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| 15 December 1962 at the Majestic Ballroom in Birkenhead: Bill Harry presents the Beatles with The Mersey Beat Poll Winner's Award. Photographer: Graham Spencer, © Bill Harry. |
Currently he has over 400 completed articles compiled, which, if he posts one blog post a week, will keep the blog running for eight years - and that's not counting the extra features that he will complete during that time, as he is still interviewing people almost on a daily basis. The blog will contain a lot of his previously unseen copyrighted images, plus material people haven't seen before, so he would appreciate respect for his work by people not copying the images and features without permission.
Bill Harry was born in 1938, and attended the Liverpool College of Art, where his fellow students included John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe. After borrowing £50, Harry released the first issue of Mersey Beat on 6 July 1961, with the first 5,000 copies selling out within a short time. The newspaper was published every two weeks, covering the music scenes in Liverpool, Wirral, Birkenhead, New Brighton, Crosby and Southport, as well as Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn.
On 9 November 1961, Bill Harry arranged for Brian Epstein to see the Beatles perform a lunchtime concert at the Cavern Club, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Bill Harry is also the author of several books about the Beatles. Check out his blog at http://billharry.co.uk.