The Beatles’ fans from around the world flock to Abbey Road as the iconic album turns 50
LIKE any part of bustling London the street is full of noise, but above the urban hum there is the sound of someone singing: “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah . . . ”
The Beatles’ Abbey Road album is 50, and with a re-issued version set to top the charts, I spent a day in the life of the world’s most famous zebra crossing.
It is 9.30 on a Sunday morning and crowds have flocked to NW8.
Yusuke Sakurai — the fan singing She Loves You — is visiting from Japan with four of his student pals.
He is ready to photograph them walking across the road like the band did on their album cover.
Yusuke, 21, says: “I’ve listened to the Beatles since I was in high school. This is a special moment for us all.”
Around 2,000 tourists a day visit the crossing near the EMI studios where Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison recorded most of their finest work.
“I thought the crossing would be longer. I didn’t realise it would be this cramped,” says 15-year-old Nikita from New Zealand.
At 10am, I meet superfans Steve and Missy Medeiros from Philadelphia.
Steve, 63, says: “It’s a yearly ritual. I always pictured London like this in my youth.”
More devotees arrive. One puffs a fake cigarette to mimic McCartney.
A woman in her seventies strokes the faded paint the Fab Four trod on.
“I’m here to do The Beatles justice” says another US visitor, Jonathan Wedwick, 20, from Phoenix, Arizona.
At 11am, just before crossing for the fifth time, he says: “They were an iconic vision of disruptive change and rock ’n’ roll. It’s just a normal crosswalk, but it’s so much more significant than that.”
At 1pm, a man in a blue Sgt Pepper outfit is strolling over the crossing, barefoot, like Paul McCartney on the album cover.
Michael “Chippy” Kay, 72, who plays in a Beatles tribute band in Benidorm, came down from Huddersfield as part of a birthday surprise from his family.
Michael says: “The Beatles were a massive part of my life growing up. It’s fantastic to be here.”
Ken Crickmay, from Essex, is here because the band remind him of his late mum.
He says: “I wish I could have brought her here.”
At 3.30pm, two people in Beatles T-shirts are reading the graffiti on a wall near the crossing.
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Jessy De Kerf, 40, is here from the Netherlands with hubby Davy for a tour of the Abbey Road studios.
She says: “I was so emotional. I cried when I went in.”
As the hum fades and the crowds thin I wander away. Fifty years? To many it seems like it was just Yesterday.
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