Beatles Tickets were to Spare!

December 1963

South Yorkshire Times, December 14.

Beatles tickets were to spare!

In these days when so many folk seem willing to risk life and limb to lay their hands on a ticket for a Beatles concert, it is worthy of record that Mr John Duffy, on Tuesday evening had 32 unwanted tickets on his hands!

Mr Duffy, President of Conisbrough Ellershaw Youth and Welfare Centre and the committee decided to treat their members to something different this Christmas.

They bought 200 tickets for the Beatles concert at the Gaumont Cinema, Doncaster, on Tuesday, but when the buses were due to leave in time for the second house there were 32 tickets without owners.

Mr Duffy of Palm Grove, Conisbrough, told the South Yorkshire Times yesterday, “Some of them must have been working and couldn’t come.”

He added, “Rather than waste the tickets we decided to take them with us and try to sell them outside the cinema.”

Reduced Rates.

It took Mr Duffy and five fellow committee members, Messrs Walter Cowles, John Young, George Seavons, Bernard Holmes and Charles Hannah an hour and a half to sell the seven and sixpenny (37.5 p) tickets for half a crown each! ( 12.5 p).

“We didn’t want to make on them – just to make sure they weren’t wasted,” Mr Duffy explained. “Most of the teenagers were amazed when we approached them. Some of them thought the tickets were forgeries, and to make sure we took them to the commissionaire’s.”

The Ellershaw Centre members are quite “normal” in their Beatlemania. Mr Duffy assured our reporter, “Most of them were very happy about our Christmas treat, and said it was one of the best presents we could have given them. The club committee is grateful that the young people have shown their appreciation of what we have done for them.”