Beatles (47 page)

‘People always think we must be different now, because of George. We went to a fan’s wedding the other day, and people said “How can you enjoy yourselves with the likes of us?” They expect us to wear mink all the time.

‘They
want
you to be different, I don’t know why. When Harry was still working, people used to say to him, don’t tell me
you’re
still working. Now that he’s not, they’re sure we must be different. You can’t win.’

Mr Harrison gave up working in 1965, after 31 years on the buses. ‘I was driving the big 500. That’s the limited stop bus that goes right across Liverpool, very quick, you can’t afford to be caught in any traffic. “How much are you getting for driving that 500?” George said to me one day. “Ten pounds two shillings,” I said. He said was that a day. I said no, a week. He said what a bloody liberty. I’ll give you three times that to do nothing. It’ll put another ten years on your life.’

Every summer they both open garden fêtes up and down the country, usually Roman Catholic Church ones. Mrs Harrison doesn’t go to church, but as she was born a Catholic she thinks she should help them if she can.

‘We’ve been as far south as Salisbury. What was that place north of London, Harry? Oh flippin’ heck. I’ve forgotten. Harpenden, that was it. They advertised us in the local paper that we were going to open their fête. They usually do that.

‘We judge beauty contests as well. We’ve done it for spastics, blind people, as well as churches. I don’t care what it’s for really.

‘I usually say when I’m making my little opening speech that I’m quite pleased to be here to help them. I say how George and the boys wish to be remembered to them and send their best wishes. Then we get besieged when we go round the stalls. We enjoy it. Well, anything to help.’

Ringo’s real father, who is also called Ritchie Starkey, has seen very little of Ringo since he separated from his mother when Ringo was five years old.

As far as Ringo can recall, after his early childhood he has only seen his father once. This was in 1962, before he was with the Beatles and still with Rory Storm’s group.

‘He happened to be at the Starkey’s one day when I called,’ says Ringo. ‘I wasn’t so childish by that time and didn’t feel
anything against him. He said to me, “I see you’ve got a car.” I’d just got the Zodiac. I said, “Do you want to come outside and have a look at it?” He said yes. So we went out and had a look at my car. And that was all. I haven’t seen him since or had any contact.’

His father later moved away from Liverpool. He now lives in Crewe, where he works as a confectioner in a bakery. He also has a part-time job as a window cleaner. He has remarried but has no children. Ringo is his only son, and Ringo’s children his only grandchildren. He collects their photographs, tearing them out of newspapers every time they appear. He doesn’t feel any envy at what his son has done, although he wishes his father had been alive as he was always so fond of Little Ritchie. He is referred to in his family as Big Ritchie and Ringo as Little Ritchie.

Since Ringo’s earliest days of fame he has remained hidden from any publicity and from Ringo, which is highly commendable. On the occasions when people have noticed his name and asked if he was any connection, he has said he was an uncle. But he does admit he would like to set his eyes on his son again. ‘But I’m slow. I want kicking to do anything.’ He gets annoyed when, now and again, Harry Graves, Ringo’s stepfather, through no fault of his own, appears in the papers simply as ‘Ringo’s father’. He would like to correct it, but on the other hand he doesn’t want the press to find out who he is and where he lives. He has no wish to get involved in Ringo’s fame.

Like Ringo, he’s quiet and self-deprecating. He has many of Ringo’s features, particularly the nose. And like Ringo, he hates onions, which is strange, considering they have not spent their lives together.

Ringo’s mother Elsie and his stepfather, Harry Graves, now live in a luxury, Ideal Home Exhibition bungalow in a very select part of Woolton in Liverpool. It cost £8,000. Marie Maguire, Ringo’s childhood girlfriend from the Dingle, helped his parents find it. It’s not far from the part of Woolton, the best part, where the Epsteins used to live. Elsie and Harry are the only Beatle parents still living in Liverpool.

The bungalow is set well back from the road, in almost an acre of land and is surrounded by lush lawns and rose bushes. It’s in the sort of posh suburban neighbourhood where all the houses look as if they’re uninhabited exhibition models, unlike the Dingle, where you can’t get moving for human beings hanging out of windows or congregating on doorsteps.

Inside, it is all lushly furnished, in good taste, G-plan style, all bought by Ringo. There are three gold discs and two silver Discs of Beatle records on the wall, all expensively framed. Over the TV is a wedding picture of Ritchie and Maureen and one of the children.

‘Looking back,’ says Elsie, ‘I think the biggest thrill was going down to the Palladium that first time. Sitting in the audience and listening to all the London people cheering. ‘Course, the two film premieres were nice. And the civic reception in Liverpool. They were all lovely. Everything was.

‘I will say this, he’s never got bigheaded. He’s never changed his life. Maureen’s very quiet, very natural.’

‘I think I preferred their earlier music best,’ says Harry. ‘The rock and roll stuff. But they’ve got to change, haven’t they? You’ve got to in this business. You’ve got to listen to their tunes properly now, more than once.’

Ringo’s parents were the last of the parents to be moved into a new house. ‘I always said I’d never ever move. I liked my neighbours so much down the Dingle. Even when the boys became famous, the neighbours never changed towards us. We never felt out of place. But the fans became too much. I couldn’t stand it in the end. It’s not so bad now, especially here.

‘It’s still very difficult for the boys, though. I’ve seen Ritchie sit in here till it’s dark because he’s scared to go out in the light. Isn’t it terrible? But you can’t have everything, can you?

‘I thought I’d get more privacy up here. I’ve always hated any publicity, reporters coming to see me, people asking me to go places, open things. Up here it really is quiet. Nobody knows our phone number up here.’

All the parents dislike publicity. None of them ever gives
interviews. They wouldn’t like to say anything which would annoy their sons in any way. Elsie and Harry most of all. Ringo had to ring up and tell his mother not to say that the sun shone out of his eyes all the time.

While the Harrisons love being nice to fans, Jim McCartney loves all the new good things in life and Mimi loves her dream world of John as a little boy, Elsie and Harry, in some ways, haven’t yet come to terms with it all. It’s almost as if they can’t believe it. They still tend to think twice about doing anything, although they do enjoy themselves.

Harry gave up painting and decorating for Liverpool Corporation in 1965 at the age of 51. ‘I could have gone on another 14 years if I’d wanted to. The corporation were very good. They were almost as proud of the boys as I am. I had to take jokes of course. “
You
don’t have to queue up for your wages, do you!” That sort of thing.

‘Ritchie was at me for a long time to retire, but I didn’t think I should. Then one day one of his mates saw me up a 40-foot ladder in the snow painting a council house, and he forced me to give up.

‘Time does drag by a bit. I’ve decorated the house. I might do it again now, or get somebody to do it, now we can afford it. I’ve had to get used to a new sort of life. But I think I’m settling to it now. I’ve always got the garden. Or little inside jobs.’

In the evenings, they watch the TV, play bingo or go to dinner dances. Dinner dances are new things for them and they go a lot. They’ve made friends with several business people in the area who take them to their works dances. It usually comes out who they are and they have to sign autographs. Harry quite likes it, but Elsie doesn’t.

‘When I was down at Romford recently, seeing my relations,’ says Harry, ‘I went to a school do with my nephew. They had a sort of concert. It came out who I was, you know how it is, and I ended up signing about 300 autographs. I never saw the concert yet.’

Harry has always done a bit of singing, in pubs, usually
imitating Billy Daniels. Since the Beatles, he always puts in a few of their numbers.

‘It rained for three days the other week and we just sat here, looking out at the rain. Just to give myself something to do, I thought I’d write a few songs. Do you want to see them? Here’s one, “They sit all day, thinking alone, Waiting for a ring on the telephone.” I’ve done about five songs now. I sent them to Ritchie, hoping he might put some music to them. It’s all they need, just a bit of nice music to go with them. But he sent them back. He says he can only play one instrument, so he couldn’t do any music. Well, it’s something to do, isn’t it?

‘It’s funny, after all these years, not wanting for money. After all the years of pushing along. We still go second class on trains. You get just as good a seat.

‘We do miss our old friends, but we often go and see them. Sometimes I go round the corporation sites, if I’m passing. I look up at the lads and they all shout down at me. I shout back, “That’s how it goes, lads. Keep the brush going.”’

‘It’s all out of this world, isn’t it?’ says Elsie. ‘There’s not much more they can do. They’ve done everything. The last five years has been like a fairy story. But I still worry about him, about his health, after all he went through. I know he’s a man, with little children of his own. But I still worry.’

After the death of Brian Epstein, there was some reorganization done to NEMS Enterprises. Until then they had still been an expanding business, as managers, agents and theatre owners. It had then to be decided whether to go on, or whether to stop short and consolidate what they had. With the death of Brian, even though he hadn’t done as much personally in the last year, the figurehead of the firm had gone. He’d been the main talent spotter. He’d created everything in the first place.

His mother, Mrs Queenie Epstein, inherited the bulk of his fortune while his younger brother, Clive, took over as chairman. He’d always had shares in NEMS Enterprises, from those very early Liverpool days. Of 10,000 one-pound shares in NEMS Enterprises, Brian had owned 7,000, Clive 2,000 and the Beatles 250 each.

But Clive had continued in the television business, doing little on the show-business side of NEMS. He has Brian’s good looks, and many of his mannerisms – his habit of looking slightly away while talking to you – but he is strikingly fair-haired while Brian was dark-haired.

Unlike Brian, he has always led a much quieter and less exhausting life, professionally and privately. He likes to spend as much time as possible with his wife and two children.

Robert Stigwood left the firm soon after Clive took over, which in one way solved the problem of whether to expand as a management. Stigwood had been brought in to do just this, to use his flair to find new groups and promote them. He left, taking the groups he’d brought with him.

NEMS Enterprises is now, basically, a management and agency organization, whose managing director is Vic Lewis. Geoffrey Ellis, Brian’s old friend, is still there as a director. A lot of the Beatles’ interest and money now go into Apple rather than NEMS. Apple is the company they themselves have set up, which they alone control. It was being started, mainly thanks to Paul, before Brian died, but only began to be properly organized in 1968.

Peter Brown, who was Brian’s closest friend and personal assistant, has taken over most of the personal handling of the Beatles, although it was laid down by Clive Epstein that the Beatles were free to decide all their own affairs from then on. He and NEMS would not try to take Brian’s place in that respect. This is what the Beatles now do. They run themselves. But Peter is their link with NEMS and with the outside world. Anybody wanting them, if they’re not fobbed off immediately, has to go through Peter. He does all the arranging and fixing that they want him to do. He has an ex-directory phone, his Beatles phone, whose number only they know.

Tony Barrow is still their senior press officer, although he also heads his own independent PR organization – Tony Barrow International. He is still writing Disker for the
Liverpool Echo
. He also does a lot of work coordinating the fan club, whose secretary is still Freda Kelly. It costs seven and six a year to be in the fan club, for which members get a regular bulletin and a Christmas present. There has always been a special Christmas record, made by the Beatles, exclusively for the fan club. They usually do little sketches and sing a few corny songs, as in their old Cavern days. The membership of the fan club is now just over 40,000. In 1965, at its height, it had twice that number. There are 40 regional secretaries, all voluntary, and 40 overseas branches.

The Fan Club runs at a loss and always has done. The cost of sending out 40,000 bulletins and posters several times a year alone uses up most of the subscriptions. On top of that there is the cost of the contents – the special
Sergeant Pepper
colour photo which everyone got cost £700 – plus the salaries of the two full-time fan club officials.

The
Beatles Monthly
makes a good profit. This is separate from the fan club, though most fan club members buy it, and a lot more besides. It costs two shillings a month and has a sale in Britain of 80,000. In America it comes as a supplement in
Date-book
magazine.

It has been going since August 1963 and is the longest-running fan magazine in Britain. It is not produced by NEMS but by a firm called Beat Publications, who pay for the privilege. Instead of taking a lot of the profits out of it, NEMS insists on its quality being maintained by having, for example, many full-colour pictures. It is an excellent publication. The best photographs of the Beatles appear in it, much better than any that appear in newspapers.

Very few new people have moved into the Beatles’ magic circle. Professionally, they are still associated with those who first gave them their chance when they arrived in London in 1962.