"John Lennon’s teeth were absolutely lovely!" - Beatle fanatic puts autograph book up for auction having met the fab four in Portsmouth in 1963

While the closest many of us will come to experiencing what it was like is through the plethora of documentaries and biopic films chronicling the era, one Portsmouth teen saw it first hand...and she has the autograph book to prove it.

Elizabeth Salt, who was known as Liz McBrierty as a teenager living in North End in the 60s, has a series of mementos of her time following the Beatles around the south coast.

Elizabeth, now 79 and living in Lichfield, Staffordshire, has put her autograph book up for auction alongside a guitar string which broke off of George Harrison’s guitar when performing at the Savoy Ballroom in Southsea on Sunday, April 7, 1963.

She said: “I remember going with my friend who bought Love Me Do in late 1962. That was when it started – we just got obsessed with them. We were sat around the stage when George Harrison broke his guitar string and I picked it up.”

It was not the only memento she got from the gig, with the fab four, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr signing Elizabeth’s arm as well as her autograph book.

She said: “Afterwards they went into a room and we all just piled in. That’s when I got their autographs on my left arm – I just held it out asking them to sign and they did!

“I was still at school and wanted to show all my friends the next day but when I got home my dad said ‘you’ll get blood poisoning!’ and made me wash it straight off. I was heartbroken!”

The gig in Southsea was the second time Elizabeth had been to see The Beatles in the city having already caught them at the Guildhall on March 30 of the same year. Along with her friends she saw them at shows in Brighton, Bournemouth and Southampton.

As a member of The Beatles Fan Club she also met the band at an event in London. She said: “We went up to London for the fan club meet-and-greet. It was quite weird, I can remember that John Lennon’s teeth were absolutely lovely!

“But you weren’t allowed to linger. They all shook our hands and we were moved along.”

During that period, Elizabeth was even featured in the Portsmouth Evening News after a reporter spoke to her and three friends queueing outside the Guildhall. They reporter wrote they had spent ‘three nights sleeping on the pavements, with transistors and a blanket each, to buy tickets for both performances – much to the dismay and disapproval of their parents’.

Elizabeth stayed in Portsmouth until the 1980s before she moved to Lichfield to be closer to her two daughters. Now a grandmother of four she is still a huge Beatles fan with the band’s first LP, Please Please Me, her favourite.

The autograph book also contains signatures collected personally by Elizabeth from the Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith, Del Shannon, Bobby Vee, Billy Fury, among others. As well as the signatures collected at the gig in Southsea, there is a further George Harrison signature and those of Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney again on another separate page.

The Rolling Stones signatures, which includes Brian Jones, was collected by Elizabeth at their gig at the Savoy Ballroom in Portsmouth.

The book and the guitar string will go under the hammer at Richard Winterton Auctioneers on Monday, February 2, at The Lichfield Auction Centre in Staffordshire.

Rob French, ephemera valuer at Richard Winterton Auctioneers, said: “This is one of the finest 1960s autograph books I’ve have the pleasure of cataloguing. What makes this book so special is the fact that it contains the signatures of all The Beatles and the Rolling Stones plus more from some of the biggest names in pop music from the 1960s.

“It is a wonderful document celebrating Elizabeth’s experience of one of the most exciting periods for pop culture in British history.”

The autograph album is estimated at £3,000 to £4,000 with viewing in person taking place on Friday, January 30 between 10am and 4pm. Further information can be found at www.richardwinterton.co.uk/auctions/auction-calendar.