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  And so to the Beatles…

  When he awoke on the morning of Thursday 16 August, Pete Best put on his T-shirt and jeans and asked the Beatles’ roadie, Neil Aspinall, if he wanted to come into town with him.

  They drove to Whitechapel and Pete went into NEMS while Neil waited outside. Pete went into Brian Epstein’s office, sat down and, as he says, “It took just 10 minutes to change my life forever.”

  Less than that actually, because Epstein simply said, “The lads don’t want you in the group anymore.” Not ‘the lads and I,’ not ‘we,’ not ‘I’ but ‘the lads.’ Brian Epstein was distancing himself from the decision.

  That may be right. Brian Epstein recognised Pete’s popularity and liked him a lot. He would offer him another drumming job a few days later – the fact that he didn’t do at this meeting implies that this was a hurried decision, that he hadn’t sorted everything out. He also expected Pete Best to work with the Beatles for the rest of the week.

  Pete Best told Bill Harry in The Best Years of The Beatles (1996): “There was a phone call while I was there and when he answered it. Eppy said, ‘I’m still with him at the moment.’ I don’t know who phoned, it could have been anyone. I wasn’t paying too much attention to who was phoning as I was still trying to fathom the situation.”

  The sensible money is on McCartney. Well, it must be – some years earlier Pete Best had spoken to Philip Norman for Shout! The True Story of The Beatles (1981): “While I was standing there, the phone rang on Brian’s desk. It was Paul, asking if I’d been told yet. Brian said, ‘I can’t talk now. Peter’s here with me in the office.’” So, why the reservation this time round? Surely, though, if Pete was sure it was Paul, he would have grabbed the phone and told him where to go.

  A young Liverpool band, the Merseybeats, were waiting outside to see Brian Epstein. He was about to sign them. They saw Pete Best emerge looking as though he had seen a ghost and Epstein in tears. Eppy told them to make another appointment.

  Back on the street, Pete met up with Neil and went for a drink. Pete says that by chance, they bumped into Lou Walters from Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, but I wonder if it was coincidental. Bobby Thomson had temporarily replaced Wally in the Hurricanes for the Butlin’s season and we’ll come to Wally’s possible role in a minute.

  Ringo Starr – Richard Starkey – the oldest of the Beatles had been born in the Dingle in 1940. He had had a traumatic childhood with one illness after another and, not surprisingly, he left school with no qualifications. In 1957 he joined the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group and then, in 1959, and owning a full drum-kit, he became part of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He worked for an engineering works, Henry Hunt and Sons, and he was encouraged to pack it in for a season at Butlin’s holiday camp in Pwllheli. Rory was an excellent showman but only a moderate vocalist. In order to add some glamour to the band, Rory insisted that everyone in the band should play a leading role and he introduced a solo spot, ‘Ringo Starr-time’. Ringo would sing undemanding pop and R&B songs of the day including the Shirelles’ ‘Boys’ and Johnny Burnette’s ‘You’re Sixteen’. He was a pleasant, rather than a good, vocalist but he was highly rated as a drummer.

  Harry Prytherch, drummer with the Remo Four, has strong views. “Ringo was a lot more technical than Pete Best. There were five or six of us who liked discussing the technicalities – Ringo, Kingsize Taylor’s drummer, Sonny Webb’s drummer, myself and Billy Buck out of the Jaywalkers – and Pete Best was different from us, there’s no doubt about that. You noticed the difference when Ringo took over because Pete was a real pounding rock ’n’ roll drummer.”

  Fred Marsden, drummer with Gerry and the Pacemakers: “I knew Ringo years before he joined the Beatles. He was always listening to records and getting to grips with the technical side of drumming. That’s why the Beatles wanted him. Ringo only lived a quarter of a mile from me in the Dingle, and after an afternoon session at the Cavern he would watch us, or the Beatles, even if he wasn’t playing himself. We would then go back and listen to records.”

  Dave Lovelady, drummer with the Fourmost: “I think Ringo would admit that he has never been a brilliant drummer technically, but he had a very unique drive and he was very good to watch. He used to throw his head all over the place and the beat that he produced was really pounding. He had a very unusual style but technically he isn’t brilliant.”

  Bobby Thomson, guitarist for Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes and later the Rockin’ Berries: “Ringo used to set the kit for a right-handed drummer even though he was left-handed. He could play so evenly with either hand, he was such a rock-steady drummer that once he started a tempo he never moved. A similar drummer is Bev Bevan from ELO, a real bricklayer and I mean that in the nicest sense. On the other hand, Trevor Morais of Faron’s Flamingos and the Peddlers was a very flowery, flashy drummer and I don’t think I could play with him in the same band, there would be too much going on. Roy Dyke, who became part of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke was also very good but he was very jazz-influenced which is fine if you’re playing that type of music.”

  Johnny Guitar of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes: “We had a great band in Skegness in 1962. There was Bobby Thomson, Ty O’Brien, Ringo and me. To be honest, we couldn’t wait for Rory to take his break so that we could get into some hard instrumental rock ’n’ roll.”

  Ritchie Galvin, drummer with Earl Preston and the TTs: “Ringo was wasted with Rory Storm because although Rory was a great showman, he was a dire singer. No wonder Ringo said yes.”

  Billy Butlin opened his first holiday camp in Skegness in 1936. The concept was to provide mass, on-site entertainment and catering for the British working man and his family. The rows of chalets looked like army barracks and the Redcoats organised the camp with military precision. The holidaymakers were even told when to get up with a voice over the tannoy saying, ‘Wakey-wakey, campers.’ The holidaymakers enjoyed themselves in the swimming pool, playing billiards, darts or tennis, old-time dancing, watching variety shows, at the funfair or simply making new friends. The Skegness camp incorporated a zoo which attracted national publicity in 1962 when an elephant fell into the swimming pool, upturned and drowned.

  By the early 1960s, Billy Butlin realised that the camps were losing their appeal. The British public was becoming more free-spirited – they wanted to holiday abroad, good heavens – and older teenagers no longer wanted to holiday with their parents. He introduced rock ’n’ roll nights to attract adolescents and their advertisements implied that sexual freedom was the order of the day. ‘Wakey-wakey’ was the call to move back to your own chalet.

  Rory Storm and the Hurricanes and the Beatles were good friends, but Storm’s group was far more show-biz. They enjoyed playing holiday camps, something John Lennon could never have tolerated. Holiday camps apart, they often worked the same venues and had spent several weeks together in Hamburg. They got on well with each other and Ringo had sat in with the Beatles on occasion.

  Mind you, Ringo had sat in with many bands – he had worked with the Seniors and had left the Hurricanes in January 1962 to be part of Tony Sheridan’s backing group at the Top Ten Club. Although he was back with the Hurricanes, he was unsure about his career and was considering emigrating to America.

  Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes were in Hamburg with their drummer, Dave Lovelady. Dave recalls, “After we’d been in Hamburg for two months, the time came when I had to come home and return to my studies. Teddy Taylor and the rest of the boys wanted to stay professional, so it was decided that I would leave and they would fly out a replacement. Teddy wrote to Ringo to ask him if he’d like to take my place. He wrote back to say that he would and he gave Rory Storm his notice.”

  So, in August 1962, Ringo Starr had no intention of joining the Beatles or even returning to Liverpool and his girlfriend, Maureen Cox, in the near future. He was going to finish at Skegness and then join Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes. Their promised £20 a week was good money, but the Beatles would offer £25.
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  There are conflicting stories as to how and when Ringo Starr was invited to join the Beatles.

  Version 1. According to Mark Lewisohn’s The Complete Beatles Chronicle, John Lennon telephoned Ringo at Skegness on Tuesday 14 August, 2 days before the dismissal. This sounds reasonable, but is fraught with difficulty. The chalets did not have telephones and getting through to anyone at a holiday camp in 1962 was a time-consuming and usually fruitless task. Also, Ringo was with Johnny Guitar in a caravan just outside the campsite.

  Version 2. In the Anthology 1 video, Ringo Starr recalls, “It was a Wednesday and Brian Epstein called; I don’t remember John coming over, which is in somebody’s book. ‘Would you join the band, really join the band?’ I said, ‘Sure, when?’ and he said, ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I can’t do that, I’ll join you on Saturday.’ We had Saturdays off as that was when they changed their campers. So I gave Rory Thursday, Friday and Saturday to bring someone in.” This is more plausible than Version 1 because Ringo was invited to join the Beatles as an employee (£25 a week rather than a split of the takings) and also because a well-spoken businessman would have more success in getting the holiday camp to locate Ringo.

  Version 3. The one Ringo doesn’t remember, has John Lennon visiting ‘Belsen’ as John used to describe Butlin’s, the one venue the Beatles never played. Johnny Guitar remembers, “John and Paul knocked on the door to our caravan about ten o’clock one morning, and I was very surprised because John hated Butlin’s. Paul said, ‘We’ve come to ask Ringo to join us.’ We went into the camp and Rory said, ‘What are we going to do because this is mid-season and we can’t work without a drummer?’ Paul said, ‘Mr Epstein would like Pete Best to play with you.’ We couldn’t stand in Ringo’s way ’cause we knew the Beatles were going to be big. We went back to Liverpool and saw Pete, but he was so upset that he didn’t want to play with anybody.”

  I asked Johnny Guitar if he was sure he was correct, that John and Paul did visit Ringo at Skegness. “Yes, Rory got a big shock when Ringo said he was going to leave, and so did I. It is possible that Ringo had been tipped the wink on his last visit to Liverpool, but we had no inkling of what was going on.”

  Travelling the 170 miles from Liverpool to Skegness in 1962 was no joke. A train journey would involve changes and take several hours. John Lennon couldn’t drive, and Paul would probably want a relief driver. Quite possibly, that would be Neil Aspinall. There were no motorways and a likely route would be leaving Liverpool on the A580 to Manchester. From there, it is on to the A628 to Marple, A57 to Sheffield and keeping on that road to Worksop and Lincoln. Then it is leaving by the A158 to Wragby, Horncastle, Spilsby and, finally, Skegness. Even maintaining a speed of 30 miles an hour, it is unlikely that the journey could be done in less than 5 hours. No matter how early they set off on the morning of Thursday 16 August, there could be no guarantee that the Beatles would return in time for a show at Riverpark Ballroom that evening. And with Ringo in tow.

  But what if it happened on Tuesday 14 August as the Beatles weren’t working that day and they could take Neil Aspinall as well? With a full datebook, isn’t it more likely that the Beatles would line up their replacement before they sacked Pete Best? Mightn’t Ringo Starr think it was grossly unfair to Pete Best and turn them down? In any event, they weren’t to know that Ringo was about to join the Dominoes.

  I think that John, Paul and possibly Neil went to Skegness on the Tuesday 14 August and saw Ringo, in spite of his comments. That paved the way for the sacking of Pete Best. Possibly Rory contacted Lou Walters, the Hurricane who was still in Liverpool, and asked him to sound out Pete about joining the Hurricanes. However, Wally found Pete so depressed that he realised that it was neither the time nor the place to invite him to join the Hurricanes. Hence, the Hurricanes returned on Saturday and Pete turned them down.

  This would also explain why Brian Epstein wanted Pete Best to play a few more dates with the Beatles. He knew that Ringo couldn’t join until Saturday. Once Pete had gone, he rearranged the meeting with the Merseybeats and set about finding a temporary replacement drummer. Fortunately for him, Johnny Hutchinson of the Big Three agreed. (He had already played with the Beatles at a Larry Parnes audition in May 1960.) This time, he was to stand in on Thursday 16 August 1962 at the Riverpark Ballroom and on Friday 17 August at the Majestic Ballroom in Birkenhead and the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton. Pete Best was said to be ‘indisposed’.

  Johnny Hutchinson, “I was playing with the Beatles and the Big Three at the same time. I would play the first half-hour with my group and get dressed up in my band suit, set the drums up and do half-an-hour with them, unset my drums, take the suit off, shoot off elsewhere and do half-hour in The Beatles gear and go back for half-an-hour with the Big Three.”

  Hutch also offers this gem: “Brian asked me to bear with him for a few more weeks. The Beatles were even going to get a fantastic drummer from Leeds. This chap came down from Leeds – he was about 54, balding and very big, not at all as Brian expected and Brian had to start hiding. Apparently, he turned out to be no good as well. That’s when I started playing with them.”

  When he sacked Pete, Brian Epstein was worried that Neil Aspinall might resign in sympathy. As it turns out, his initial reaction was to resign but Pete told him to continue, although it would mean leaving Hayman’s Green. No-one has spoken of the tensions in Hayman’s Green, but it can’t have been easy for Pete. He was telling his half-brother’s father and his mother’s lover to leave the house. When Neil turned up to take the Beatles to Riverpark that evening, he asked the Beatles why Pete had been sacked. “It’s got nothing to do with you,” said John, “you’re only the driver.”

  Not even Neil – or Nell as the Beatles called him – may know that Brian Epstein had considered a replacement for him – John Booker, who later worked with the Undertakers. “I was going round with the Merseybeats at the time and Eppy came up to me with George Harrison and said, ‘John, I’d like you to look after the Beatles.’ I said, ‘You’re joking.’ He said, ‘No, I’d like you to take over from Neil.’ I said, ‘No, I wouldn’t do that to Neil.’ That showed me what Eppy was like.”

  On Saturday 18 August 1962, Ringo Starr joined the Beatles as a full-time member for a horticultural society’s annual dance at Hulme Hall, Port Sunlight. The real test would come the following evening among the regulars at the Cavern Club.

  The Cavern’s doorman, Paddy Delaney: “George Harrison had gone downstairs – there weren’t many people in at the time and there was a bit of a commotion. I went down to see what the trouble was and George was holding his eye. He had a beauty of a black eye.”

  George Harrison in the Anthology 1 video: “The Cavern had three tunnels and I stepped out of the dressing room into a tunnel and some guy butted me in the eye.”

  Ringo Starr admits in the same video, “We played the Cavern and there was a lot of fighting and shouting – half of them hated me and half of them loved me.”

  Mike Gregory of the Escorts: “Everyone was screaming at Ringo and throwing tomatoes at him. They were shouting for Pete Best and giving him a hard time.”

  Ian Edwards (Ian and the Zodiacs): “I was very friendly with Ringo and I felt very sorry for him at the time. They were shouting “Ringo never, Pete Best forever” and refusing to let them play. There was a big question as to whether this could be the Beatles’ downfall. Everyone was talking about it. Ringo had been playing in a group which wasn’t taken seriously and suddenly he’s in the biggest thing on Merseyside. He was a very good rock drummer, but there were a lot of better drummers around, such as Johnny Hutch.”

  Ray Ennis (Swinging Blue Jeans): “It was murder when Pete got the sack. George Harrison got a black eye and there was a big split in the Beatle fans, they were fighting each other. Pete got a raw deal and without doubt the luckiest man alive is Ringo Starr – and yet I’ve never heard him say that.”

  Ritchie Galvin of Earl Preston and the TTs: “I really wanted the Beatles to do well as I
thought it might open the floodgates a bit. We might get away from groups like Shane Fenton and the Fentones. I was a bit surprised when they sacked Pete, and I hoped they hadn’t blown it.”

  Diana Mothershaw, who sold records at Rushworth and Dreaper: “Shortly after Pete was sacked, John and George came into Rushworth’s when it was quiet. We asked them why Pete had been sacked and they said he couldn’t drum well enough. He only had his own style. Then someone told them that Pete was only round the corner looking at drums and they said, ‘See you girls’, and ran out. We shouted ‘Cowards’ after them.”

  From Brian Epstein’s autobiography, A Cellarful of Noise: “The sacking of Pete Best left me in an appalling position in Liverpool. Overnight I became the most disliked man on the seething beat-scene. True, I had the support of the Beatles who were the city’s darlings and they were delighted to have Ringo. But the fans wanted Pete Best as a Beatle and there were several unpleasant scenes.”

  The truth – Pete Best: “I felt like putting a stone around my neck and jumping off the Pier Head. I knew that the Beatles were going places and to be kicked out on the verge of it happening upset me a great deal. I was sure we were going to be a chart group. For weeks afterward, I just wanted to forget about everything. I didn’t want to see the drums. I didn’t want to see people. The fact that they weren’t at my dismissal hurt me a lot more than the fact that Brian told me that I wasn’t a Beatle any longer.”

  The spin-doctored version appeared in Mersey Beat, which was published on 23 August 1962: “Pete Best left the group by mutual agreement. There were no arguments or difficulties, and this had been an entirely amicable decision.”