Her mother gave in once again to her pleas and let her camp out at the ticket office for the morning the tickets went on sale. She sat all night with her best friend Alison, waiting and waiting for the morning to come. Her efforts paid off and she ended up with front row seats!
When the wondrous day of the Beatles arrival came by, a large group of girls set out from Susan's house for the airport to wait for their idols to appear. With banners stretched out across in front of them at they airport they stood in the rain waiting.
As the plane carrying its precious load came into sight, the new phenomenon known as Beatlemania swept over the crowds. Susan found herself pressed against the fence in front of her as the hysterical teenagers crushed closer to their idols. When the plane landed, the wails of the emotional gathering drowned out the drone of its engines. The four travel weary heroes stepped from the plane as the screaming got louder. At the sight of John stepping from the plane, Susan could control herself no longer. And in a mass of emotion she joined the wailing masses in tearing at her hair and yelling for Paul's attention with all the energy she could muster. The feelings going through her mind and body were the beginnings of a strange phenomenon that was to sweep across the world at an alarming pace, and as she felt the tears welling up in her eyes she lost all control as would many millions of girls after her.
In her emotion, the movements of the group had gone by almost un-noticed and as she saw their car leave the airport, she knew that the closeness of the cavern was long gone. As it disappeared out of sight, she fell to the ground in tears and wept along with the others. Their heroes had escaped.
Susan couldn't believe the way she had acted at the airport. It was unthinkable in the "cavern days", but was now the usual reaction left behind in the Beatles trail of hysteria. These feelings were to surface once more at the two concerts where she could see her beloved Paul once again. As they waited in the darkness of the theatre for the support act to end, Susan and her friend Alison couldn't believe that they were actually going to see The Beatles. As the group walked off the stage, the girls began to cheer for their Beatles to come on. Unfortunately the support act were so surprised by their affection that they took it as being for them and returned for an encore! Eventually they finished, leaving the stage set for a new phenomenon called The Beatles.
As George stepped out of the wings, the girls screamed in ecstasy. Next came Ringo. The affect of seeing her love Ringo so close, caused Alison to faint right away into a heap on the floor. It was all too much for her! Susan had no time to attend to her friend at such a time and left her to the emergency team who were, by now, very busy. Girls were passing out everywhere, some were screaming with such agony that the nurses didn't know what to do. Some people were foaming at the mouth, but most were jumping up and down on their chairs yelling to their Beatle, or sat trembling and sobbing hysterically in a mixture of rapture and shock.
Susan got so hysterical that she charged through the policemen in front of her to get to Paul. She broke through, but before she could get onto the stage she was caught and dragged back to her seat kicking and screaming. John had noticed her antics and was laughing and pointing her out to the others. Susan was threatened with being thrown out and sat sobbing on the floor in a rage with the horrid men who had tried to separate her from Paul.
At the second concert, Alison had recovered completely and managed to last through the entire performance without fainting, but she was crying so loudly that Susan could even hear her above the hysterical screams. Susan daren't risk breaking through the police line again so she waited till the end of the concert when all the girls were scattered around in tears that it was all over.
She fought her way through to the stage doors and tried to get in, but ended up arguing with the guard. At that moment, the crowd behind her screamed and fell about in big wailing masses as John walked past the door. He recognised Susan from the night before and let her and Alison come in. He was in absolute amazement at her being at both concerts and so he broke the rules a little to let her meet the other Beatles in person. When they stepped into the dressing room, Ringo walked towards them and Alison fainted again.
"Strange, but that usually happens to Paul." George mumbled. Then Ringo began to grin as he realized that he recognised Susan. She couldn't believe that he had remembered her.
The following day, they managed to convince everyone of what had happened by showing them a set of autographed photo's that the Beatles had given them. Susan had an extra souvenir that she was too embarrassed to mention. In the excitement of it all she had grabbed at some things from a pile of clothes lying around the dressing room and had put it into her handbag whilst no-one was looking. She had done it without thinking and when she later peered into her bag to find two black ties and an odd sock, she didn't know why she had done it. At least she now owned something a Beatle once had - even if she didn't know which Beatle they belonged to!
