….”Not only was there a wizard, a Christmas tree, acres of food and oceans of drink, but also John and Yoko agreed to dress up as Santa Claus and deliver presents to all the children. Dinner was a 43-pound turkey( according to supplying butchers, the largest turkey in Britain).
December 23….. The preparations had begun at nine in the morning. The part of the gifts for the children was scheduled for 2:30 PM. in Peter Brown’s office. At 06:00 PM the party for adults in Neil’s office. By 11 o’clock the press office was full to overload the Christmas season glut of good weather Charlies at the record company he to the record company marathon sprint for alcohol, inside talk and free LP . Of all the record labels in London, Apple was number one on the excessive generosity list. By 11:30 the Black Lounge was bloated to standing proportions with hashish smokers blowing their brains while the office caters to the whiskey and Coke brigade. By noon all pretense had been dropped and the hash-heads were indistinguishable from the extractors. The phones that refused to quit were barely audible above the record player turned to three-quarter volume.
By three o’clock, Peter Brown’s office was in an unprecedented frenzy as more than a hundred children screamed through a mountain of ice cream, cake and hot dogs, eagerly clamoring to be entertained by the ventriloquist and the one they had been promised. .
Finally Ernest Castro and April, jester actors to the Queen and Duke of Cornwall and the late Sir Winston Churchill, made their entrance. The acknowledgment roar of a hundred tiny Frankensteins must have been honeyed music to their ears. They went through their routine of magic, impersonation, and ventrilogy. The eardrum-shattering shrieks of the little ones didn’t drop a decibel throughout their performance. . They closed the show with a rendition of Lettuce Leaf Hop..
John and Yoko were waiting for the children in the press office when the number ended. Mary Hopkin had joined them to help deliver the presents. John Lennon, seeing the children approaching, stood quietly in the center of the room, expressionless, muttering through his false beard “Ho, ho, ho.”
From the reception hall to the Press Office partygoers streaked the walls and floors, filling the building with blue smoke and the rumble of several hundred empty stomachs. The largest turkey in Britain was safely stowed behind the kitchen door away from an increasingly restless public. The kitchen counter and a sideboard were barely standing under the weight of a thousand assorted hor oeuvres. , cold meat dishes and jellied fish, salads, cakes, fruit dishes and sweets, cookies and cheese.
John and Yoko, freed from the burden of their suits, sat on the floor of the press office surrounded by Emily’s family, The Hippie House (the family of homeless hippies who lived in Apple). The press officer hovered near him, drink in hand, cigarette in his mouth, hoping that his employer would not be mercilessly Beatled on this day as every day. The noise level in the room was more suitable for lip reading than conversation.
It took only three seconds for this atmosphere of intense joy to end and become tense. Pete Frisco (one of the Hell Angels that George had “invited”), elbowed his way through the crowd, and stopped menacingly in front of John and Yoko.
“What the fuck is going on in this place?!?!” he yelled at them. The room went cold and silent. Nobody moved.
“We want to eat! Why the hell do we have to wait until seven?!?”
Mavis’s husband, Alan, bravely interrupted Pete Frisco with a request for a little consideration for the situation. His efforts were rewarded with a single blow, carefully measured by a man who knew only too well the power of his own strength. The room went dark. Pete Frisco turned his attention to John Lennon.
“You’ve got more fucking food in that kitchen than people here and everything’s locked up and the two fucking chicks up there tell me I have to wait until 7:00 like everyone else! There’s a forty-three pound turkey in that kitchen.” and I want something from him now!”
John Lennon, at that time in his life a squeamish vegetarian, looked at Pete Frisco in utter bewilderment. He didn’t know anything about the schedules. The press officer turned to The Hippie House and told him to go find Peter Brown without delay. With relief, he found him in the hallway talking to Ron Kass. “Peter, you’d better come right away” and The Hippie House tugged on his arm, fearing the loss of precious seconds.
Richard DiLello ‘The Longest Cocktail Party “)
