In step with the Beatles

Reuters

Fans walk the iconic pedestrian crossing at Abbey Road.

Here I am, one bright but blustery Tuesday morning, inside the wrought-iron Victorian shell of London's Marylebone Station surrounded by Beatles fans – mostly Americans, two Canadians, three young Australians and a sprinkling of Europeans.

In their midst stands spry but diminutive Richard Porter. If you can warble a "Yeah, yeah, yeah" while shaking your mop top, then listen up. For the modest sum of £7 (NZ$15.70), Porter will share with you his Beatle-facts and obsessions.

He declares on this spot, on this very concourse, the opening scenes of A Hard Day's Night were shot in March 1964. As the lads ran along the station platform, chased by a horde of screaming girls, George Harrison stumbled.

"He actually hurt himself," says Porter. "It was an accident – but they kept it in the film. Some of those chasing fans received signed photos, now worth a packet."

Gert, from Dortmund, raids his knapsack as if about to produce his own copy but all he's got is a packet of sandwiches. Gwen from Miami looks disappointed. She's on the verge of 68. "Same age as John Lennon would be," she whispers.

We are at the start of Porter's "In My Life" walk. He talks in a blizzard of rapid info-bites, scything through traffic noise as he leads us past the beautiful station entrance, crossing the road towards the pillared facade of the Marylebone Registry Office and Magistrate's Court.

John and Yoko made an appearance here on a hashish charge in 1968 – a fact that, amid the swirl of information, Porter omits. Instead he tells us, "Paul married Linda here in 1969 – on March 12. People said it wouldn't last. But how wrong they were."

We pause to reflect on Linda's absence. "The fans had gathered here that day to cry their eyes out," Porter confides. "Paul was the last unwedded Beatle and such a commotion was raised that Paul slipped in unnoticed through the back."

Porter produces a photograph from his bag as proof. It is Paul looking cheery among the bins.

George didn't make it to the wedding. That afternoon at his house in Surrey, a killjoy police sniffer-dog turned up a cache of marijuana. George wasn't amused. And it turned out that he hadn't, in any case, been invited to the nuptials.

Porter, imparting these sacred tidings, is losing his voice. He gamely yells that Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach were also married here in 1981. "They met on a film called Caveman, not the best film of all time." On this occasion Paul and George turned up with their wives – "the first time the Beatles had been together in many years". John, alas, had been assassinated, months before, in New York.

Porter leads us towards Ringo's old love pad, a Regency flat off Gloucester Road. There, at 34 Montagu Square, John and Yoko once posed nude for their brown paper bag pics, exhorting the world to "give peace a chance". But today, the people who live inside aren't getting much peace. Porter permits us a moment for photos, then mentions that Jimi Hendrix had also once holed up at this quiet address. A squall of rain begins. We leave.

Ten minutes later, down on Wimpole Street, we hog the narrow pavement outside the former home of Dr Richard Asher. Dr who?

It transpires that Asher's daughter, Jane (the one now famous for acting and cakes – but mostly for cakes), lived here with her parents and her boyfriend, Paul McCartney. Paul and John wrote a sheaf of songs here, including I Want to Hold Your Hand.

Outside the grey, deserted, derelict facade of EMI House in Manchester Square, Porter defies the drab surroundings: "Here the Beatles played their balcony scene for the cover of Please Please Me – their debut album released in May 1963. EMI have moved to Hammersmith and have taken the balcony with them." Taken it with them? Thankfully, Porter draws the line at pursuing the balcony.

He opts, instead, for Abbey Road. "American fans have actually got on their knees and kissed it," he says, pointing vaguely at the iconic pedestrian crossing, the one the Fabs bestrode on the cover of their Abbey Road LP. We stop the traffic, aping our heroes.

The walls in front of the famous studios are smeared with a million cliches, long-standing graffiti proclaiming the fans' undying love. Here, several years ago, Paul McCartney appeared while Porter was doing his tour. Springing cheerily from his limo, Paul consorted with the fans before vamoosing to cut his album. Porter had captured the moment. Snap! We are agog.

For there it is: Paul looking cherubic. As does Porter, standing before us now, irrepressible, and so likeable that you wish you could set him to music. Will lightning strike twice? Will a Beatle casually materialise? But Porter is talking again, more facts, more memorabilia. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Beatles "In My Life" walk operates from Marylebone Station on Tuesdays and Saturdays at 11.20am. See walks.com.

- © Fairfax NZ News