Anne Collingham

Anne Collingham was not a real person. It was made up by Tony Barrow in 1963 to help keep things simple at The Official Beatles Fan Club. A variety of girls who worked at the fan club were used as 'Anne Collingham' for photos at the time. Tony Barrow wrote about this in the May 1983 issue of the Beatle Book Monthly: "I decided in June 1963 that the Club should have a Nation Secretary based in London at our Monmouth Street address. Until then, fans in the South had kept in touch through Bettina Rose in Surrey whilst Freda Kelly had looked after the top half of Britain from her NEMS office base in Liverpool. The name of the new National Secretary was given as 'Anne Collingham'. In fact, no such person ever existed. The 'Collingham' part came from part of my secretary's home address in Earls Court, and Anne was my wife's middle name. It wasn't done in order to deceive the fans. It was intended to be helpful. Clearly as the membership grew a full time office staff of clerks and helpers would be needed. There was little to be gained from confusing members by letter them receive replies from an assortment of people, especially as staff were coming and going all the time. So the simplest answer seemed to be to have Anne Collingham as the regular signature on all individual reply letters, on newsletters and on all the Club's printed stationery. There was another massive advantage. The press office and the Fan Club shared a single telephone number, COVent Garden 2332. As the publicity side of things became busier we were not only handling the Beatles but all the other NEMS acts ranging from Billy J. Kramer to Cilla Black. The telephone lines were being used more and more heavily. Therefore it was convenient to know at once if a caller wanted the press office or the Fan Club. If the caller asked or Anne Collingham, it was passed straight through to the right room to be handled quickly. Personal callers at 13 Monmouth Street always found themselves talking to come of Anne Collingham's assistants. Ms. Collingham herself seemed to eb permanently unavailable to meet her visiting members! The Fan club grew so fast that we took an extra floor of office space above the press office's suite of rooms. Here at least half a dozen full time workers coped with the mountains of mail. These peopel included Michael Crowther-Smith, tony Catchpole, Yvonne Sainsbury, Monica Stringer and Macy Cockram. By the end of 1963, Bettina Rose, the Surrey-based South of England Secretary, had been put on the full-time NEMS payroll and was working at at Monmouth Street as the colleague of 'Anne Collingham'. The two signed themselves as 'Joint National Secretaries of the Official Beatles Fan Club'. Bettina's physical appearance at Monmouth Street meant that at least one of the Club's chiefs was on hand to meet visitors in person."