Filming: A Hard Day’s Night

This was the fourth day of filming for The Beatles’ début feature film A Hard Day’s Night.

On this day The Beatles boarded a train at Acton Main Line station in west London. They travelled between London and Taunton, Somerset, filming the railway sequences in the early part of the film.

With filming over, The Beatles returned to Westbourne Park Station in London. They later had drinks with Jeffrey Archer at the Oxford Sportsmen’s club and were then entertained at Brasenose College to mark the group’s fundraising assistance for Oxfam’s 21st anniversary celebrations, organised by Archer. Brian Epstein was also in attendance.

I boarded the Beatles train very early one morning at Paddington Station, my head spinning with words and my notebook bursting with unwritten feature articles. Sommerville kept much of the train off-limits. I spent the journey down to the West Country mostly with George and John and Alun Owen, the film’s scriptwriter; though I was still not well enough ‘in’ to be told that, that very evening, The Beatles were to be guests of Sir Noel Hall, Principal of Brasenose College, Oxford. The Daily Mail ran an exclusive next day: a three-column report with massive picture coverage on the melding of the Fab Four with Older England. Scooped – and by our deadliest rival!