Peto captured the Beatles filming and recording their second feature HELP in 1965! One of the film’s most iconic scenes is the Beatles playing on Salisbury Plain, protected by the Army from the cult who want to sacrifice Ringo.

Photo-journalist Michael Peto worked with The Observer during the 1950s and ‘60s. His collection is a chronicle of an age – a spirited mix of arts and culture, politics, war and peace, social documentary and the emergence of twentieth celebrity culture. Peto had a very personal humanist style, seeking to record ‘the basic serenity of the human form’.

The collection was gifted to the University of Dundee by Peto’s stepson Michael Fodor and comprises some 130,000 prints and negatives. It is held by the University Archives.

2 thoughts on “The Peto Collection – The Beatles playing on Salisbury Plain, May 1965

  1. Hi, does the collection have any stills of the scene away from the tank, i.e. general public viewing from the sides. The reason I ask is that I was there at the time of filming, I was 10 years old and was there with a few school friends.

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