The Fab Four - Beatlemania

The Beatles - John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) -were four Liverpool lads, all from a poor background, who appeared on the scene at the beginning of the 1960s like a breath of fresh air to revolutionise the world of popular music and who won the hearts of millions of young people all over the world.

The Beatles in their heyday, clean-cut and besuited, wowing the public with their new brand of popular music and fresh-faced talent, and being acclaimed with the shouting and screaming of crowds of frenzied fans. They rocked the venues where they played and left their indelible mark on society. Rock on, guys, rock on! Our Fab Four doing what all good Englishmen do, taking tea, in proper china teacups from a beautiful teapot to match! All very civilised, all very English, all very... proper. This may be the one and only time they were snapped politely partaking of the traditional english beverage like good little boys. You wouldn't catch their rivals, the Rolling Stones, doing this, would you? The Boys in their bright and brash Sergeant Pepper outfits - pretty, aren't they? But Girls, would you have taken any one of them home to meet the parents? Be honest now.

The Beatles epitomised an era when barriers were coming down and taboos were being broken, when young people were freer than ever to do their 'thing' and had the cash to do it. Society was changing, the world was changing, and the Beatles were a motor for much of that change. Rightly or wrongly, young people (and not so young), copied and mimicked them, listening to their music and their pronouncements and believing that the world was changing for the better.