December 23, 1968: Countdown to the Get Back sessions

10 days until the start of the Get Back sessions 

The only way to properly do justice to the absolute insanity that was the Apple Christmas party on December 23, 1968, is to have the story told in the words of the people who were there (and were reporting on it), an oral history:

Richard DiLello, from The Last Cocktail Party: Preparations had begun at nine that morning. The children’s party was scheduled for 2:30 in Peter Brown’s office. At six o’clock, the adult’s version of the children’s party would begin in Neil [Aspinall]’s office.

The crowning glory of the elaborate, stand-up buffet dinner was a 43-pound turkey billed by the supplying butchers as the Largest Turkey in Great Britain.

By 11:30, the Black Room was swollen to standing-room-only proportions with hashish smokers puffing  their brains out while the front office catered to the scotch and Coke brigade. By noon, all pretense had been dropped and the hash heads were indistinguishable from the juicers.

DISC and Music Echo, Scene column, January 4, 1969 issue: About forty children of Apple employees and friends were expected but by 3 o’clock Savile Row was already a solid traffic jam as the privileged young jet set began to arrive.

A man delivering two dozen red tulips addressed to Paul McCartney took one look at the kindergarten in the hallway of number 3 – and fled!

Hell’s Angels – at present guests of the Beatles over here – added a further festive touch by revving up their bikes in the road and doing a swift run around the block.

And still the children flooded in.

Everyone at Apple was running around looking for more chairs, emptying the offices of chairs as the 40 guests began to number more like eighty.

Beatles Book magazine, February 1969 issue: Warmhearted and wonderful Christmas party idea from The Beatles when they invited Apple staff people and friends to  bring their little children to Savile Row and be entertained by clowns and magicians.

Richard: By three o’clock, Peter Brown’s office was a scene of unparalleled frenzy as more than a hundred children screamed and smashed their way through a mountain of ice cream, cake and sausage rolls …

DISC: There was young Julian Lennon in a striped jersey looking rather thoughtful; Zak and Jason Starr looking very fair and angelic, with their parents not too far away in case Zak started throwing jellies; Bonzo Neil Innes and his wife, Yvonne, and their son Miles.

Internal Apple memo, December 1968:  In the middle of the party we will be visited by Ernesto Castro and April, entertainers to the Queen and the Duke of Cornwall and the late Sir Winston Churchill, MacDonald Hobley and others. Mr Castro is a conjurer, ventriloquist and children’s entertainer. April is his assistant and also his wife and she plays guitar. So the idea is that all of us at Apple will bring our children and those of us who have no children are invited to bring a couple unless they can arrange to have one of their own in the meantime.

Richard: In the greatest tradition of English garden-party entertainers, they lanced into their live-wire routine of silvered voice projections, sleight-of-hand wonders, and barnyard-beast imitations. The eardrum-shattering squeals of delight from the youngsters did not decrease one decibel the entire length of their performance. They closed the show with a sizzling rendition of Lettuce Leaf Hop.

DISC: One seven-year-old made a bit of a fuss saying her handbag should be locked up as she had £7 in it, but otherwise everything was very orderly. …

George Harrison, from Anthology: John and Yoko were dressed up as Father Christmas.

Richard: John and Yoko, in full Christmas drag, were waiting for them in the Press Office when the show let out. Mary Hopkin had joined them to lend an additional two paws to the distribution of gifts.

Tony Bramwell, from Magical Mystery Tours: They wandered around, going Ho Ho Ho and Yo-ko-ko, patting people on the head, doling out presents to staff, family of staff and loved ones and significant others. We all got lovely presents. I think I got a set of goblets that year.

Richard: Unrattled by the greedy stampede for toys, John Lennon stood calmly in the middle of the room, deadpan, muttering through the false beard on top of his own beard, “Ho, ho, ho.”

The kitchen counter and sideboard were barely holding up under the weight of a thousand assorted hors d’oeuvres, platters of cold meat, and jellied fish. Salads, cakes, bowls of fruit and boiled sweets, biscuits, and cheese lined the floor.

John and Yoko, freed from the burden of their costumes, sat on the Press Office floor …

Chris O’Dell from Miss O’Dell: [A]ll was going well until Sweet William and Frisco Pete showed up, drunk and stoned and high out of their minds.

Richard: It took only three seconds for this atmosphere of intense gaiety to turn radically and almost irrevocably sour. Frisco Pete, elbows pumping him energetically through the crowd, covered the length of the room in four enormous strides. He poised menacingly over the slight figures of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

“What the fuck is goin’ on in this place?!?” he screamed at them. The room dropped into a clammy, itchy silence. No one moved.

“We wanna eat! What’s all this shit about havin’ to wait until seven?!”

Chris: I was standing in the press office, drinking my third or fourth Scotch and laughing about something with Richard DiLello, when Frisco Pete walked in and demanded some fucking food.

Richard: Mavis’ [Smith, Derek Taylor’s assistant] husband Alan, gallantly interrupted Frisco Pete with a request for a little consideration for the situation. His efforts were rewarded with a single closed-fist punch … The room darkened. Frisco Pete returned his attention to John Lennon.

Ken Kesey, from Zapple Diaries: The executive [Alan Smith was actually a reporter] went somersaulting backward all the way to the wall, where he slowly slid down in a pile against the baseboard and lay there, like a rumpled rainbow. The room suddenly polarized, all the Englishmen springing to one side of the carpet to surround their clobbered countryman in an instant display of British pith, all the Yanks to the other.

George: I didn’t go because I knew there was going to be trouble. I just heard that it was terrible and how everybody got beaten up.

Richard: [Frisco Pete said,] “You got more fuckin’ food in that kitchen than there are people and it’s all locked up and those two fuckin’ broads upstairs tell me I’ve got to wait until seven o’clock just like everybody else! There’s a 43-pound turkey in that fuckin’ kitchen and I fuckin’ want some of it now. John Lennon … looked up at the frightening figure of Frisco Pete in total bewilderment.

Chris: It was madness for a time in the press office, and I backed into a corner, standing as far away as I could, knowing that even though the Angels liked me, all hell could break loose and any moment.

Richard: Tapping him lightly on the shoulder, Peter Brown moved between John Lennon and Frisco Pete just as a fresh flow of verbal punches was about to begin.

“Now listen, Pete, we have every intention of feeding you and I apologize for the delay, but I was hoping you could appreciate that the kitchen staff have been working since nine o’clock and they’ve been under considerable pressure. We’re waiting for the caterers to finish laying the tables and it shouldn’t take more than another ten minutes and then we can all go downstairs and gorge ourselves to death but please, I beg you, be patient.”

That did it! An up-front answer to an up-front question.

Neil Aspinall, from Anthology: I can remember that everybody was getting hungry, and then a huge turkey came in on a big tray with four people carrying it. It was about ten yards from the door to the table where they were going to put the turkey down, but it never made it.

Richard: When the door to Neil’s office was thrown open ten minutes later, everyone could see it was going to be a sumptuous feast. The massive catering tables buckling to support food and drink ran the length of three walls.  Frisco Pete was the first to reach the main table where the Largest Turkey in Great Britain sat. Before the waiter had a chance to work up his best carving voice … Pete grabbed a firm hold on the poor dead bird’s body and without any further ceremony ripped the turkey’s left leg from its torso.

Tony: The table had been stripped bare while all the present-giving was happening in another room. Our turkeys, stuffing, and plum duff were all gone, with only a few bones chucked under the table and a few crumbs of mince pies on plates to show what had been there.

Neil: The Hells Angels just went ‘woof’, and everything disappeared: arms, legs, breast, everything. By the time it got to the table there was nothing there. They just ripped the turkey to pieces, trampling young children underfoot to get to it. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Tony: Most of the cutlery and glasses was unused so probably they’d just stuffed fists full of grub in their mouths and the rest in their pockets as they went. They swigged all the wine from the bottles. There was nothing left.

The Merry Pranksters had ruined the whole event and now they were seriously drunk and mean. They threw up on carpets and insulted their hosts. Enough was enough and a few days later they were turfed out of the building by George who was very embarrassed and by Derek Taylor who also shouldered some of the blame.

Richard: There was nothing left but the washing up.

Ringo Starr, from Anthology: They proceeded to ruin the kids’ party – and then we couldn’t get rid of them. They wouldn’t leave and we had bailiffs and everything to try to get them out. It was miserable and everyone was terrified, including the grown-ups. It was like the edgy Christmas party.

Pattie Boyd, from Wonderful Tonight: “Well that was strange,” said Ringo, with his gift for understatement.

Neil: They did get asked to leave Apple. I asked them, but they got into that hippy language: ‘Well, you didn’t invite us, so you can’t ask us to leave. ‘In other words, as George had invited them, so George was going to have to ask them to go. I think George did it very well – I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was like: Yes/no – Yin/ Yang – in/out – stay/go. You know – BUGGER OFF!’ And they said, ‘Well, if you put it that way, George, of course,’ and left.

Richard: It was a very fine party, just as the Press Officer had said it would be.