As a child I lived a life of uninterrupted calm. I don’t recall feeling desperately sad or unusually happy. Unfortunately, that calm was suddenly shattered when my mother Julia died before my fourteenth birthday. Only those who have experienced such a tragedy can imagine how awful it is. I don’t like talking about it because it’s too great a sorrow to be publicized, but I hope all of you who have two parents living will appreciate them.
After Mum Julia died, I went to live with my Aunt Mimi. She’s the greatest, bless her heart. We have a little house, with frilly curtains at the windows, and an old apple tree in the front garden. When I’m away from home, I think about Aunt Mimi and her frilly curtains and her apple tree. I realize I’m fortunate, because though Mum was taken away from me, I was given something precious in return.
Growing up in Liverpool isn’t much different from growing up in any other part of the country. Life there is a bit tougher than in the south, because jobs are sometimes hard to find. It isn’t a beautiful city architecturally, but it’s got great atmosphere. The huge grey buildings that merge with the River Mersey; the cobbled streets; the unsightly tracks that used to carry the old trains; the countless jazz cellars beneath the warehouses around the dockland.
If you are in the heart of Liverpool very late at night, you might hear a girl singing with a group of fellows harmonizing for her, as they make their way through the narrow streets between the high buildings to the coffee stall down by the Pierhead.
The Pierhead is where the boats come in from Birkenhead and Tyneside, and where the tramps and the teenagers, the young and the old meet in the early hours of the morning.
I went to school at Dovedale Primary, and Quarry Bank Grammar. Reading, writing and ‘rithmetic over, I went on to the Liverpool College of Art. Art was always my best subject at school. I failed miserably at math and science, and I wasn’t too hot at history. According to my school reports I could have done better if I’d tried harder, and I wish now that I had. I think kids go to school too young. At 14 or 15 I couldn’t have cared less whether Richard II and Bolingbroke were having a burn-up, or how many square Xs I’d need to solve my algebra problem. I cared about music and girls, and saving up for a packet of fags (cigarettes).
When I was at Dovedale, I knew George Harrison but only by sight, because of our age difference of nearly three years. A big gap when you’re as young as we were. Later, George went on to Liverpool Institute and I went to Quarry Bank. It was several years later that we got really keen on music, and Paul and I started teaching ourselves the guitar. After school each night, we’d rush through our tea and then meet, and practice our act. When we felt we were good enough, we went for an audition, calling ourselves The Nurk Twins.
“Very good,” the agent said after our performance. “I’ll book you for a show in Reading.” “Great,” we yelled, going potty with joy. We sang several songs in that show and a small proportion of the population of Reading went mad on us.
It was then we started dreaming of a future in show business. Before that, we hadn’t dared to think about one. Unfortunately, though, the Nurk Twins didn’t altogether catch on, and we felt we’d do much better in a larger group rather than as a duo. So we started and finished several groups until we got one together that had the beginnings of a new sound.
By then George had joined us, and so had a pal of ours, who is now dead, Stuart Sutcliffe. We began to do well as semi-pros. Then one day, our big break came with an offer to appear at The Star Club in Hamburg. This is a kind of super-Cavern, where just about everyone who is anyone on the Liverpool scene has played at some time or another.
On our first visit there, George became very interested in the frauleins, and learned to speak their language in a fantastically quick time. I think by the way Paul’s eyes kept flashing, he too liked the German girls, but me, I had different ideas. My girl was at home in Liverpool. I’d met her one day and we’d suddenly fallen in love.
A little while later, we were married. I love her. As I’m away such a lot, she lives with Aunt Mimi. I’d like to tell you more about her, but I’ve this old-fashioned idea that marriage is a private thing, too precious to be publicly discussed. So forgive me and understand.
As I was saying, we appeared at the Star Club three times. The second time, another group were on the same bill, and we were all very taken up with the style of their drummer. He had a special feel for his rhythm, and was the greatest drummer we’d ever seen perform. His name of course, was Ringo Starr.
We didn’t get to talk to him during that show, and it wasn’t until a few months after, back in Liverpool, that we actually met him. After our first visit to Hamburg we came home without Stuart Sutcliffe, because he had decided to stay in Germany permanently. It was a sad blow to us when we heard of his sudden death.
When we were in Germany we thought up the title Beatles, but the Germans couldn’t pronounce it, so they called us the Beat Boys and it wasn’t until we tied up with Ringo that we officially joined the ranks of the creepy crawlies.
Note: John Lennon was born on October 9 1940, in Liverpool, England. Famed singer and Songwriter who founded the Beatles, a band that impacted the popular music scene like no other before, or since. On December 8 1980, lone gunman Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back four times in the Archway of the Dakota as Lennon and Ono returned to their Manhattan apartment from the Record Plant.
Extracted by: Vijith Fernando, Bope North, Galle.