Beatles superfan to sell her Fab Four photos

Jul 19 2010 By Vicki Eltis

Sue Baker

A BEATLES superfan is auctioning off some never before seen photographs of the stars at their Weybridge and Esher homes.

Sue Baker, now aged 59 and living in Reading, spent every weekend for two years hanging outside Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon's homes, when she was a teenager.

After clearing out her loft recently the gran-of-two rediscovered her Beatles boxes of signed memoribilia and photographs and now plans to auction them with Berkshire-based Cameo Auctioneers, who specialise in music, film and sport memorobilia.

She will now be auctioning her photo album on August 3 and has been told she could make between £2,000 and £3,000.

Mrs Baker never saw the band play live but spent her weekends outside the stars' homes from 1965 to 1967, financed by the help of two paper rounds. She was aged 15 to 17 at the time.

She said: "I would always be saving up for my Beatles Monthly and my train fares. I'd often go and hang around Paul McCartney's home in London. One day he asked me if I'd ever visited the others, when I said no he offered to give me their addresses. I immediately grabbed an old envelope from my bag and scribbled them down."

Not long after Mrs Baker, who is now a service manager for a children's charity, would travel to Kenwood, owned by John and Sunny Heights, where Ringo lived, both in St George's Hill, or George's psychedlic bungalow in Claremont Drive, Esher.

She said: "I would often take my younger brother Philip, or a school friend but I also ended up meeting another friend from London through the band. We were all just young girls. I would meet her at Weybridge Train Station and we would do the rounds together but I lost contact with her and now I cannot even remember her name.

"People always ask about who my favourite band member was, it often changed but looking back I think it had to be John. He was particularly nice to us and always seemed interested in us, asking where we were from and what we had been doing at school.

"We would often say 'sorry to trouble you again,' but John would always say, 'if it wasn't for you we wouldn't be living here'. He was brilliant but they were all very nice blokes. They were all very respectful and complete gentleman. We were just young girls hangaing around on their days off and they always made time for us. I have fond affections of those times."

After finding the box of memoribilia Mrs Baker took the signed treats to the auctioneers but when she started explaining how she got hold of them they asked to see her treasured photo album too.

She added: "My little brother used to say it would be worth something one day. But I didn't realise how interested they would be in my photographs. These items have been in my life for 40 years. It would be nice if someone else got some fun out of them now."

A spokesman for Cameo Auctioneers said: "The lot has been popular because of its unique origin. These are previously unpublished photos taken personally by Sue and her friend, so not seen anywhere before, in all we have 50 photographs in the lot, all taken with the Beatles consent."