A HOUSING boss has explored the birth of British rock music 50 years ago – publishing a book about The Rolling Stones and their live performances.

Chorley Community Housing manager Richard Houghton has published You Had To Be There: The Rolling Stones Live 1962 – 69 which contains 500 eyewitness accounts of the Stones in action during the early part of their career.

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Richard said he got the idea after seeing The Rolling Stones perform in Stockholm last year.

He said: “Mick Jagger turned 71 last year and it occurred to me that the group’s earliest audiences would be people of a similar vintage and that I should capture their memories before they faded.

“I have spent most of my evenings and weekends researching and writing it.”

The Rolling Stones began performing in London and the South East before making several visits to Lancashire in the 1960s, including performances in Nelson, Blackburn, Blackpool and Wigan.

Memories of these shows appear in the book. The Rolling Stones played the Odeon Theatre, Blackburn, on March 5, 1964.

Denis Neale shares his memory of the Blackburn show in the book.

“My mate said he had managed to get two tickets to see them,” he said.

“As the Stones took the stage and launched into their first song, Come On, the screams from the girls in the audience drowned it out completely.

“The hysteria escalated and it wasn’t long before there was a surge of girls from the back of the Odeon towards the stage by any means available.

“Bouncers were throwing girls off the stage as the band was trying its best to play.

“At some point during the performance someone opened the emergency exit doors and dozens of screaming girls rushed in from outside the cinema and tried to storm the stage.

“It was total chaos.”

Mick Markham, was 17 at the time of the show.

He said: “Myself and two mates got into the theatre via the coal chute to the boiler house and ended up in the wings on stage with them during the whole performance. Nobody questioned our presence there.

“I think the Stones thought we were with the theatre and the management thought we were with the Stones.”

The publication coincides with the announcement of a Stones exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery next year.

Richard said: “It’s also a look at what it was like to grow up in 1960s Britain.

“Teenagers hadn’t really been invented until the Rolling Stones came along.”