Help, Dallas needs somebody, help, not just anybody - someone who loves The Beatles

Dallas Atkins loves The Beatles, yeah, yeah, yeah… All he needs is love – from another fan of the legendary band.

Formerly of Crookwell in the NSW Southern Tablelands but now living in Canberra, Dallas has been collecting Beatles memorabilia since 1969. He had the collection on display on the family farm but when they moved into town, there was simply not enough room for his family – and John, George, Paul and Ringo.

He had negotiated with a Sydney museum to buy the vast collection but the deal fell through at the last minute. His children don’t want it and, since moving into Canberra, it’s now living on his verandah because there’s no room anywhere else.

From Beatles lunchboxes to cups and saucers, magazines, photos, clothes, a record player with the band’s name on it and even a tin of talcum powder – although he’s not quite sure of the contents because no ingredients are listed – if it’s Beatle, Dallas has it. He reckons he has invested about $80,000, but for him, collecting the treasures most of his life has been more a labour of love.

He estimates he’ll be lucky to get about half that figure for it – and he doesn’t want to split it up. Rather, he wants to sell it to a fellow enthusiast. “I’m sure there is the right home for all of it out there somewhere.”

His passion for all things Beatle goes back to the late 60s when, as a youngster, he first saw The Super Flying Fun Show on TV.

“They showed Beatles cartoons. It was great, but because it was a cartoon I didn’t realise it was a real band. I thought who is this mob?”

Dallas said he bought his first Beatles record when he was about 12. “It was the 70s by then and I realised the Beatles didn’t exist any more. But I found all this stuff, so I started collecting.

“Being an entertainer myself – I played in a Christian rock band – when we’d go overseas I’d come back with loads of Beatles stuff. I met a lady over there with one of those beehive haircuts. She followed them around everywhere, and I ended up buying all her stuff.”

Dallas said while living at Crookwell, he set up his collection in one of the farm sheds, complete with recording studio and all the memorabilia. He even set up a bedroom that could well have belonged to a Beatle, had they slept in a room wallpapered with pictures of themselves.

“It was great,” he said. “We’d have schoolkids coming through, but COVID killed it.”

Dallas said it was impossible to put a figure on how many pieces of Beatles memorabilia he had.

“There are literally thousands,” he said. ” I mean there are these Beatles rings that came out of the old lolly machines, cigarette wrappers – back in those days people could put the Beatles brand on anything.”

Dallas also has coveted autographs from two band members, Paul and George. “The four of them were in an autograph book – a reporter who interviewed them got it in the 70s, but it fell apart and we lost John and Ringo.”

“You’d need to mortgage your house these days to get all four of them.”

Dallas said he well remembered what he was doing when John Lennon died on 8 December, 1980. “I was washing my car at Liverpool,” he said. “I remember I just sat down on the grass. I couldn’t believe it … you couldn’t be anything but sad.

“While they were all around, there was always the chance they would get back together.”

Did he have a favourite?

“I thought John had the best voice for rock `n’ roll, that raspy, rocky voice, Paul for the way he could sing medley, George for his slide guitar and Ringo, he might not be the fanciest of drummers, but he was the steadiest.”

Despite the fact the Beatles broke up in 1970 after only 10 years together, Dallas reckons their memorabilia is still sought after today.

“There really was no-one like them,” he said. “No-one ever had their sort of style. Today’s music is more about smutty stuff, their music was about love and life.”

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