Brighton and the Beatles

New Brighton, that is - the Liverpool resort where the fledgling Fab Four played early gigs under such names as The Quarrymen and The Silver Beetles.

Brighton and Hove, on the other hand, may seem as far from the group's north-west origins as The Frog Chorus is from Twist and Shout.

Yet while Sussex can lay little claim to spawning the world's biggest pop group, the region hosted some crucial - and less-than-crucial, though interesting - episodes as the Beatle legend unfolded here, there and everywhere.

Just ask Dave Sallis. The Brighton-based Beatles enthusiast has unearthed what few shreds of Sussex Fab Four memorabilia he can but is on the lookout for more.

He is the proud owner of ticket stubs and Press cuttings from the band's three Brighton gigs, all at the Brighton Hippodrome in 1963 and 1964.

A report in The Argus following their 1964 performances stated: "Beatlemania hit Brighton again last night.

"At the Hippodrome the four mop-haired idols sang, danced and ducked their way through two storming performances.

"Almost 4,000 frenzied teenage fans went wild with predictable hysteria as the shiny-suited Beatles came on stage.

"Things began to fly. First there was the usual hail of jelly babies thrown with accuracy by screaming girls.

"Police officers formed a human barrier to stop the hordes rushing on stage, while 18 overwrought girls were treated by para-medics in nearby Middle Street Primary School."

The Beatles survived the chaos, and a mid-set power cut, to complete the gig before making one of the customary back-door getaways.

Dave is convinced more evidence of The Beatles inBrighton must exist and hopes some may emerge at this month's Brighton Record Fair, where he will mount a display.

Today the most famous Sussex connections to The Beatles are the two homes owned by Sir Paul McCartney.

He spent much of the Sixties living in a London home near the famous Abbey Road recording studios and also bought a farm in Argyll in Scotland.

However, in 1972 he and first wife Linda bought a countryside hideaway called Waterfall, three miles from Peasmarsh, near Rye, where he also rehearses and records.

He shot the video for his 1979 festive hit Wonderful Christmastime at the Fountain Inn pub in Ashurst, near Henfield.

Two years ago Sir Paul and second wife Heather Mills bought a seafront home in Hove.

The pair are often seen out and about in Brighton and Hove.

Sir Paul was not the first Beatle to enjoy himself down by the Sussex seaside, however. Drummer Ringo Starr spent his honeymoon in Hove after marrying first wife Maureen Cox in February 1965.

It is thought the newlyweds hoped to spend a week at a home in Princes Crescent, owned by their lawyer David Jacobs but only stayed for three days.

Fans camped outside the front door and Press photographers refused to leave until Ringo and his bride agreed to pose for pictures after two days.

They declined an invitation to a civic ball at the Brighton Dome thrown by Brighton mayor Coun Walter Clout but enjoyed a few strolls along the seafront.

Beatles manager Brian Epstein paid them a visit but the constant stream of Beatlemaniacs camped outside the front door forced the pair to flee back to London.

Mr Jacobs, whose other clients included Liberace and Lord Olivier, hanged himself in the garage of the house three years later.

Mr Epstein had his own Sussex hideaway at Rushlake Green, which previously served as a wartime base for Sir Winston Churchill.

He bought the property in 1967, the same year he purchased a second Sussex home and five acres of land, costing £25,000 - Kingsley Hill at Warbleton.

He was expected in Sussex the day he was found dead from a drugs and alcohol overdose in August 1967.

He agreed to meet his personal assistant Peter Brown and another friend, Geoffrey Ellis, at Kingsley Hill on the weekend of August 19 and 20.

When he did not arrive on the Saturday morning, Mr Brown called his London home where he eventually spoke to a drowsy-sounding Epstein who said he would get a train to Lewes.

He never arrived.

The man who had discovered The Beatles at The Cavern club in Liverpool was found dead, though debates still rage about whether he committed suicide or accidentally overdosed.

John Lennon visited Littlehampton several times in the mid-Sixties, touring the town in a brightly-coloured Rolls Royce with darkened windows. He was planning to buy a speedboat at the time and tested out several craft made by Littlehampton boat-builders on the River Arun.

It was his father, though, who made Brighton his home not long afterwards.

Freddie Lennon, who had a stormy relationship with his famous son, moved into a flat in Bourne Court in London Road, Patcham, in mid-1968.

He moved into a £6,000 Regency-style home in Ladies Mile Road, Patcham, in November 1969.

Freddie, a sailor and porter who had walked out on his wife Julia and four-year-old son John, married 19-year-old Exeter University student Pauline Jones in 1968.

She had briefly been nanny to John and Cynthia Lennon's young son Julian, after the Beatle and his father were reconciled in 1967.

Freddie and Pauline had two children together - David, now 34, and Robin, 30.

But relations between Freddie and John veered wildly between forgiving and ferocious.

Freddie died of cancer in Brighton General Hospital in 1976.

Pauline, who published Freddie's memoirs in 1990, revealed that as he lay dying in hospital, he received a phone call from John, apologising for his behaviour.

Pauline, who has since remarried, still lives in Brighton but shuns publicity.

Haywards Heath-based drummer Raye Du-Val was offered the chance to stand in for tonsillitis-stricken Ringo Starr during the band's 1964 European tour.

But he turned them down after promising to work with another band and Jimmy Nicol stepped in for a week instead.

Eva Petulengro, former astrologist for The Argus and mother to current columnist Claire Petulengro, read George and Paul's palms at the London Hippodrome in the early-Sixties.

Eva, from Brighton, has recalled informing George they were going to be hugely successful and telling Paul he would not marry then-girlfriend Jane Asher.

An unwanted role in the cast of Beatles supporting characters was filled by Sidney Beecher-Stevens, who lived in Ashley Court, Grand Avenue, Hove, until his death in 1987.

He worked as a sales director for Decca Records, the firm which famously turned down The Beatles before they were signed by George Martin and EMI.

Mr Beecher-Stevens, though, had urged his firm to accept the band after being approached by Brian Epstein.

He could not sign them himself but recommended them to Decca recording manager Dick Rowe, who auditioned the band but let them go.

Mr Rowe has gone down in history for his famously-wrong comment: "Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein."

McCartney later commented, "I bet he's kicking himself now", to which Lennon added: "I hope he kicks himself to death."

Just how mistaken Mr Rowe was became plain as Beatlemania swept the world in 1964, with Fab Four-related merchandise flying off the shelves.

Dave, 50, owns several Beatles novelties, including lunch boxes, mugs, jigsaws, toy guitars, talcum powder tins and a board game called Flip Your Wig.

Artists who cashed in on the band's success with their own Beatles-themed recordings included comedian Peter Sellers and cartoon characters The Chipmunks.

Actress Dora Bryan, who lives in Kemp Town, Brighton, just managed to pre-empt the explosion of US-based Beatlemania, with her 1963 single All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle. The song made the Top Twenty and The Beatles themselves sang part of it in one of their later Christmas messages for fan club members.

Another Kemp Town-based thespian, Victor Spinetti, became a close friend of the band after appearing in their films A Hard Day's Night, Help! and The Magical Mystery Tour.

In the late-Sixties Mr Spinetti, now starring in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the West End, performed a one-man stage show based on Lennon's books In His Own Write and A Spaniard In The Works.

A hardback script of that show, autographed by Lennon, is one of Dave's proudest possessions.

He bought it for £750 four years ago and believes the most valuable collectors' items will remain memorabilia showing The Beatles' personal touch, such as autographs, original clothes or handwritten lyrics.

People hoping to cash in on Beatles records or toys from the Sixties are likely to be disappointed.

He said: "Beatles records were produced and sold in their millions so it's only the very rare editions which will be worth much."

He has developed a keen eye for telltale details which reveal an item's rarity, such as the obsolete Parlophone label on early pressings of Beatles debut album Please Please Me.

A month later EMI changed the Parlophone logo to the one it still uses today.

Dave said: "The copies with the new label can go for about £300. Not long ago an album with the old label sold for £10,000."

He is wary of many autographed items, particularly those purporting to feature all four Beatles signatures from after the mid-Sixties when they stopped making so many appearances together.

Dave's home is filled with books, framed posters, demo records, rare photographs and meticulously-filed and preserved albums and newspaper cuttings.

But although he has spent tens of thousands of pounds on his hobby during the past 30 years, he insisted he only spends what he recoups by selling on items.

He said: "My friends think I'm mad when I tell them I've spent a couple of thousand pounds on a poster but if you're not a collector, it's hard to understand the mentality. It's addictive."

He hopes the Brighton Record Fair will bring out of the woodwork memorabilia relating to Brighton gigs by the likes of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, The Who and The Kinks.

"Brighton has not actually produced any famous bands but it was a place where so many performed and made their names, like The Who."

Dave will be displaying some of his Beatles memorabilia at the fair, at the Brighton Centre on October 26, and will give valuations of any memorabilia people bring along.

For more details, call Dave on 07950 966721.