Beatles by Hunter Davies Read Free Book Online Page A

Liverpool at Christmas 1963, their first return after their number-one record success, her mind still went back to John’s early days. She was standing at the back, having refused to sit in a front-row seat.
    ‘It was at the Liverpool Empire. I was looking at John on the stage, but all I could see was him as a little boy. I always used to take him to the Empire at Christmas for his annual treat. I remember the time we’d seen Puss in Boots . It had been snowing and John’s Wellingtons were still on in the theatre. When Puss came on in his big boots, John stood up and shouted, “Mimi, he’s got his Wellington boots on! So have I.” His little voice was heard everywhere and everyone looked at him and smiled.
    ‘I was very proud of course to see him playing on the stage at the Empire. It was the first time I realized what an effect they had. There were mounted police to restrain the crowds. Bessie Braddock was standing with me at the back. It was very exciting.
    ‘But I couldn’t help thinking all the time, no, he’s not really a Beatle, he’s the little fellow who once sat upstairs with me and shouted “Mimi – he’s got his Wellington boots on.”’
    It is true, if you look at the snapshots of John when he was very little – especially the polyphoto strip – he does look a very appealing, innocent little boy.
    One of the problems about piecing together the Beatles’ early childhood life was the fact that there were two missing parents. Julia, John’s mother, was, of course, long dead, and so was Paul’s. I knew that Ringo’s real father, who had got divorced from his mother Elsie many years ago, was still alive. And I also suspected that Freddie Lennon, or ‘that Alfred’, as the Mimi side of the family always called him, was still around somewhere.There had at least been no news of Freddie’s death. Throughout all of John’s school life, Mimi dreaded Alfred turning up one day. I contacted shipping companies and hotels where he was supposed to have worked as a washer-up and failed at first to get any news of him.
    I had better luck tracking down Ringo’s father, also called Richard or Ritchie. In my first letter, I rather upset him by spelling his name wrong. Tut tut. I was never much good at spelling. I addressed him as Mr Starkie, instead of Mr Starkey. All Beatle fans know that. He reprimanded me in his reply, but said he was willing to talk to me.
    He was living in Crewe, working partly as a window cleaner. He did not have a lot to tell me, but I very much admired how he had kept away from Ringo after the divorce, and even now, when his son was famous, he was not cashing in in any way and stoutly refused to contact Ringo or his former wife.
    Apart from the parents, I also spent a lot of time in the Liverpool area, tracking down school friends, schoolmasters, people who played with them, at one time, in the Quarrymen.
    I went to the Cavern, still going strong in 1967, though as a jazz club again, and saw people such as Bob Wooler and Alan Williams. I bought old copies of Mersey Beat and picked up as many old programmes and posters as I could.
    John dug out and gave me an old programme for a bill they had been on, as a supporting group, with Little Richard. On the front of the programme, John had secured Little Richard’s autograph, as any ordinary fan might do, plus his address in the USA, in case John might visit America one day. At that time, it seemed a very remote possibility.
    The Liverpool interview that stands out in my mind was with Pete Best. He was the drummer sacked by the Beatles on 16 August 1962 (see Chapter 17 ). By 1967, he had got married and was working in a bakery and he had failed to answer all the letters and messages I had sent him. In the end, I managed to see his mother, Mo Best, who did so much to help the Beatles in theirearly stages by letting them perform at the little club she had opened, the Casbah.
    I saw her in Hayman’s Green, in a big overgrown Victorian house,