14th June 1964.  A girl, Carol Dryden tried to post herself to The Beatles. (Luckily she did not suffer the same fate as Waldo Jeffers in The Gift by The Velvet Underground).

Although there are plenty of references to the incident the details are vague.  The basic story is that a girl known as Carol Dryden was ensconced in a tea chest that contained a thermos flask and blankets.  The tea chest was then addressed to The Beatles.  She was discovered before she was delivered and thus avoided Waldo’s fate.

The trouble with this story is that it seems to shift and fade as you get close to it rather like a mirage.  The name remains constant, but her age does not.  she was either 12, or 14, 16, or 21.  The tea chest was either discovered in Crewe, London, or Sunderland.  She came from Liverpool, or London, or the North East of England.

A cynical old hector, I wonder whether this story saw the light of day after being dreamed up by Brian Epstein as a good publicity wheeze.

(In case you are wondering on this day in 1964  The Beatles were in Australia.  So even if this was a true story it was very badly conceived.)

In  footnote,  The Blade a newspaper from Toledo Ohio covered this story picking up a report from Rueters.  The thing is according to them Carol was 21, and it happened in 1966! See their report here.

Never one to miss the chance to play the Velvets.  Here is The Gift.