On this day in 1962, Britain invented the Sixties twice.
Same day.
Same country.
Same city at the heart of it.
October 5th, 1962.
A little red-labelled record appears in the shops.
“Love Me Do.”
The Beatles’ first single.
And that evening, the lights go down at the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus.
A man in a dinner jacket sits at a gaming table.
A woman asks his name.
He lights a cigarette.
Looks at her.
“Bond.”
[Pause.]
“James Bond.”
Good grief.
The Beatles and James Bond arrived on the same day.
October 5th, 1962.
If you wanted to put a pin into the calendar and say, there, right there, that’s the day the British Sixties began, you could make a pretty formidable case for today.
Because Britain went into that Friday one country.
And came out of it with four lads from Liverpool and a secret agent with a licence to kill.
And neither of them looked much like the Britain that had gone before.
This is London Calling.
And today we’re going back sixty-four years.
To the day the Sixties arrived.
Now let’s get the camera up high.
Britain in 1962.
The war has been over for seventeen years, but it isn’t ancient history.
Not remotely.
Bomb sites are still around.
Plenty of people are still living in houses without bathrooms.
The last remnants of National Service are only now disappearing.
The Establishment is still very much the Establishment.
Bowler hats.
Old school ties.
Deference.
Men who call each other “old boy.”
The Empire has been coming apart.
Suez, six years earlier, gave Britain a fairly brutal lesson in where it now stood in the world.
Harold Macmillan is Prime Minister.
He has told the country it has “never had it so good.”
And economically, for millions of people, there’s truth in that.
Wages are up.
Consumer goods are pouring into homes.
Televisions.
Washing machines.
Record players.
Cars.
Teenagers have money in their pockets.
That is important.
Because suddenly there’s this enormous new creature stalking the British high street.
Youth.
Youth with money.
Youth with records.
Youth with clothes.
Youth that doesn’t particularly want to look like its parents.
And on Friday, October 5th, 1962, youth gets a soundtrack.
Walk into a record shop.
There it is.
A seven-inch Parlophone single.
Red label.
Catalogue number 45-R 4949.
“Love Me Do.”
On the other side, “P.S. I Love You.”
And the name on the record?
The Beatles.
No screaming girls outside Buckingham Palace.
No Shea Stadium.
No “A Hard Day’s Night.”
No Sgt. Pepper.
No Abbey Road zebra crossing.
Not yet.
Indeed, most of Britain has absolutely no idea who these four young men are.
John Lennon is twenty-one.
Paul McCartney is twenty.
George Harrison is nineteen.
Ringo Starr is twenty-two.
Nineteen!
Think about that.
And they’ve hardly come steaming into the recording industry as conquering heroes.
At the beginning of 1962, Decca Records had auditioned them.
And turned them down.
Famously.
The future knocked on the door.
Decca said, no thanks.
Guitar groups are on the way out.
Well.
That aged nicely.
Brian Epstein kept pushing.
Eventually George Martin at EMI took an interest.
They came south.
To London.
To EMI Recording Studios in Abbey Road.
Not yet called Abbey Road Studios.
And they recorded “Love Me Do.”
Even that wasn’t straightforward.
Ringo had only just joined the group.
Pete Best had been dismissed in August.
George Martin wasn’t entirely convinced by Ringo’s drumming, so for one session a professional session drummer, Andy White, was brought in.
Poor old Ringo was handed a tambourine.
You can imagine how much he enjoyed that.
But the first copies of “Love Me Do” released on this day used the September 4th recording.
Ringo on drums.
And there it went.
Out into Britain.
Two minutes and twenty-something seconds of harmonica, handclaps, voices and possibility.
It didn’t go to number one.
It didn’t even make the top ten.
It reached number seventeen.
But that’s almost better for our story.
Because nobody hears the starting pistol while history is firing it.
October 5th, 1962.
A little record enters the bloodstream.
And while that’s happening, come with me to Piccadilly Circus.
Because Britain is about to invent itself again.
The London Pavilion.
Right there on Piccadilly Circus.
A former music hall.
By 1962, a cinema.
And on the programme that Friday is a new film.
Made on a comparatively modest budget.
Starring a thirty-two-year-old Scottish actor who is hardly an international superstar.
Based on a series of spy novels by Ian Fleming.
The film is called:
Dr. No.
There had been doubts about Sean Connery.
Fleming himself wasn’t initially convinced.
Connery was Edinburgh working-class.
Former milkman.
Former bodybuilder.
Six foot two.
Physical.
Dangerous.
Not the polished gentleman Fleming had necessarily imagined.
Which, of course, turns out to be the whole point.
Because Connery’s Bond is elegant.
But there’s something else under the dinner jacket.
You can see the knuckles.
This man might order the right wine.
He might also put you through a wall.
And that mixture is new.
Very new.
The London Pavilion begins showing Dr. No that morning.
The first public performance was at 10.45.
And in the evening there’s a gala screening.
Sean Connery is there.
Director Terence Young.
Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli.
Ian Fleming comes along.
And Fleming brings a guest.
Just think about this pairing.
W. Somerset Maugham.
Somerset Maugham, born in 1874, comes to see James Bond being born on screen.
Victorian Britain sitting in a cinema watching the future.
I love that.
And here’s another wonderful detail.
Ursula Andress wasn’t there.
Honey Ryder.
White bikini.
One of the most famous entrances in cinema history.
She couldn’t make the London opening because she was in America filming with…
Elvis Presley.
Come on.
You couldn’t make October 5th, 1962 more Sixties if you tried.
And then the lights go down.
Those dots move across the screen.
The gun barrel.
Bond turns.
He fires.
Blood runs down the screen.
And then comes the music.
I’m not going to play it. I’m not even going to hum it.
I don’t need to.
You can hear it already.
That guitar. That brass. That strut. That little charge of danger.
The James Bond theme.
And eventually we’re in the casino.
Chemin de fer.
Green baize.
Dinner jackets.
Smoke.
A woman at the table.
Sylvia Trench.
She introduces herself.
“Trench. Sylvia Trench.”
And asks him his name.
Sean Connery looks across the table.
Lights his cigarette.
And gives cinema three words that are going to last forever.
“Bond. James Bond.”
That’s it.
A character walks into popular culture and never leaves.
And there’s a delicious London wrinkle here.
That casino was a studio set, but it was modelled on Les Ambassadeurs, the Mayfair club.
And after the gala screening that night, where did the Dr. No crowd go for the party?
To the Milroy nightclub at Les Ambassadeurs.
Bond leaves the screen and walks straight into the place that inspired the screen.
Very London.
And now step back.
Because this is where October 5th becomes more than a coincidence.
The Beatles and Bond.
What do they have in common?
At first glance, almost nothing.
Four cheeky lads from Liverpool.
One lethal secret agent.
Cheap suits and leather jackets on one side.
Savile Row and a dinner jacket on the other.
Harmonica.
Walther PPK.
Cavern Club.
Casino.
But look again.
They’re both announcements.
Britain is changing.
And Britain suddenly discovers something it’s going to become astonishingly good at.
Selling Britishness back to the world.
Not imperial Britain.
Not the Britain of battleships and colonies.
A new Britain.
Stylish.
Funny.
Sexy.
Irreverent.
Self-confident.
A little dangerous.
The Beatles don’t sound American, even though they adore American music.
Bond doesn’t behave like an American hero.
These are unmistakably British creations.
But they travel.
Boy, do they travel.
Within a few years, Beatles records will be pouring across the Atlantic.
Bond films will be playing around the world.
British clothes.
British music.
British film.
British photography.
British fashion.
London itself becomes a product.
Carnaby Street.
King’s Road.
Mary Quant.
David Bailey.
Michael Caine.
Twiggy.
The Mini.
And Bond.
And the Beatles.
The old joke is that Britain lost an empire and found a role.
Well, part of that new role was being cool.
And on October 5th, 1962, two enormous pieces of that new identity slipped quietly into place.
Nobody woke up that morning saying:
“Good heavens, the Sixties start today.”
Of course they didn’t.
History doesn’t send a memo.
And here’s the really delicious part.
Eleven days later the Cuban Missile Crisis begins.
The world will spend nearly two weeks wondering whether it is about to be incinerated.
That’s the other side of the Sixties.
Youth.
Colour.
Pop.
Sex.
Freedom.
And the mushroom cloud hovering in the background.
Bond is a Cold War creation.
The Beatles are an escape from the grey.
Two different answers to the same nervous age.
One carries a gun.
The other carries a guitar.
And both become global.
And perhaps there’s another reason this happened here.
Britain was old enough to have traditions to kick against.
London was old enough to provide the stage.
You need the dinner jacket before you can loosen the bow tie.
You need the Establishment before you can cheek it.
You need grey before colour can explode.
And that’s what makes that Friday so wonderful.
Morning.
A record goes into the shops.
Evening.
A film goes onto a screen in Piccadilly Circus.
Two apparently small events.
Two doors opening.
And through one walks James Bond.
Through the other come John, Paul, George and Ringo.
The Britain on the far side of those doors is going to look very different indeed.
So happy October 5th.
Sixty-four years ago today.
“Love Me Do.”
Dr. No.
The Beatles.
Bond.
Four young men from Liverpool.
One Scotsman in a dinner jacket.
And quite possibly…
the day the Sixties arrived.
This is London Calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time.
History time.
See you tomorrow.