The Beatles sitting on the roof of the indoor toilet at Paul McCartney’s family’s home in Liverpool in 1963, the very same location as seen—from a distance—in the footage below.
Okay, a bit of background here: This 1958 police training film is the earliest film footage known to exist of Paul McCartney, John Lennon and (perhaps) George Harrison.
Although they are seen from a very great distance, the tiny figures in the shot are in fact sitting on the roof of the indoor bathroom (a real rarity at that time in Britain in working class housing) on the backside of the Liverpool council house where Paul McCartney’s family was living on 20 Forthlin Road. Google Earth alone is enough to match the house’s address, but furthermore, it was confirmed by McCartney’s younger brother Mike McGear that the figures are in fact John, Paul, George and Mike himself.
From Barry Miles’ book Many Years from Now:
The back of the house overlooked the grounds of the Police Training College, headquarters of the Liverpool Mounted Police. Paul and his brother would watch them training horses, knocking pegs out of the ground with lances just as they had done in the British Raj.
“We used to sit on the concrete shed in the back yard and watch the Police Show every year for free,’ Paul remembered. “One year, Jackie Collins came to open it and we were entranced at the sight of her comely young figure.”
Armed with that tiny sliver of information, Liverpool-based Beatles fan Peter Hodgson did some primo detective work, looking at footage of the 1958 Police Show which shows the back of the McCartneys’ home on 20 Forthlin Road which was adjacent to the grounds of the Police Training College, and the Liverpool Mounted Police headquarters. John (18), Paul (16) and George (15) were in The Quarrymen together in 1958.
Hodgson posted on Facebook:
“They are seen, stood on top of their outside toilet roof, watching the annual Police Horse and dog display.”
When contacted about Hodgson’s amazing find by the Liverpool Echo newspaper, Paul McCartney’s 70-year-old younger brother Mike McGear said that’s he’s pretty sure the footage shows himself and his brother, but that John Lennon and even George Harrison might have also been present that day:
“Wow! That could definitely be us. It was a really big occasion in Liverpool and that’s what we used to do every summer, take deck chairs and climb onto the concrete shed and watch a free show. I think there is every chance John would have been there that year, absolutely. His friend, Pete Shotton, was a police cadet. George could easily have been there, too. It’s bloody mad – absolutely fascinating and unbelievable.”
You might want to fast-forward to the 34:33 mark or even just look at this still image from the film below as the shot itself lasts for all of one or two seconds.
