TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS

Why Beatle business is booming... and shows no sign of stopping

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As a new series of films about The Beatles enters production, broadcaster, author and ECHO columnist SPENCER LEIGH looks at the Fab Four's lasting legacy for the future

THE Beatles' popularity seems never-ending, certainly not ending in my lifetime and probably not in your lifetime either. Their endeavours will be everlasting, just like Shakespeare, Dickens, Beethoven and Mozart.

What's more, the events and the characters in the Beatles' story are remarkable and what happened to the group is improbable. There is no popular culture story anywhere that is anything like the Beatles and also it is grounded in Liverpool.

It will inspire future generations and we Liverpudlians should be very grateful for that.

In 1963 I went to the Royal Court in Liverpool to see Marlene Dietrich, knowing she was a legend and thinking that the opportunity might not come again. She was only 61 but it was like seeing my granny on stage. Things are very different now as Paul McCartney (83) and Ringo Starr (85) are still on the road.

Despite the deterioration with age in his voice, McCartney is filling stadiums and my guess is that we will see him at the new Hill Dickinson Stadium in the summer. It is extraordinary the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen can fill stadiums despite their advanced ages. Mick Jagger is the son of a PE teacher and we now see how useful those genes have been.

These oldies but goodies are also demonstrating the stability of their catalogues. The odds are that some songs will last forever. A younger generation may say they are not interested in the Beatles, but I don't think they would dismiss them as irrelevant. Before Christmas, I attended a class for eight-year-olds who were learning Liverpool history and being taught about the Beatles.

It was brilliantly done and the whole class had xylophones on which to play the first Parlophone single, Love Me Do.