The collection box at the church where Paul McCartney and John Lennon played together for the first time is to go under the auctioneer’s hammer.

Paul McCartney joined John Lennon’s first band The Quarrymen – which later became The Beatles – in a session at St Peter’s Church in Woolton, Liverpool in 1957.

Manager Stephen Bailey said he really did not know the box’s value.
Perhaps £500, he wondered, “or enough to buy a new church collection box”.
“The church was buying a new one and wondered what to do with the old one,” Mr Bailey explained.
“The committee then decided to try and sell it and put the proceeds towards church funds.”

He said there had already been “lots of interest” in the wooden box – made by a member of the congregation in 1929 – from Beatles fans in the United States.

Paul McCartney – then a 15-year-old schoolboy – impressed The Quarrymen so much with the session at St Peter’s Church hall he was invited to join the band.
John Lennon was a member of the church’s youth club and attended services there with his aunt, Mimi Smith.

Other items available in the auction on 29 August include an autograph book, containing the Fab Four’s signatures, that belongs to the cousin of Beatles roadie Mal Evans.

A collection of rare photo prints from the famed Abbey Road LP cover shoot will also go under the hammer.

BBC