“Liverpool is the place that changed the face of music forever,” declared tour guide Jay as we rolled out on The Beatles-inspired Magical Mystery Tour to discover where the world’s most famous rock band first found fame. Boarding the technicolour tour bus at the city’s Albert Dock, a drumbeat signified the start of the two-hour tour and instantly put everyone into a Fab Four frame of mind.

Claiming a personal connection to the band, Jay was a mine of information during the nostalgic journey through the Liverpool lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo, which included glimpses into their childhood in the north of England, as well as some of the familiar places, such as Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, immortalized in their songs.

We started at Ringo Starr’s childhood home at 9 Madryn St., then to 10 Admiral Grove (the pink house) with The Empress pub on the corner (as depicted on his solo “Sentimental Journey” album cover). Behind blue railings, the St. Silas Primary School was where the band’s drummer went to school.

Then on to the real-life Penny Lane, where George Harrison played in Sefton Park as a lad. Half a mile along, we passed Liverpool College, attended by Beatles manager Brian Epstein. People and places mentioned in the song are pointed out – among them the bus terminus, bank, St Barnabas church, and Tony Slavin’s barber shop.

In the suburb of Wavertree at 9 Newcastle Rd., close to Penny Lane, is where John Lennon lived as a child. Then it was on to 12 Arnold Grove where George resided (his street name also doubled as his pseudonym when making hotel reservations).

In the leafy suburb of Woolton, we witnessed where the band began – innocuously on July 6, 1957, when a 15-year-old Paul McCartney met and tuned John Lennon’s guitar on the steps of the church hall.

Paul’s childhood home at 20 Forthlin Rd. is now a National Trust property and has a wooden painted sign on the garden wall indicating that he once lived there.

Another National Trust property is the house young John shared with his Aunt Mimi, which was next to Strawberry Fields – a Salvation Army children’s home – where he would sit in the tree watching the girls. Aunt Mimi would say that if he was caught, they’d hang him, thus prompting John’s cryptic lyrics, “And nothing to get hung about, Strawberry Fields forever.”

We learned that Aunt Mimi was also concerned about her nephew’s career choice as a musician and was known to rebuke him: “It’s all well and good, John, but you’re never going to make any money out of it.” The song playing after leaving Lennon’s home brings it all to life and will have most chocked up.

Other sites we saw with connections to John included the cemetery where George Toogood Smith (husband of Aunt Mimi) and the now immortal Eleanor Rigby lie, while his second childhood home at 251 Menlove Ave. is celebrated with a blue English Heritage plaque fixed to the wall with the inscription: ‘1945-1963 – John Lennon lived here for 18 years.’

Driving through the city centre, Jay tells of 11-year-old Paul failing an audition for the Liverpool Cathedral choir and the former choirmaster, Ronald Woan, later joking that he’d done the boy a favour and probably helped steer him onto a different to path to achieve his dreams.

On Mount Street is the art college Lennon attended. Now it’s the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, a university music school where every July Sir Paul McCartney personally hands out diplomas to graduates. There was some tongue-in-cheek remarks about the Catholic Cathedral bells being named after the city’s four most famous citizens.

We drove down Lime Street, referred to in Maggie Mae,” passed St. George’s Hall (one of the finest neo-classic buildings in Europe) where Ringo played on the roof, and also the Empire Theatre, which showed the first screening of The Beatles’ film ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ in December, 1965.

The tour ends on a high at the Cavern Club – one of the most famous nightclubs in the world, mainly because The Beatles played there on 292 occasions in the early 1960s.

Besides the sites (and sounds!) of the Magical Mystery Tour, the experience is set apart by the engaging guides’ personal insights into the band – information often not found elsewhere.

And, importantly, there are a several stops along the way where tour participants can leave the coach and take photos.

So, if you or a client are in Liverpool, consider this, as the song says, “an invitation to make a reservation… to roll up for the Mystery Tour… (it’s) dying to take you away.”

And if you’re not into The Beatles, you soon will be!

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