LOVE ME DO LAUNCH RECALLED BY PRESS OFFICER

The release of Love Me Do, The Beatles’ first single, is often seen as a turning point in the history of popular music – the moment when the old rockers and crooners were swept away by the Mersey tide.

But for West Byfleet resident Syd Gillingham and other staff at EMI, it was just another single – and an unremarkable one at that.

In 1962 Syd was a keen young press officer who every Monday morning would faithfully attend a meeting at EMI’s London headquarters in Manchester Square.

The marketing men would hear the latest singles introduced by the A&R managers of the main labels - HMV, Parlophone and Columbia.

This month saw the 50th anniversary of Love Me Do but it’s evident that not everyone fell in love with the song at first (or even second) hearing.

Syd, 88, recalls: “It was the era for records, and the record was king. Those meetings were pretty frantic at times.

“They were made worse by the fact that we’d wind up the label managers by being very cheeky and critical.”

In early October 1962, Syd and the others at the Monday meeting listened to a new release by a group named The Beatles.

That Hippie Penny Lane