When The Beatles played Margate Winter Gardens in 1963, a young usherette helped them escape screaming hordes of fans by leading the group down a secret tunnel and away from the building.

She was Jean Cuckson, who went on to have an extraordinary 58-year career at the venue. She rubbed shoulders with many of the greats of musical theatre and showed millions of audience members to their seats.

Jean died on August 28, aged 83, after a short illness, but had still been working at the Winter Gardens up until January last year.

In 2016, she spoke to KentOnline's sister paper the Thanet Extra about her long and unprecedented association with the theatre - including that famous meeting with the Liverpool band set to become the biggest names in world music.

“The group were performing for two weeks in July 1963 and I walked them through the bar and behind the stage when they arrived,” she recalled.

“At the end of their performance every night, I also showed them through the tunnel under the archway at the side of the building.

“I even went into John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s dressing room once to get their autographs for a friend, which we were hardly ever allowed to do. The year after they performed here in Margate, they became huge.”

A former pupil of Garlinge Primary School and then Lausanne School for Girls, Jean left the classroom to start work in a greengrocer’s when she saw the usherette’s job advertised.

She and husband Wilfred had bought a house in Margate and needed the extra money to furnish it.

They had met at a dance in the town and were married in 1963, later having two daughters, Helen and Lisa, who also worked with Jean as usherettes for a time.

Sadly Helen died in 2001 after collapsing with a brain aneurysm.

At the end of her first season, theatre bosses asked Jean if she wanted to stay on, but she did not imagine it would be for the next 58 years.

She thought the best thing about working at the Winter Gardens was mixing with the stars.

“We always had an end-of-year party which gave me the chance to chat with lots of famous people such as Danny La Rue, Ronnie Corbett, Norman Wisdom, Larry Grayson and Roger De Courcey, Berni Flint and Kenny Baker. They were all great fun,” she said.

But she was not a fan of Freddie Starr.

“I couldn’t stand him, “ she said. “He did really horrible things to the other people he was performing with.

“For example, when Lyn Paul was singing, he put buckets on his feet and stomped across the back stage.

“He also took one of the staff’s mopeds one time and rode it round the theatre during an interval.”

Jean was a familiar face to many regular theatre-goers and made some good friends.

“Some would come three times a year to see different comedy acts and they’d turn up and say, ‘Oh you are still here’ and give me a big hug.”

At the venue’s peak, Jean and seven other usherettes would show 1,300 people to their seats twice a day throughout the summer season.

Wilfred said this week: “Jean loved working for the theatre during what was its heyday. She would always be buzzing about shows and stars she had met when I picked up her up at the end of the evening.

“She was actually a huge Elvis fan, although he never performed in the UK, of course, let alone Margate.

“But we did take a holiday to his Gracelands home in Memphis in 2008, which she loved.

“The Winter Gardens was like a second home to her and she was so proud when they gave her a 50-year long service award.”

Jean had planned to carry working “all the while my legs will carry me up and down the stairs”. She leaves Wilfred, their daughter Lisa and three grandchildren.

Her funeral is at 12.15pm on Thursday at Margate Crematorium.

Read more: All the latest news from Thanet