We call these popsicles at home.”
JOHN: “We call them, uhh… what do we call them? …Lolly ices.”
PAUL: “Lolly ices. I was gonna say icicles, but we don’t.”
JOHN: “We call some of them Jerry.”
Q: “Yours is red and his is yellow, and Ringo’s is yellow.”
RINGO: “Guess whose one’s got the bellow.”
Q: “Ringo just joined our little group. Good seeing you. I wanted to ask about your car, Ringo. It’s a beautiful thing. What’s it called?”
JOHN: “Arthur.”
RINGO: “It’s called Nigel. It’s called a Facel Vega, actually.”
Q: “Doesn’t it have a Chevrolet engine?”
RINGO: “I don’t know. It’s got an American engine whose name I will not say… unless they give me a free engine.”
JOHN: “Yeah, I’ll mention it too if you give me a free engine.”
Q: “John, the rocks that you and Paul got from our trip this morning. We went down to…”
JOHN: “It was me and George that got the rocks.”
Q: “Oh I’m sorry. It was George.”
JOHN: “Paul’s already got rocks… in his head.”
Q: “We went down to the pub at lunchtime and there were some little bushes and hedges around the front of the pub and what do you think surrounded them?”
JOHN: “I dunno. More little bushes and hedges?”
Q: “No. All those rare rocks that we thought we had a scoop on.”
JOHN: “Oh that’s lousy. What happened? Maybe somebody else had been down there plucking them.”
Q: “They’re all over the place up at the pub. Are you looking forward to this (American Tour) trip?”
BEATLES: “Yeah.”
RINGO: “Can’t wait to get to Houston, man.”
JOHN: “Yeah. Let’s go to Houston.”
Q: “John, have you heard about our Astrodome?”
JOHN: “No, thanks.”
PAUL: “Yeah, I have. It was on the Early Bird link the other day on the television.”
RINGO: “That’s right.”
PAUL: “And it said, ‘Howdy Europe, Yeah!'”
JOHN: “Oh, was that it?”
PAUL: “That was it.”
JOHN: “Oh it was great, that.”
Q: “And the scoreboard lit up and said ‘Howdy.’ When they hit a home run, it goes crazy. It flashes lights and does all sorts of tricks.”
PAUL: “It has a mind of its own.”
Q: “Pretty much. Pretty much.”
JOHN: “Pretty polly.”
(laughter)
Q: “The Beatles are eating… lollysicles. Is that right?”
RINGO: “Lolly ices.”
Q: “Which is what we refer to as popsicles in America.”
RINGO: “Do you? Why? ‘Cuz they’re made of ice.”
Q: “I really don’t know why we call them popsicles.”
JOHN: “I mean, they’re not made out of POPSICS, are they?”
Q: “No.”
PAUL: “Lemonade pop, made into an icicle. Pop, sicle.”
RINGO: “Well that’s figured that out then… Well, why is it lolly ice? ‘Cuz it’s lolly with ice. And it’s lolly ice.”
JOHN: “Well, what’s lolly?”
RINGO: “You don’t know what a lolly is? Everybody knows what a lolly is.”
JOHN: “Well, we’ve made the LP then. Shall we go?”