A conversation with Beatles Fan Club secretary Freda Kelly

Freda Kelly was hired by Brian Epstein in 1962 as a secretary, and not so coincidentally to run the Beatles’ official fan club. She was a fan, a 17-year-old who spent many a lunch hour from her previous secretarial job in the Cavern Club for the Beatles’ lunchtime sessions. When Epstein made her fan club secretary, she quickly was caught up in the worldwide tidal wave that was Beatlemania.

I interviewed her in August 2012 for a Chicago Fest for Beatles Fans preview in the Chicago Sun-Times. At the time, work had begun on a documentary about her life and her years running the club, from 1962-72. The documentary, “Good Ol’ Freda,” has now been completed and was previewed at the 2013 Fest for Beatles Fans, where Freda made her second Chicago appearance. It’s a fantastic, award-worthy work, filled with smiles, laughs and some tears. At the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It’ll have a limited theatrical run, as documentaries tend do, then be available on DVD in December 2013. I highly recommend it.

As usual, I gathered far more material than could be included in a newspaper story. So for those who’d like more than the three or four quotes I used in the story, here’s a transcript.

JG: It’s great to hear you’re going to be at the Chicago Fest. Have you ever been to Chicago before?

FK: No but I do have family there. I have six cousins in the Chicago area. I haven’t met three of them. I’m coming beforehand with my daughter and grandson, and I’ll have a chance to see them.

When Mark [Lapidos, the Fest for Beatles Fans proprietor] invited me to Chicago, I said I haven’t any holidays left. He said, “What do you mean? I’ll ring your boss and see if he’ll let you off.”

In New Jersey [at a February 2012 Fest, six months before her first Chicago appearance], I was really overwhelmed. Everyone was so nice to me.

JG: How did you get involved with the Beatles and the fan club?

FK: I just saw the Beatles at the Cavern and got involved with a lot of followers. I found out they had a fan club and helped a girl who ran the fan club. They [the Beatles] also lived by me, so I got to know them and they gave me lifts home and everything. And then Brian Epstein got to know me through them.

Then he decided to start his own fan club. I originally worked in the offices [as a secretary, in Epstein’s offices] and then ran the fan club afterward.

I have been involved with them since 1962, and then I stayed with them until 1972. There was no Beatles anymore, for want of a better word. And I wanted to have more children.

With me knowing them. I went to see them when Pete Best was with them, and then of course Richie [Ringo Starr] joined them. I lived and died in the Cavern in those days. I would go on my dinner hour, and whenever they were on then. I liked the lunchtime sessions more than anything. It was a lot more intimate and it wasn’t just a show, they talked to the audience, and you could shout up to them what numbers you wanted them to play, and they’d fire back at you, “We’ve already done that!” And we’d say, “Oh, come on, do it again!” We all had our own little spot in the Cavern as well. You’d sit in a certain seat or lean against a certain wall. I was always on the left hand side --- well, I tried to.

I suppose really that’s how I got to work for them, because Brian Epstein got to know me through them. We all knew he was the manager of the biggest record shop in the north of England. He’d acknowledge me and I’d acknowledge him. To me, in those days he was a lot older than me. I was only 16, 17. Until one time, they were playing and he was there, and I said hello to him. I can’t remember the exact words because it’s a long time ago. And he started talking to me and telling me he was going to start his own fan club. He had a secretary and he was looking for another one, and he knew I was a secretary. He said would I like to come along and have a chat with him, and that’s how it started. So I had to type their contracts and their wages.

We didn’t just have the Beatles on our books. We had Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Billy J. [Kramer], and the Fourmost, and Cilla [Black], and Tommy Quickly. They were in and out of the office all the time. I know it sounds wrong, but they were just ordinary people, because we all grew up together, and they went on to be massive.

JG: As a fan, did you expect the Beatles’ success? I don’t mean the magnitude, because we’d never seen anything like Beatlemania. But did you think group you knew in the clubs would be famous and make hit records?

FK: I always had faith in them. There were two groups in Liverpool. Some girls didn’t want them to be famous because they knew if they did, that was it, they’d leave the city. One of my friends was in that group. She just didn’t want to lose them, where I was in the other camp, I wanted them to be as big as Cliff Richard, which was what you thought about in those days. But nobody visiualised how big it was going to get.

JG: They do a shout out to you on their 1963 fan club record. Were you surprised? [Note: on the record, the Beatles yell, “Good Ol’ Freda,” which has become the name of the new documentary about her,]

FK: I was, because was in work at the time, and Cilla came in, and she was the one who told me. She said to me, “Have you heard the fan club record?” And I said no, and she said, “Oh, they mentioned you in it.” And I said, “Oh, no you’re joking.” And I went sick because I knew they’d probably say something funny, and they might say, Oh, we don’t like Freda, or something in joke. I was on edge waiting to see what they said. (Cilla wouldn’t tell). But then when I heard, I thought it was very nice they acknowledged me.

JG: How involved were the Beatles in the fan club?

FK: They were very involved in the fan club, especially in the beginning. I’m not just saying it because you’re on the phone. Any chance I got, especially ’63, ’64, when they were on the road a lot and they had to make records, when they were in the office, I threw photographs and autograph books at them, while they were talking they would sign, or if they were going in to see Eppy they would take a bundle of photographs to sign.

JG: What kinds of requests did you get from fans?

FK: I hadn’t experienced kids writing in saying, “Can I have their pillowcase, or “Can I have a bit of his shirt,” and I’d think. “Oh my God.” I was very close to the parents, because I’d go to the homes with the mail and help out with the fan mail. So in the end I asked, “Can I have the shirts they don’t wear anymore” or “Can I have the pillowcases?” You have to remember I was a fan as well, so I was on the same wavelength as them. I was quite young, 17 years old Although I do have a serious head, had my feet on the ground, anddid my job properly. Otherwise I wouldn’t have lasted.

JG: What was the most unusual request?

FK: They’d ask, “If Paul is coming in on Wednesday, can I come in and have a cup of tea with him?” If he was around on a Wednesday, he’s going to spend the time with his dad and his brother.

JG: Tell me about the documentary, “Good Ol’ Freda.”

FK: The video started through New Jersey [at the Fest]. I laid low for a long time. Just now Mark invited me over. Over the years people have asked me, “Why don’t you write a book?” or “Why don’t you do this or that?” And I’m the type of person that thinks, “Oh no, don’t want to do that.” I’m not being flippant or rude, but I think there are too many books on the Beatles. I’ve got it all in my head. Then when my grandson came along, somebody said, “You should let him know what you did,” and that planted the seed. You know what? I would like him to know what his grandmother did in her youth. I didn’t just work for the Beatles. I had a ball in the ’60s. The ‘60s were a really great time. I just loved the ’60s and I crammed so much into my youth. We hitched all over the country, seeing groups. I never told my parents I hitched.

JG: You have so many great memories. Is there one lasting impression of those days you’d like to share?

FK: I just wish Beatle fans got to see, to me, the real Beatles, what they were like when they played the Cavern. I know people say that was the raw Beatles, but to me, that was the Beatles. I know they’ve done so much since, all those songs they’ve written and Sergeant Pepper. To see them live in their youth was just mind-blowing. You just knew. You just had this good feeling that here is something that’s entirely different.