The Beatles Go to Buckingham Palace
October 26th, 1965. Four lads from Liverpool. One Queen. Four medals. And a little bit of mischief.
Sixty-one years ago today.
Can that possibly be right?
October 26th, 1965.
And there’s a most extraordinary commotion outside Buckingham Palace.
Four thousand Beatles fans. Mostly girls. Screaming their heads off.
Some are climbing the railings. Others are perched on lampposts, anything that will give them a better view. The police are having the devil of a job keeping everybody under control.
And then, drawing up outside the Palace gates, a Rolls-Royce Phantom V.
Not the Queen’s Rolls-Royce.
John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce.
And inside it, four young men from Liverpool.
John. Paul. George. Ringo.
The Beatles.
They’re about to go through those gates and receive medals from the Queen.
Yes, the Queen.
Elizabeth II.
Four lads who’d started out playing in a cellar in Liverpool are about to be decorated by the sovereign.
And not everybody is pleased about it.
Far from it.
But let’s rewind.
Back to June 1965.
That’s when the announcement was made.
The Beatles were to receive MBEs.
Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
And in 1965, that’s not the sort of thing you give pop singers.
It’s what you give distinguished soldiers, public servants, people who’ve devoted their lives to doing their duty.
Not four young men with guitars and long hair.
And sure enough, there was uproar.
Some existing recipients were so outraged they actually sent their medals back.
Imagine that.
Years of distinguished service to King and country, and now they were being put in the same company as the chaps who sang “She Loves You”.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The horror of it.
And these weren’t just anonymous grumblers.
Colonel George Wagg, a veteran of the First World War, was so furious he reportedly returned twelve of his medals.
Twelve!
And resigned from the Labour Party into the bargain.
A former RAF squadron leader, Paul Pearson, sent back his MBE, complaining that the award had become practically worthless.
And then there was Hector Dupuis, a former Canadian Member of Parliament.
He sent his medal back too.
He wanted nothing to do with these young men.
And the Beatles were dismissed by some of their critics as vulgar young upstarts.
You can almost hear John Lennon laughing.
But the Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, saw things differently.
The Beatles were one of Britain’s greatest exports.
They were conquering America. Bringing millions into the country. Flying the British flag around the world.
And John Lennon saw the commercial argument perfectly clearly.
If Britain could decorate somebody for exporting machinery, why shouldn’t it decorate somebody for exporting music?
A perfectly reasonable question.
But there was something else going on here.
Britain in 1965 was still a very class-conscious country.
Old school ties. Correct accents. Knowing your place.
And now four young men from Liverpool, none of them an Etonian, none an Oxbridge man, were being welcomed into the British establishment.
By the Queen herself.
And they were young.
Good heavens, were they young.
John Lennon was 25.
Paul McCartney, 23.
George Harrison, just 22.
Ringo Starr, 25.
And the Queen?
She was 39.
Well, back to Buckingham Palace.
The Beatles have arrived. And they’re wearing dark suits.
A great relief, apparently.
They’d been worried they’d have to wear morning dress.
Top hats and tails.
John reckoned they’d never find top hats big enough to fit over their hair.
And speaking of hair, Cynthia Lennon had cut four inches off John’s the night before.
Four inches!
George had had a trim as well.
So the Beatles are looking comparatively respectable.
And before the ceremony, they’re given a lesson in royal etiquette.
How to approach the Queen.
How to bow.
How to receive the decoration.
How to retreat without turning your back on Her Majesty.
Left foot forward.
Don’t speak until spoken to.
This is not the Cavern Club.
And the extraordinary thing is that the Beatles are nervous.
These four young men who’ve faced screaming crowds all over the world, conquered America, performed in front of royalty before.
They’re nervous about meeting the Queen.
Which brings us to one of the great Beatles stories.
Did they smoke marijuana in Buckingham Palace?
John Lennon later claimed they did.
He said they were so nervous that they slipped into a Palace lavatory and smoked a joint.
Yes.
Marijuana.
In the lavatories of Buckingham Palace.
Before receiving their royal honours.
Well, what a story.
Unfortunately, George Harrison subsequently poured a large bucket of cold water over it.
They did go into the lavatory.
They did smoke.
But according to George, they smoked ordinary cigarettes.
Not marijuana.
Paul McCartney’s recollections haven’t substantiated John’s version either.
So we have John Lennon on one side and George Harrison on the other.
And somewhere between them, perhaps, the truth.
Though John was never a man to let a dull fact spoil a magnificent story.
Now, inside Buckingham Palace, everything is magnificent.
The chandeliers. The tapestries. The ceremonial uniforms.
And the band of the Coldstream Guards is providing the music.
Selections from My Fair Lady.
A little Bitter Sweet.
Even Ave Maria.
But not a note of “She Loves You”.
Not even a quick chorus of “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.
And John Lennon, for all his irreverence, is impressed.
He looks around at the great rooms, the ceilings, the history.
He says later it was like being in a museum.
There are 189 people being honoured that morning.
Six of them are receiving knighthoods.
The Queen is wearing a yellow-gold dress.
And just before midday, it’s the Beatles’ turn.
There they are.
Four young men among all those soldiers and sailors and dignitaries.
And here she comes.
Queen Elizabeth II.
She presents the medals.
And the Beatles find her rather charming.
Friendly. Relaxed. Easy to talk to.
Which is probably just as well, because they’re not entirely sure what to say.
The Queen asks John whether he’s been working hard recently.
And John, momentarily forgetting that they’ve been busy making an album, tells her they’ve been on holiday.
She asks Paul how long the group has been together.
Paul says many years.
And Ringo pipes up.
Forty years.
The Queen laughs.
She asks Ringo whether he started the group.
No, says Ringo. He was the last to join.
The others started it.
And there it is.
The Queen of England.
The four Beatles.
A little conversation. A little laughter.
And four newly minted Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.
And there’s another lovely little story from inside Buckingham Palace that morning.
Among the other recipients is a Birmingham fire officer.
George Goodman.
A thoroughly respectable gentleman.
He’s receiving an MBE too.
And George has a twelve-year-old daughter called Joy.
Joy is absolutely mad about the Beatles.
Well, George spots the four of them.
And decides he’d better get their autographs for his daughter.
So he goes over.
And the Beatles obligingly sign for him.
All four of them.
John. Paul. George. Ringo.
And then George Goodman says something wonderfully tactless.
“I don’t know what she sees in you!”
Imagine saying that to the Beatles.
On the day you’re all receiving medals from the Queen.
Well, the Beatles think it’s hilarious.
Paul McCartney even tells the story at their press conference later that day.
And here’s the delicious postscript.
Joy keeps those autographs.
For fifty-eight years.
Then, in October 2023, they go under the hammer at an auction in Lichfield, Staffordshire.
And what do they fetch?
Seven thousand four hundred pounds.
Seven thousand four hundred pounds!
For four signatures collected by a Birmingham fire officer who couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
I wonder what George Goodman would have made of that.
Now, back to those MBEs.
They’re rather splendid little objects.
Silver crosses, suspended from rose-pink ribbons edged with pearl grey.
An imperial crown above each cross.
And in the centre, portraits of King George V and Queen Mary.
Not Elizabeth II.
Her grandparents.
The motto is “For God and the Empire”.
The Order dates from 1917, when George V instituted it during the First World War.
And there’s a lovely irony here.
Four young men who are transforming British popular culture are being decorated with medals bearing the portraits of a king and queen from an entirely different Britain.
A Britain of imperial ceremony, rigid social hierarchies and unquestioned deference.
And outside the Palace gates?
Beatlemania.
Two worlds meeting.
And incidentally, an ordinary MBE isn’t necessarily worth a fortune.
They turn up at auction, sometimes for less than a hundred pounds.
But one of the actual Beatles’ medals?
With its history properly documented?
Well, that would be an altogether different kettle of fish.
And what happened to those four medals?
We’ll come to that.
Because the Beatles have now left Buckingham Palace.
And the day isn’t over.
Outside, the crowd is still waiting.
The Beatles pile back into John’s Rolls-Royce.
They wave their medals through the windows.
And off they go.
They’re heading for the Saville Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue, where a press conference awaits them.
And the famous Beatles wit is soon fizzing away.
Why did George choose that particular suit?
Because it was the only one that was pressed.
How did John manage to get up so early?
He couldn’t believe such a time of day existed.
An alarm clock?
No. His mother-in-law.
Who else was at the ceremony?
Just a crowd of dukes.
Wonderful stuff.
And the celebrations don’t end there.
They go off for lunch with Brian Epstein, their manager, and Neil Aspinall, their road manager.
The venue is Les Ambassadeurs, one of London’s grandest restaurants.
Very smart.
Very expensive.
Not exactly the sort of place where four young lads from Liverpool would have been eating a few years earlier.
And think about the lives these four young men are leading.
It’s only three years since their first record, “Love Me Do”, came out.
And already they’ve become fabulously successful.
John lives at Kenwood, a substantial house on the exclusive St George’s Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey.
He’s married to Cynthia. They have a little boy, Julian.
Ringo lives nearby at Sunny Heights, with his wife Maureen and their baby son Zak.
George has a house called Kinfauns in Esher. He’s living with Pattie Boyd, whom he’ll marry in January 1966.
And Paul?
Paul’s still living in London, at 57 Wimpole Street, in the home of his girlfriend Jane Asher’s parents.
Just a stone’s throw from Harley Street.
They’ve come a very long way from Liverpool.
From the Cavern Club.
From the gruelling all-night sessions in Hamburg.
From playing to handfuls of people in smoky clubs.
And yet, for all their fame and money, the music is what matters.
And that’s where this story becomes truly extraordinary.
Because think what the Beatles had accomplished by October 26th, 1965.
Five British studio albums.
Please Please Me.
With the Beatles.
A Hard Day’s Night.
Beatles for Sale.
Help!
And the hits.
“She Loves You”.
“I Want to Hold Your Hand”.
“Can’t Buy Me Love”.
“A Hard Day’s Night”.
“I Feel Fine”.
“Ticket to Ride”.
“Help!”
And, of course, “Yesterday”.
An astonishing body of work.
Achieved in scarcely three years.
And the Queen has honoured them for it.
But here’s the staggering thing.
Some of their greatest work is still ahead of them.
Think about that.
Rubber Soul hasn’t even been released yet.
They’re working on it at Abbey Road, up in St John’s Wood.
And on this very day, while the Beatles are receiving their honours, the engineers at Abbey Road are mixing some of the songs for the new album.
“Norwegian Wood”.
“In My Life”.
“Nowhere Man”.
“Drive My Car”.
And their forthcoming single, “Day Tripper”.
Imagine that.
The Beatles are at Buckingham Palace.
And a few miles away, their next musical revolution is taking shape.
In another six weeks or so, Rubber Soul will be out.
And the Beatles will have taken another giant leap.
Away from the comparatively straightforward love songs.
Towards something deeper, stranger, more adventurous.
They haven’t even recorded “Michelle” yet.
That comes the following week.
And then will come Revolver.
“Eleanor Rigby”.
“Tomorrow Never Knows”.
And then Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
And “Strawberry Fields Forever”.
And “Penny Lane”.
And “Hey Jude”.
And The White Album.
And Abbey Road.
“Something”.
“Here Comes the Sun”.
“Come Together”.
And Let It Be.
My goodness.
The Queen was honouring them for what they’d already achieved.
And they hadn’t even begun to scale some of their greatest musical heights.
And here’s a marvellous little detail.
When Sgt. Pepper appeared in 1967, there they were on the album cover, wearing those extraordinary brightly coloured military-style uniforms.
And pinned to their chests?
Medals.
Including the MBEs worn by Paul, George and Ringo.
John chose to wear a collection of borrowed military medals instead.
The British establishment meets the psychedelic revolution.
George V and Queen Mary, in a manner of speaking, meeting Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
You couldn’t make it up.
But the story of those medals doesn’t end there.
Because four years after the investiture, John Lennon decides he’s had enough of his.
November 1969.
He sends his MBE back to Buckingham Palace.
Along with a letter to the Queen.
He’s protesting about Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra war.
About British support for the Americans in Vietnam.
And, in a magnificent piece of Lennon cheek, about his latest record, “Cold Turkey”, slipping down the charts.
Two wars.
And a disappointing pop-chart position.
All in the same letter.
Only John Lennon.
And what happened to the medal?
It wasn’t thrown away.
It was kept.
And in 2009, it was reported that Lennon’s MBE had been rediscovered in the records of the Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood at St James’s Palace.
Still in its presentation case.
Still accompanied by his letter.
As for the medals belonging to Paul, George and Ringo, their precise present whereabouts aren’t publicly established.
But there’s a nice postscript.
Two of the four Beatles eventually became knights.
Paul McCartney in 1997.
Ringo Starr in 2018.
Sir Paul.
Sir Ringo.
Four lads from Liverpool.
And two of them end up with knighthoods.
Which brings us back to that October day in 1965.
Those screaming girls outside Buckingham Palace.
The Rolls-Royce drawing up at the gates.
The dark suits.
The nervous cigarettes.
The Queen.
The jokes.
The little silver crosses.
And the wonderful, almost unimaginable amount of music still waiting to be written.
There’s something rather moving about it.
Those four young men were being welcomed into the British establishment.
But the establishment didn’t really know what it was welcoming.
These weren’t simply four very successful entertainers.
They were four young men who were helping to change the way the world sounded.
The way young people dressed.
The way they thought.
The way they imagined their futures.
And they were doing it not with armies or governments or great institutions.
But with guitars.
With voices.
With songs.
The British Empire had spent centuries spreading its influence around the world.
And here were four lads from Liverpool achieving a different kind of worldwide influence.
Without firing a shot.
And our Word of the Day.
Investiture.
That’s the formal ceremony at which somebody receives an honour, a title or an office.
But the origin of the word is where the magic lies.
It comes from the Latin investire.
To clothe.
To dress somebody.
To put a garment on them.
It’s the same family of words as vest and vestments.
Originally, to invest somebody with an office or dignity was, quite literally, to clothe them in the outward symbols of that dignity.
A robe.
A sash.
A chain.
A crown.
Or, in the case of the Beatles, a little silver cross hanging from a pink and grey ribbon.
And isn’t that rather wonderful?
On October 26th, 1965, Queen Elizabeth II symbolically clothed four young men from Liverpool in the dignity of the British Empire.
And what did those four young men do?
They took their medals.
Went back to making music.
And carried on changing the world.
And on that note…
Well, was there ever a better time to put on the Beatles’ “In My Life”.
It had already been recorded by the day they went to Buckingham Palace.
But nobody outside their circle had heard it yet.
Sixty-one years later, it still takes your breath away.
Go on. Treat yourself.
London Calling. London Walks connecting.
This is London. This is London Walks.
Streets ahead. Story time. History time. “In My Life” time.
See you tomorrow.