From Beatles Unlimited News 2nd August 2004:
"You can drive in my car and maybe you'll pay me
BEEP BEEP, YEAH"
Newtown's Bernard Huby has fond memories of the day he gave the
Beatles a lift.
LIVERPOOL-BORN Bernie Huby of Newtown wishes he'd given The Beatles a loan when he
had the chance. Mr Huby, 65, grins at the memory of John Lennon, Paul McCartney
and George Harrison searching desperately for coins to pay him for a half-hour trip to a
Birkenhead gig.
by JENNY SHAND
"They managed to get together 15 shillings and I was embarrassed actually," the Geelong
resident of almost 30 years admits. "I would have said, forget it, pay later."
It was 1960, the group destined for superstardom was slowly making a name and its
members were young, scruffy and skint. Mr Huby, then a long-haired lad in his early 20s,
had just ferried Derry and the Seniors to a Jacaranda Club gig in his dad's Morris Cowley
van. Liverpool, England, was a hot-house of musicians on the move and Mr Huby was a
regular driver and fill-in pianist for the band. The Beatles had completed the first
session at the club, their transport to the next gig had broken down and Mr Huby stepped
in to help drive them on to success.
"They asked if I'd take them to Birkenhead on the other side of the Mersey,"
Mr Huby says. "I said OK. They all piled into the back of the van with the instruments.
There was John Lennon, there was Paul McCartney and George. But not Ringo - someone else
was drumming." Mr Huby reckons he made about five shillings profit on the one-hour round
trip. He wishes he'd given them an IOU. And he wishes he'd asked for autographs.
The Beatles moved on to stardom and Mr Huby moved on to teaching. His dad ran a red
light in the van, writing off the vehicle and his son's sideline as a band driver in the
process. Mr Huby, a Geelong High School teacher, and wife Pat have lived in Newtown for
nearly 30 years. "People told us we'd never be able to survive except in Tassie because
it was too hot," he laughs. Geelong's Sacred Heart College advertised in England for a
teacher, he applied because it was "not far from Tassie" and got the job.
Sacred Heart principal Sister Eileen Daffy met them at Melbourne airport and they
motored towards their new town. "She was a lead foot. I thought `We've come all this way
to die in the last 100km,'" Mr Huby says.
The Geelong region hit the headlines across the world weeks ago after an English
tourist claimed he bought a suitcase of Beatles memorabilia for $50 at a Lara Heritage
Festival market. A beaming Mr Huby is happy with the shillings he pocketed from his
brush with the Beatles.
"I love The Beatles' music. The Beatles have a real affinity for me because I know
the background of the city they came from," he says.