Lot 120: The Beatles

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Description: The Beatles
A very long, hand knitted, multi-coloured scarf presented to and worn by the Beatles when promoting their Australian Tour, 1964 -- 32.8x0.66ft. (10x0.20m.); an album The Beatles Talk Downunder, Raven Records, 1981, the front of the album's sleeve illustrated with a photograph of the band wearing the scarf; and a letter from the vendor concerning the provenance

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The vendor recalls that the scarf was the idea of Disc Jockey Mad Mel, who worked on the station 2SM. When it was announced that the Beatles would be touring Australia in 1964, he suggested that his listeners welcome the Beatles by helping to produce a hand-knitted Australian scarf which he could present to them. The response was overwhelming, he received hundreds of individual knitted pieces. He arranged for all of them to be joined together, making one complete scarf, running to approximately 10 metres long. When Mad Mel presented them with the gift, they immediately wrapped themselves in it. The resulting photograph of the band with Mad Mel and the scarf was used for the cover of an interview album that was released documenting their time in Australia. Due to its size the Beatles did not keep the scarf and it remained in the DJ's possession.