Shrewsbury's link to first No1 for The Beatles

John, Paul, Ringo and George were part of a tour that was headlined by child star Helen Shapiro and also featured a band called The Honeys. The bands travelled to Shrewsbury from York, where they'd played the night before. On the coach ride to Shropshire, The Beatles passed around lyrics to a new song, called From Me To You.

John Lennon, in his anthology, wrote about the trip: "The night Paul and I wrote From Me To You, we were on the Helen Shapiro tour, on the coach, travelling from York to Shrewsbury. "We weren't taking ourselves seriously – just fooling around on the guitar – when we began to get a good melody line, and we really started to work at it.

Before that journey was over, we'd completed the lyric, everything. I think the first line was mine and we took it from there. "What puzzled us was why we'd thought of a name like From Me To You. It had me thinking when I picked up the NME to see how we were doing in the charts.

"Then I realised – we'd got the inspiration from reading a copy on the coach. Paul and I had been talking about one of the letters in the From You To Us column."

One of the people travelling on the coach to Shrewsbury was Vilma Liddell, who was in The Honeys, with her sisters, Anita and Pearl.

Vilma said: "I remember the journey very well. Back in those days, there used to be tours when a number of acts would be put on a bus and we'd travel around the UK. I think the tour started in February and ended in March. We were on the road for a month, with a few days off in between. We started in Bradford and ended in Potteries, with York and Shrewsbury in between.

"The Beatles weren't at the top of the bill. Helen Shapiro was a much bigger star. And when we started the tour we couldn't have imagined that they'd go on to achieve such success. They were very raw.

"They were always passing lyrics around the coach. On the journey from York to Shrewsbury, they'd pass us scribbles on pieces of paper and ask us what we thought? They were writing songs and were getting the lyrics written down, so that they didn't forget them. Looking back now, I wish I'd kept those lyrics."

The first part of the tour included dates in Bradford, Doncaster, Bedford, Wakefield, Carlisle and Sunderland. The second part of the tour took in Mansfield, Coventry, Taunton, York, Shrewsbury, Southport, Sheffield and Hanley.

The full line-up included Red Price Band, The Honeys, Dave Allen, The Beatles, Dave Allen then Danny Williams. An interval followed, before subsequent sets from Red Price Band, The Kestrels, Kenny Lynch, Dave Allen and Helen Shaprio.

The typical setlist for The Beatles included Chains, a composition by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison; Keep Your Hands Off My Baby, a Lennon tune; A Taste of Honey, by Paul McCartney and Please Please Me, by Lennon and McCartney. Two other songs were occasionally played, including Love Me Do and Beautiful Dreamer.

The Honeys were together for ten years, from 1957 to 1967, when family commitments persuaded them to disband.

Though the trio didn't enjoy any chart success, they toured with a number of stars throughout the fifties and sixties, including Adam Faith and Cliff Richard.

Vilma added: "John was one who used to mess about a lot. George was the quiet one. Ringo was a bit like John and Paul was studious and businesslike. Paul was a bit more focused while the others, who tended to mess about quite a lot.

"Their equipment used to travel in a van behind our coach.

"They got on well with us. When they played their set, we'd stand in the wings and watch them.

"The songs that they had suited us well so we learned a lot of them while we were on that tour.

"If I'm being truthful, I didn't think for a minute they would take off. Certainly, that's how I felt at the start of the tour. By the end of it, things had started to take off for them and you sensed they were going to be big.

"It's funny though, at the start the fans didn't even know who The Beatles were. We had some fans coming up to us, a three-piece girl band, who asked us if we were The Beatles.

The date in Shrewsbury was before the whole Beatlemania thing really took hold.

"They used to take the Mickey out of us, too. We had a song called Manyana and whenever we got on the coach, they'd all chorous 'Manyana, Manyana'.

"It was a big coach that we travelled on and we'd stay in small hotels when we got to York or Shrewsbury. We were somewhere different every night. But I'm very proud to have been part of that tour. We shared the stage and the coach with one of the world's greatest groups. I'll always remember that, and our coach trip to Shrewsbury."