November 20th 1963. The Beatles superfan Jacquie Graham was sixteen years ago and couldn’t get a ticket to the Fab Four’s show in Manchester. Nevertheless, she’s revealed to Express.co.uk in an exclusive interview how she ended up meeting The Beatles thanks to her panda toy. Jacquie can’t quite recall why she had the plush animal with her, but she and her friends tried their luck at the concert venue. She said: “We got to the Apollo. Knocked on the stage door and this chap came out and took the Panda.”
Jacquie continued: “He just took it out of our hands and shut the door.
“We were absolutely furious. Very, very upset.”
As a result, the girls took a taxi to the Daily Mirror in Manchester and explained to the paper what had happened.
They ended up back at the Apollo with a photographer, who managed to get into the venue and retrieve the panda toy – but that’s far from the end of the story.
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Jacquie revealed: “And the next thing we know, we’re invited into the foyer of the Apollo.
“We were interviewed and then led off to another room and they were there!
“Obviously I don’t remember it in fantastic detail as it was all a blur.
“It’s all just too wonderful, like a dream. We were all just lost for words. John and Ringo gave me a kiss on each cheek.
“I can remember them fooling around and throwing the panda about.”
And incredibly for Jacquie and her friends, they were allowed to watch the show from the side.
She said: “There were no tickets available but they took us into the theatre and we stood at the side of the stage, standing, and we watched the whole show from there.”
But having given The Beatles her panda, its whereabouts are now unknown.
In fact, Jacquie’s daughter has set up a Where Is Panda Now? Facebook page to find it.
The panda did appear in later photos, with the last being of John Lennon with his son Julian in the mid-1960s.
No one’s got back to Jacquie yet, but who knows, maybe it will eventually show up.
Jacquie’s photos were sent into The People Beatles Project, which aims to crowdsource an archive of Beatles fan pictures for a book in May.
To find out more about The People’s Beatles and to submit your images via Photobox, click here.
