Photographer’s Mad Day Out with The Beatles

Oct 25 2007 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

A SERIES of pictures of the Beatles at the height of their fame will go on show at a Liverpool gallery.

Fans will have an opportunity to buy signed limited editions of the pictures, The Mad Day Out, taken by Sunday Times photographer Tom Murray in July, 1968, and hidden away for 30 years.

Mr Murray had no idea he would be meeting The Beatles when he turned up for the photographic assignment.

On arrival at the first location, Murray could hear The Beatles’ track Lady Madonna being played in the background, and to his astonishment the pianist was none other than Paul McCartney.

In what became an extraordinary day in Murray’s career, he shot a series of colour photos in everyday locations.

From two rolls of film, there are 23 surviving shots, which have been hailed as some of the most important photographs ever taken of the group as it was one of the last occasions that all four of them were photographed together.

Because the shoot was so last minute and the schedule so hectic, the collection of images became known as the Mad Day Out.

At the time, the band were in the middle of recording sessions for The White Album. The day after the pictures were taken, they returned to the studio to begin work on Hey Jude.

Incredibly, the shots remained unseen for three decades, stored in a drawer and almost forgotten.

Mr Murray said: “They are important because they were taken in colour, and are generally reckoned to be the best pictures taken of that year.

“It’s great to bring The Beatles home to Liverpool and it will be the first opportunity for fans to buy these specific images.

“They’re on marvellous archiv- al paper, which means they are of the same quality as the prints, but at a price that’s affordable.”

Mr Murray said he still had vivid memories of the day of the shoot. “It was just a fantastic day,” he remembers. “We would get half-an-hour, maybe 45 minutes at the most in any one place before too many people arrived.

“I just feel privileged that I was part of this historical day, getting close to The Beatles was a dream come true.”

The locations for the shoot – including a park at Highgate, outside Old Street Station, and a Georgian square by the Thames Docks – were chosen because they would avoid attracting crowds.

One of the photos depicts John Lennon lying on the floor pretending to be dead, while another shows Paul fooling around at a water fountain.

After the shoot, Tom Murray was invited back to Paul’s home for tea, where the last photographs were taken.

* MR MURRAY will be at Rennies Arts & Crafts, 61 Bold Street, from 6pm to 9pm today. All 23 pictures are available as signed limited editions of 195 each. They will re- tail at £325 mounted, or £400 framed.

alanweston@dailypost.co.uk