Good Ol' Freda: the Beatles' secretary tells her story
From 2013
These days, Freda Kelly leads an uncomplicated life. Every morning, she drives from her home in the Wirral to a legal firm in Birkenhead, where she is secretary to one of the senior partners. She starts her working day at 9am, dealing with legal files, setting up appointments, liaising with mental health tribunals and typing up letters at a steady speed of 50wpm. On her desk, the stapler is labelled with her name in case anyone should be tempted to claim it as their own. She has been working here for 21 years.
Of late, Freda, 68, has found herself at the centre of some unexpected attention. She finds this baffling. "I mean," she says with a slight shake of the head, "who wants to hear the secretary's story?"
In the case of this particular secretary, hundreds of thousands of people around the world would be a conservative estimate. Because Freda Kelly isn't just any old secretary. For a period of 11 years from 1962, she was, in fact, secretary to the Beatles. This month, she is the subject of a new documentary, Good Ol' Freda, in which she gives a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the 20th century's most famous band. Despite the acres of print and miles of footage that have been devoted to telling the "true" story of the Beatles, Kelly has never before spoken out. And yet during the time she worked for them, from the age of 17, she became part of their inner circle and was a first-hand witness to their astonishing rise to fame. Her duties included working for Beatles manager Brian Epstein and managing the fan club. At the height of the band's success, a newspaper headline referred to her as: "The Most Coveted Girl in the World". She is one of the few employees to have stuck with the band for the entire time they were together. Today, she is one of the few to survive.
By: Elizabeth Day
Source: The Guardian
