A Sprout of a New Generation

During the formative years of my beatle education the sources of information available to my fledgling fandom were a millionth what they are today (what with the internet and all that). Something that I revered with an almost religious dedication was a constantly played VHS tape called The Compleat Beatles, a 2-hour documentary released in 1984.

Pre-dating the Anthology by 11 years, it was a far from shoddy collection of archive material interspersed by some gems of interviews with key beatle people (especially from the Liverpool/Hamburg era, which is often completely marginalised by the mighty force of the 62-70 period) and a doom-laden narration by english actor Malcolm McDowell, who managed to make their entire career sound like a Shakespearian tragedy. Okay, there were some lows: the early deaths of both John and Paul's mothers; Stuart Sutcliffe's death at age 21; the untimely death of Brian Epstein...erm yeah, what was my point again?

The documentary contains one of my fave pieces of beatle-related archive film, and it doesn't even feature the boys at all. It's a sweet little interview [4:02-5:08 in the clip below] with a devoted fangirl waiting to see the Beatles, and who has produced an oil-painting portrait of Paul which she calls "A Sprout of a New Generation".



There are so many things I love about this girl: the fact that she has channelled her beatle-obsession into an artistic form (wonder why I love that so much...;-)) thereby creating a new piece of art, which is actually a really cool painting (when commentators of the time were dismissing the beatles as merely a passing phase in pop music, here was one teenage girl who was convinced that they were spearheading something much more significant); her hilariously valiant attempt at trying to deny she would tear the clothes off Paul if she met him (she only just manages to contain her hysteria while talking about him!); her wonderful accent (to me it sounds like New Jersey? But being scottish i'm no expert); and her final defeated acceptance that it's who you know and not who you paint that would garner an invitation into the sacred inner circle of her heroes.

I've always wondered if she did, against the odds, get to present her painting to Paul, and what became of her. I guess I identified with her so strongly when first watching that old VHS tape of mine because I felt all the things she clearly did - and in addition I was utterly envious of her, being around to actually experience the excitement of those times, instead of having to live it vicariously through grainy video footage.

I would love to hear from anyone who knows more about this clip, like when and where it might have been filmed (in the documentary it's placed in 1964 pre-Beatles for Sale, but going by the depiction of Paul in the painting, and the fashion of the girls, I think it's later than that, but again i'm no expert). And if anyone actually knows who this girl is...send me a postcard, drop me a line!