Last year I joined Historic England’s advisory panel for the new expansion out of London to all of England, of the blue plaques scheme, commemorating the lives of people who’ve made a major contribution to human welfare or happiness. Anyone can nominate someone via the website. Other key criteria are: at least twenty years since their death, and a still existent building, directly linked to them, visible from the public highway. George Harrison’s name came up almost immediately and we considered three addresses in Liverpool linked to his family.
12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, his birth place, was the final choice. Although the family moved when he was seven, this is the house where he and they were all happiest, and its modest size captures the marvel of his life’s journey.
On the wording, we discussed listing his wider achievements, including as a film producer and horticulturalist, but in the end it felt right that it should mirror the wording on John Lennon’s.
With Duncan Wilson of Historic England and Olivia Harrison outside 12 Arnold Grove
I was honoured to be asked to host the ceremony on Friday May 24th 2024, and welcome his wife, Olivia Harrison to speak and unveil the plaque. She spoke movingly of how he sometimes drove her up to sit and look at the house from the outside. When they booked hotels to protect their anonymity,they used to check in as Mr and Mrs Arnold Grove, with their son Dhani as Albert Grove. Most poetically she spoke of how, though he travelled South, West and East, his star was in the North.
Unveiling ceremony
Several members of George’s Liverpool family were in attendance, including his sister-in-law. (Her husband, George’s eldest brother was too frail to attend). And they appreciated the chance to look inside the house the family left in 1950. Afterwards there was a warm reception with tea and sandwiches in the old Wavertree Town Hall round the corner with the local civic society, who were so proud of their fellow son. I felt like we were in some genial self-aware version of the cover shoot of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
With Olivia Harrison in Wavertree Old Town Hall
This is the written text of the speech I gave:
I know I speak for many when I say that I grew up under the spell cast by George Harrison and The Beatles. And the dreamland of Liverpool that inspired them.
When I was ten my step cousin, an Indian merchant seaman gave me a copy of George’s 1979 album, and told me George was a friend and had given him the album as a present for me as he knew I was a fan. There’s something appropriate about the tall tale from a sailor. I studied the sleeve notes for clues to that supposed friendship and saw all the Indian cultural references. There was a great mystery about this man. The music, his wry presence in films.
Bruce Robinson, the director and writer of Withnail and I, told me recently how essential George had been to that film, through Handmade Films, and to so many other landmarks of British cinema – such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Time Bandits.
Culturally he embraced and embodied everything that made postwar Britain exciting – drawing inspiration from George Formby and ukeleles, Sooty and Sweep and Indian culture and music. I cannot tell you how important his embrace of Indian culture was to children of immigrants in the 60s and 70s; his openmindness at a time of racial intolerance. It helped make us appreciate our parents’ culture that a Beatle valued it.
I know George felt mixed about school and authority, but at this house he was happy. He wrote in his autobiography, I Me Mine: “It was ok that house. Very pleasant being little and it was always sunny in the summer.”
There is something hugely inspiring about the little boy with such passion for the guitar. Paul McCartney told me they’d travel across the city together to learn a new chord they’d heard about. He pursued musical excellent with such single mindedness. I don’t know how he’d feel at having the approval of Historic England, but I like to think it would have given him a wry smile.
At the Cavern Club
Further reading..
Discovering The Beatles At Stowe Tape – An experiment in time (April 2023)
