'Awesome' fan who melted hearts of Stones
Angela Mullaney
Published Date: 14 December 2010
By Andrew Robinson
WHEN it comes to rock 'n' roll stories to impress dinner guests Angela Mullaney can usually trump them all.
Not only did she once see the Rolling Stones twice in a single day – in 1965, the year that (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction got to number one – but she also went backstage, sat on Keith Richards's knee and watched as Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and the boys ate fish and chips with Coca Cola.
And to cap it all, she has the photographs to prove it, along with a cutting from the Yorkshire Post about her two-night wait for tickets outside the Odeon Theatre in The Headrow, Leeds.
Back then she was Angela Timms, an 18-year-old hairdresser from Harehills in Leeds who was star-struck on Keith Richards.
She idolised Richards so much that she waited for two nights to get front row tickets to both shows on Saturday October 9 1965.
Today she is a grandmother and mother-of-two living in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, with husband Jeff.
Forty-five years on from her encounter with the Stones she is allowing Bonhams to auction her autograph book containing two complete sets of Stones signatures, two tickets from the Odeon gig (12 shillings and six per ticket), along with a letter to her from Richards which says: "Dear Angela, thanks for your letter. I hope you enjoyed the 2nd show as well. Anyone who queues for 2 days deserves to come backstage and it was a pleasure meeting with you. Anyway must go – Love Keith Richards."
Her book also contains the signatures of Roy Orbison, The Hollies, Ray Charles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers, The Kinks, Chuck Berry, The Moody Blues, The Merseybeats and more besides.
Her bundle of pop memorabilia, being auctioned tomorrow, is expected to fetch between £1,000 and £1,500.
She recalls writing to the Stones to ask to meet them.
"We wrote saying we had queued all this time and we would love to meet them back stage. We met them between the first and second show.
"You go in thinking these are gods, don't you?
"When you worship somebody, well, they were eating fish and chips and drinking Coca Cola and dressed like normal people. Me, my sister June and friend Hillary went back to meet them."
She cannot recall backstage conversations but she does remember sitting on Richards's knee – and the long wait for tickets.
"It was cold but we had a sofa to sit on which the Odeon manager brought out for us. He also brought us hot chocolate and my elder sister Pauline brought us sandwiches on her way to work."
Husband Jeff, who in 1965 was a Vespa scooter riding 21-year-old, also recalls waiting for tickets with Angela, then his girlfriend.
"I queued with her and her friends. I spent the night there, just to be part of it. It was a bit of a buzz. I certainly saw a side of Leeds that I had never seen before. Some of the characters that were around were a bit intimidating, the drunks and the rougher elements. It was a bit seedy. I had a Parka on, which kept me warm."
Mr Mullaney says his wife's story has been impressing people for decades.
"Friends who like the Rolling Stones hold Angela in awe. Our daughters, Cath and Liz, think that what she did was cool. In the photo she is sitting on Keith Richards's knee – he looks like a choirboy."
Mrs Mullaney decided to sell the autograph book so she could buy something nice for her new house.
"The book was stuck in a cupboard doing nothing. When my time comes and I go my kids will just sell it, it doesn't mean much to them. I will buy something as a memento to remind me. We have kept a few items back from the auction."
The Yorkshire Post report from 1965 noted the puzzlement among some people at the willingness of the girls to queue so long.
It said: "All the girls have been to previous shows given by the Stones in Manchester, Leeds and Bradford, because they consider the group are 'fabulous'. The group's Satisfaction record is top of the hit parade.
"A man with a rolled umbrella saw the girls squatted on the pavement and asked what they were waiting for. 'You must be kidding,' he said when they told him. He walked off with a bewildered look."
Mrs Mullaney still thinks the Stones are "fabulous".
"We queued for all that time because we loved the Rolling Stones, which I still do. They are wonderful. I also saw the Beatles at the Odeon, Roy Orbison and Chuck Berry.
"I am now saving up for the next Rolling Stones concert. I would give my eye teeth to meet them again."
Rolling back the years to 1965
The group's 1965 second British tour began on September 24 at London's Astoria Theatre and ended on October 17 back in the capital at Granada Theatre, Tooting.
The band played shows across the country, including at the Gaumont Theatre in Bradford, the Odeon in Leeds, the Gaumont in Sheffield and the Gaumont in Doncaster.
The line-up was Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction was released in Britain in August 1965 and became the band's fourth number one.
In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine placed the song in the second spot on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone was in top spot.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/39Awesome39-fan-who-melted-hearts.6659980.jp
Pages: 1
'Awesome' fan who melted hearts of Stones (Read 851 times)
