First record for The Beatles, first jingle for a ferryboat
By Terry Walker | updated from “My Life, in Words”
This amazing story reveals enduring links with The Beatles, Sixties songwriter Mitch Murray and 84,000 Isle of Man residents whose lifeline ferry service faced a Perfect Storm. But a timely link to The Beatles helped set the ferry firm back on course to fame and improved fortune.
I had been working as a marketing and public relations consultant for the Isle of Man Government and its tourism industry for some years. I also headed up its information centre, based at our London Mayfair offices. This eventually led to a summons from the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, the island’s lifeline from 1830. Its ageing fleet of ferryboats provided reliable, three-hour crossings to England, Scotland and Ireland.
The ferry firm knew it had to improve its marketing to compete with new rivals and combat a changing holiday market that was no longer British beaches in British summers but cheap, affordable package holidays to Spain and sunnier climes – it was the worldwide cheesy pop hit, Y Viva España, that chorused the vacation trend:
And then there was the Chicken Dance played nightly in Spanish bars and nighteries for holidaymakers who couldn’t dance sober…
As a publicly quoted company in its post-war heyday, the IOM Steam Packet had become the island’s Golden Goose, providing regular share dividends based on mass tourism and a travel monopoly.
Now, the Steam Packet sailors were being left astern by world tourist trends. They didn’t have leggy trolley dollies to welcome you aboard, just bearded seafarers wearing Guernsey-knit sweaters and, in a few cases, looking a bit like Popeye the sailor man. But they excelled at the seamanship needed to keep going in an Irish Sea Force Nine storm, when the Steam Packet’s boats were often the only ones at sea. The crew was kind to green-faced, puking passengers and adept at power-hosing the scene of any “oral mishaps”.
Expertise in tourism
My colleagues and I had developed a lot of expertise in tourism and the leisure market, latterly resulting from our work for the Isle of Man Tourist Board, so we had some stopgap suggestions to focus on.
It was an efficient, no-frills service with an unblemished record stretching across 150 years. That should be at the heart of any new PR and marketing campaign. Stick with your strengths, sailors. Simples.
Best jingle writer in Europe
With the help of a cartoonist mate, we invented a seafarer cartoon character called Steam Packet Jack to emphasise the ferry service’s traditions and reliability. A friendly, trusty character: “Steam Packet Jack – he’ll get you out, and he’ll get you back”. A “visual” Jack and his message could appear in brochures, newspaper ads and TV commercials – maybe even painted on the sides of the ferries?
Radio commercials would need a jingle to carry the message, and the best jingle writer in Europe lived, with his untold wealth from pop song royalties, on the low-tax Isle of Man. Mitch Murray and his wife Grazina were low-key residents, but visitors to their home were greeted by the strains of The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde when they pressed the front doorbell.
Story continues after the IMAGE GALLERY
Images in the life of Mitch Murray,
At Abbey Road Studios in North London, the Beatles tried to find the right song for their first-ever single release. Their record producer, George Martin, wanted Mitch Murray’s composition, How Do You Do It, as the group’s first single, but Lennon and McCartney wanted to write what would have been their first hit song together.
Martin insisted, adding: “When you can write a song as good as this, then you can record your own songs. Until then, you are doing this.” Reluctantly, the Beatles agreed to record the song. However, Murray vetoed the recording, thinking it was suitable only for the B side. He offered the composition to Gerry and the Pacemakers—their version went to number one in the UK and number nine in the States.
Mitch Murray was 22 when he started songwriting, and Sixties pop stars like Gerry and the Pacemakers, Freddie and the Dreamers and The Tremeloes enjoyed big hits from his unique Sixties Sound. Tony Christie had number-one hits, including I Did What I Did for Maria. Georgie Fame had a massive hit with Bonnie and Clyde, while Paper Lace also went to number one with Billy Don’t Be A Hero.
Simple lyrics, simple melodies – just simple music that was easy to remember. Gerry Marsden, pop singer, was born on September 24, 1942. He died of a heart infection on January 3, 2021, aged 78.
The increased awareness and promotion of specialist activity holidays kept the momentum in successive years. However, cars and passengers didn’t produce vast profits. The company’s monopoly on freight traffic did.
Steam Packet freight profits were up to three times higher than those of any of the 23 other European ferry firms, as the Manx Government discovered when it was asked to help fund new ferries. It was a publicly quoted company in the Isle of Man, and many Manx families held Steam Packet shares to top up their pension fund or pay towards that autumn holiday in Majorca – on direct island-to-island charter flights.
Just as crucial for the Steam Packet and my work for them, Mitch Murray’s unique creativity helped the company achieve its highest passenger figures for decades. 1979 showed a substantial passenger spike, as thousands of overseas visitors with Manx connections returned to celebrate the island’s Millennium: 1,000 years of continuous parliament, dating back to Viking rulers.
It wasn’t very long before prying UK bankers spotted the potential for a quick killing. They made a multi-million-pound offer in UK sterling for the Steam Packet… then sold it to Banco Espírito Santo (BES), one of Portugal’s biggest banks. BES eventually sank amid a storm of money-laundering and corruption claims. It has since been proven that the administration of BES led by Ricardo Salgado “disobeyed the Bank of Portugal 21 times, between December 2013 and July 2014”, practising “wilful acts of ruinous management”.
Like the Golden Goose fable, this story has a moral: Boost yourself with a nice new jingle, by all means, but best avoid looking too much like the legendary goose that lays the golden egg to corporate pirates. And that’s how the little island lost its golden egg but gained an enduring link to the legendary Beatles.
Now, meet the Real Steam Packet Jack.
There really was a “Steam Packet Jack” – but Capt Jack Woods, who joined the IOM Steam Packet in 1968 as a second mate, was promoted to chief officer in 1970, then joined Esso before returning to Manx waters in 1978 – the year Terry and Mitch produced the advertising jingle. But Capt Woods spent five years with the new roll-on, roll-off ferry rival, Manx Line, before the ferry firms merged. He retired in 1999 and died in 2019, aged 78.
: : Capt William Whiteway, the author’s father-in-law, skippered Royal Navy escort warships on WWII Arctic convoys and then post-war IOM Steam Packet boats.
Lennon & McCartney became the most prolific songwriters of the 20th century, creating 162 best-known and most-loved tracks, including 104 number-one hits in the UK and USA. Paul has had 194 compositions in the charts and is worth £800M. When they signed their first recording contract, at HMV London offices, The Beatles slept outside overnight in their roadie van because they were “Penniless”.
Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison each received recent Apple Corps share dividends of £900,000 according to the company’s financial filings covering the 11-month period ending December 2025. Source: The Times.
Mitch Murray got a CBE for services to music. He continued his idyll in the Isle of Man, with his £millions of earnings regularly topped up by performance royalties, including some extra royalties from the How Do You Do It track. It was eventually included on the Beatles Anthology 1 album released 30 years later. But their first recording remains a flop for them, but a great hit for Gerry and the Pacemakers – he knew how to do better with Mitch Murray’s composition.
The Isle of Man Government force-rescued the Steam Packet ferry firm in an agreed purchase from the successor bank of its previous owner. Handing over £124M, a government spokesman said: “At least the money comes back here now.” As was the case before the old sailors at the helm went all jingly in the 1970s and raised the profile and profits before selling out
Mitch Murray’s life in pop and Manx residency has been commemorated in postage stamps by the Isle of Man Post Office. Issued in 2020, they have proved to be a money-spinning enterprise for the free-spirited Manx nation.
More early revelations read: The Beatles – A Tiny Contribution
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