Freda Kelly: 'I always made sure John, Paul, George, and Ringo's mums knew where they were'
George Harrison and Freda Kelly from documentary Good Ol Freda
Though it was almost 65 years ago, Freda Kelly still remembers the day she left Dublin as if it were…well…yesterday.
“I didn't know anything about it,” recalls the 78-year-old. “We were down the countryside for our holidays and I remember coming back up to Dublin, seeing these tea chests and cases in the hallway and that’s when I found out we were moving. I didn't want to move. Although it was only over the road, there were still different things to get used to. I had a different accent and everything.”
With her father, brother, stepmother and the “four dogs”, the then 13-year-old left her home in Sandymount for Liverpool and a life that turned out to be just a little less ordinary.
“My father had relations there so we used to go over once a year for holidays,” says Freda.
“My stepmother, although she was Irish, lived a long time in England and had relations there. So there was always a connection and I think it was my stepmother who really wanted to move back.”
Although she knew the city, Freda admits that it took a while to adapt to life on Merseyside.
In 1958, the city was as hum-drum and grey as any in northern England. But by the time she hit her teens, that was changing.
Local bands were adding colour and vibrancy to the city and giving swagger to its cheeky-chappy reputation. Freda was about to bump into the cheekiest and greatest of them all.
“I was 16 when I met the boys,” she says. “I worked as a secretary for a shipping company around the corner from The Cavern though I knew nothing about it. There were clerks my age who used to nip around to see the groups. I joined them one lunchtime and, lucky enough for me, The Beatles were on. That was the first time I went and that was it. Once you saw them, you wanted more so I just kept going.”
Over time, Freda got to know the Fab Four. And before they were so fab, John, Paul, George and Ringo (or Richard as Freda calls him) lived on the same south side of the city as Freda.
She would often catch a lift from Paul. This was a time when, according to Freda, “girls in Liverpool weren’t screaming at them…and they’d just talk to them.” Beatlemania was a while away yet.
“I then met the head of the fan club [Roberta] Bobby Brown,” recalls Freda, “and she asked me to help her because I had secretarial skills. Then I met Brian Epstein by chance one day in his record store and he told me he was going to manage the boys. He knew I had worked with Bobby and asked me to come on board as secretary and that was it. Brian was a gentleman. I mean he was my boss, a hard boss but a good boss.”
When Bobby Brown eventually gave up her fan club duties, Freda was charged with taking over. Even in the early days, the steady influx of mail from across the UK was enough to keep Freda up until the early hours of the morning.
“During the day my job was to type for Brian,” she says. “If he was away and I had a spare moment I’d look after the fan mail. Sometimes I’d have to do it at home. I’d be up until four in the morning answering mail. I look back on it now and wonder when I slept.”
The craziness was only beginning.
“I think it really struck me how big they were when they were made freemen of the city at a civic reception at the town hall,” says Freda.
“I wasn’t invited originally because it was reserved for dignitaries and family. Ringo put me down as a member of his family. So I went and when they came out onto the balcony the noise was horrendous. I saw the streets were packed and I realised it then.”
The Beatles’ music and reputation began to find new audiences outside the UK. Tours of Europe soon grew to world tours which encompassed the biggest, and craziest, market of all - North America.
“When they went to the States the influx of fan mail started to get ridiculous,” says Freda.
“We had people from all over the world writing to Liverpool. It was so busy that we didn't even have time to write the address on envelopes. We cut them off the back of what was sent to us and pasted them onto envelopes. We’d stick a photo in with a compliment slip and send them off. At that stage I had help. We had area secretaries for every county in England and then of course we had to deal with the rest of the world.”
Eventually, Liverpool became too small for the band. The bright lights and excitement of London proved too much of a pull and by 1964 all four members and the majority of their retinue had upped sticks to the capital.
“I didn’t want to move to London,” says Freda. “In the beginning, I’d go down maybe every six weeks and I was asked to go down when Apple opened but by then I was married and I had a son and three dogs. I was still able to do my thing in Liverpool anyway.”
Arguably, her role became more important. Not only was Freda a friend to the band but she also was a friend to their families, the link between the boys and their home. Freda made sure that the boys’ parents or guardians were aware of how they were and where they were.
And there was always fan mail. Right up to the end of the band and for a good three years after, Freda kept answering it. Eventually, it had to come to an end and Freda moved on with her life.
“When I left Liverpool I had a married name,” she says. “I moved to the Wirral. And when you're standing outside school waiting for your kids you don’t start talking about your past, bragging about working for The Beatles. They say I lay low but I didn’t lie low I just moved on.”
For 40 years, Freda kept schtum. Even when John was murdered in 1980 and two reporters tracked her down, she refused to speak to them “out of respect” and “utter shock”.
There were of course offers of book deals but Freda wouldn’t budge. Her neighbours knew about her relationship with the world’s most famous band and she had no intention of letting them know.
“My daughter said to me one day that my grandson, Niall, was going to know nothing about what I did in my youth,” says Freda.
“He’ll just think you’re the granny with the grey hair and the two cats, which I was. So I agreed to talk into a tape recorder for him really. Then a friend’s nephew was in the middle of making a documentary and she suggested doing another one and that’s how it started.”
In 2013 the documentary Good Ol Freda came out. It was a huge success and resulted in something of a second career for Freda who is now a regular at Beatles Conventions and gatherings around the world.
Next month she comes to Dublin to reflect on the period in an interview with Tom Dunne for the Dublin Beatles Festival.
“I’m coming over to see relations,” she says. “and while I’m there I’m doing an interview. I’m looking forward to it. It’s been a while since I’ve been back. When I was a kid we used to watch the big rugby matches at Lansdowne Road and the fans walking up the road outside my house. It has changed a bit over the years but I’m happy to say the pub my Dad used to drink in hasn’t changed too much.”
- Tickets for Freda Kelly an interview with Tom Dunne are available through eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ie/
- The Dublin Beatles Festival 2023 takes place November 3, 4, 5 and 7.
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