Frieda Kelly: My life with the Beatles

Read more: Imagine! John Lennon's Irish island - Beatles legend was ready to settle in his Irish home off Mayo

Frieda Kelly, a spirited 65-year-old originally from Dublin (a city she returns to every year and still calls home) is the type of grandmother any kid would be lucky to have. Indulgent, full of fun and guided by the wisdom of her own experience, she’s the epitome of a been-there, done-it Liverpudlian (her adopted city).

But there’s much more to Kelly than her spirit or smarts. Although you’d never guess if you saw her on the street, she was once lucky enough to have a front row seat for one the biggest cultural changes of the 20th century -- the birth of the Beatles.

In her teens and twenties in Liverpool, as Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s personal assistant from 1962 until 1972, the now doting grandmother found herself daily surrounded by the most important rock band that ever picked up their guitars.

Speaking to the Irish Voice from her home in Wirral, the suburb that faces Liverpool city (you take the ferry across the Mersey to reach it) she talks about her life with The Beatles with all the informality of an old friend.

But Kelly, a notoriously private person, has only agreed to speak to the Irish Voice this week to sing the praises of the news show Rain, A Tribute to The Beatles on Broadway.

The show, which reproduces some of the most famous tracks in the Beatles catalogue, is currently being promoted by her old friend and former Beatles rep in the U.S. Merle Frimark. If Kelly hadn’t been so impressed with the show, she says, this interview would never have happened.

“Merle called me and asked if ‘d heard of Rain. I asked her what kind of music they performed and she said The Beatles. I said I don’t do ‘copy Beatles.’ I wasn’t being funny.

“I was on a ship once and I saw a band that did them, and after two numbers I just couldn’t hack it. I thought what’s the point when you’ve seen the real thing.

“And when Rain came over to England I actually tried to get that point over to them. I wasn’t particularly bothered about seeing their show. But in the end I did go, and I was very pleasantly surprised.”

Kelly knew John, Paul, George and the man she still calls Ritchie as people in her life, not as rock legends.

“I got to know The Beatles when they came to the Cavern Club in 1961. I met them in 1961 before Brian Epstein came on the scene,” Kelly recalls.

“I used to go to the Cavern three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday when they were playing. They’d have two sessions from 12-1, and from 1:15-2:15. The second session was always the best one because they were always late to the first one, or one of them wouldn’t turn up.”

​
Nster.com