We all know the Beatles were born in Liverpool. As a fan, it was interesting to see where they grew up, Here are their stories, in the order that they joined the band.
John Winston Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, at the Liverpool Maternity Hospital on Oxford Street (the building is now owned by the University of Liverpool). His parents were Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman of Irish descent, and Julia Stanley Lennon. Alf was at sea, and not around for John's birth. Julia named her son after his paternal grandfather, and Winston Churchill. There was a lot of that going around during the war.
Julia's family plays a major role in John's life. She was the fourth of five daughters of George Ernest "Pop" Stanley and Annie Jane Millward Stanley. Julia was her father's favorite. An irrepressible redhead, she was known as high-spirited, impulsive, and musical - she could play banjo, ukulele and accordion, and loved to sing.
The five Stanley sisters were Mary, born 1906, known as "Mimi;" Elizabeth, born 1908, called "Mater;" Anne ("Nanny"), born 1911; Julia (“Judy”), born 1914; and Harriet ("Harrie"), born 1916. Mimi, being the oldest, was expected to care for her younger sisters, and by adulthood she had had enough of that. Mimi decided not to get married and have children of her own.
Alf Lennon first noticed Julia at the Trocadero Club, a converted cinema in Liverpool , when they were teenagers. Julia loved to go out dancing, and she frequented the dance halls and cinemas. He met her again in Sefton Park, where he and a friend had gone looking to meet girls. He told her she looked lovely, and sat on a bench next to her. Julia said his hat looked silly, and asked him to take it off, He did, and threw it into the lake. Apparently, they were kindred spirits. Alf loved to dance and sing, as well.
John's father, Alfred Lennon
Possibly because Alf found employment as a merchant seaman and was away a lot of the time, these two hung around together for eleven years before December 1938, when Julia dared Alf to marry her and he complied. None of her family attended the wedding, because she hadn't bothered to tell them about it. Her father thought the young sailor was not an appropriate partner for his favorite daughter, and had threatened to disown her if she ever cohabitated with a man.
On the wedding night, Julia went back to her parents' home (where she waved her marriage license in her father's face) and Alf went to his boarding house; the next day, he went back to sea for three months.
When Alf retuned to Liverpool, he moved into the Stanley family home at 9 Newcastle Road, where Pop demanded that he prove he could financially support Julia. He auditioned for local theater managers as an entertainer, without success, and eventually signed on to go back to sea. By then, World War II had started, and the Merchant Marine was busy with wartime shipping. Julia learned she was pregnant in January 1940.
After John was born, Alf rarely saw him, although he regularly sent money home. However, in 1943, Alf jumped ship and disappeared. The money stopped coming.
Julia, understandably, did not love living with her infirm parents along with her small son, not knowing where her errant husband was and probably enduring a lot of "I told you so" from her dad. She moved to a tiny house owned by Mimi, along with John, who was three years old. Julia was still a vivacious young woman, and she soon got herself a steady boyfriend, a Welsh soldier on leave. Inevitably, she got pregnant.
Julia’s soldier boyfriend did offer to stay with her and take care of their child, but he didn’t want another man’s son around, which was a non-starter for her - she wasn’t about to give John up. The Stanleys, mostly Mimi who appeared to be the family “fixer,” arranged for Julia to give birth in a home for wayward girls and put her new daughter, whom she named Victoria Elizabeth, up for adoption.
Julia was devastated by the loss of her daughter. She dealt with it by refusing to stay home and brood, going out socializing and dancing most nights, sometimes leaving John alone at home. After a year, she formed a relationship with a man named John Dykins (who was called "Bobby" for whatever reason), a good-looking, well-dressed wine steward at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool. It wasn’t long before she had moved into a small flat in Gateacre with her new partner and John. Julia’s family claimed that Bobby was violent when drunk, and hit Julia on occasion.
Little John has already been through a lot.
Julia's oldest sister Mimi, who hadn't wanted to live as a housewife, ended up marrying George Toogood Smith, whose family ran a dairy farm in the village of Woolton right outside Liverpool. She met George when he delivered milk to the hospital where she worked as a trainee nurse, and for seven years he was very persistent. Mimi and George went off to live in Woolton, a nice area, where they bought a semi-detached house in a middle-class neighborhood. The home's address was 251 Menlove Avenue, and they named it "Mendips." To help pay for the house, they often took in student lodgers from the university; at first Mimi insisted on girls, but later decided that young men were much less trouble.
After Julia moved in with Bobby, her family was scandalized that she was living with a man while still married to another man, and exposing her little son to the relationship. After considerable pressure from them, including contacts with social services in which the family complained that Julia was leaving John unattended at times and the boy was sleeping in the same bed as the adults, Julia reluctantly handed the care of John over to Mimi and George, who had a comparatively large house and no children of their own. John went to live at Mendips, and Julia subsequently had two daughters with Bobby, Julia and Jacqueline. The family moved to a council house on Blomfield Road in Allerton, about a mile away (near Paul’s house on Forthlin Road). Bobby managed several bars in Liverpool, generating an income that allowed Julia to stay home and look after the girls.
"Mendips," 251 Menlove Avenue, Woolton, Liverpool.
John's bedroom was above the front door.
Alf Lennon reappeared when John was five, learning only then that Julia had moved on, which he probably should have expected. He requested to take his son on an outing to Blackpool, which was permitted by the Smiths. Instead, he was planning to run away with the boy to New Zealand. When Julia heard that Alf had taken John, she tracked them down at Alf's brother's home. There's a disputed story that little John was asked to choose between his parents, and decided to stay with his father until he saw his mum leaving, then ran after her. A possible witness said that never happened, and Alf agreed to return John to Julia. John was taken right back to Mendips and left with Aunt Mimi, and Alf subsequently lost all contact with the family for the next 20 years.
John didn't reconnect much with Julia until he was a preteen (Mimi and the family didn't want him hanging around while his mother was "living in sin,") when he began spending time with her. He would skip school and go straight to her house in Blomfield Road, sometimes staying overnight. Bobby Dykins, whom John called “Twitchy” due to a facial tic, would give him pocket money. Most important of all, Julia indulged John’s interest in music. She taught her only son to play banjo before eventually buying his first guitar (by mail order, with it shipped to her place because Aunt Mimi disapproved.) He did have a steady father figure in Uncle George, who roped him into doing the daily crossword puzzle and bought him a harmonica, which he used to drive everyone crazy.
The only known photograph of John and Julia together.
John had already been through the loss of his parents, and then Uncle George died suddenly in 1955 of a liver hemorrhage. John, fourteen years old, was off in Scotland visiting his cousin. He didn't learn that Uncle George had died until he returned home. He sought more solace at Julia's, although he couldn't live there permanently because there wasn't enough room for him (some of the family recalled that Dykins didn’t want John living there). He would listen to the latest music with his mother, practice on the banjo and later his own guitar, and play with his little sisters.
John was a charismatic boy, and people were naturally drawn to him, rather like his parents. He loved to write and draw, usually nonsensical scenarios from his own mind. He had a wild sense of humor and would do anything for a laugh. John had his cousins and a lot of friends who would play in the back yard at Mendips or over at Strawberry Field, the nearby orphanage (John often went to the extensive, wooded grounds to be alone with his own thoughts.) He was friends with a neighbor boy, Ivan Vaughan, who was nearly two years younger and lived in the house right behind Mendips. When they were teenagers, Ivan would introduce John to his school friend, Paul McCartney.
Ivan's house behind Mendips' backyard.
After John and Paul met, they would get together to practice on their guitars. Paul often rode his bicycle over to Woolton, about a mile across a golf course from his place, and went to the back door (the front door was for only the most important visitors, certainly not for John’s friends) to greet Mimi, who was usually in the kitchen. "Hello Mimi," he would say, "can I come in?" "Certainly not," she would reply, before calling "JOHN! Your little friend is here!" Mimi didn't think Paul was from the right class to hang out with John, and she worried about the boys damaging her stuff, so she decreed that they could practice in John's bedroom or out on the porch, but noplace else.
Mimi's kitchen windows that Paul would walk by to enter through the back door
Paul was able to use his natural charm and the politeness instilled in him by his mother to get Mimi to eventually accept him, but George Harrison was another matter; he was far too scruffy for her taste, and she forbid him to set foot in her house. John could only have George over if they stayed on the porch.
John had another major loss occur at Mendips. On July 15, 1958, Julia was hit by a drunk driver on Menlove Avenue while walking to the bus stop after visiting Mimi. She was killed instantly. John, aged seventeen, was over at Julia's house with his sisters at the time. On top of everything else, he never got over Julia's death. His bond with Paul strengthened, because Paul could understand; he had lost his own mother to cancer two years earlier.
John left Mendips in 1960 after he was expelled from art college, and moved in with his friend Stu Sutcliffe. He moved back temporarily after he married his art school girlfriend, Cynthia Powell, who was pregnant with his child. (Mimi did not attend the wedding as she didn’t approve; likely she wouldn’t have considered any girl good enough for John. Paul, George, and Brian Epstein were present to support him.) Mimi moved herself upstairs and gave her large back room over to the young couple. However, Cynthia and Mimi eventually clashed, and the Lennons moved out.
When the Beatles got huge, Mimi complained about fans hanging around the house at all hours, and John bought her a (very expensive) new seaside home in Poole. Upon moving out, she sold Mendips. Mimi lived in Poole until her death in 1991; she outlived John by eleven years.
In 2002, Yoko Ono bought Mendips and gave it to the National Trust. The house was meticulously restored to the way it was when John lived here with Aunt Mimi. The Trust operates a tour that takes you through this house, and Paul's on Forthlin Road in Allerton. They request no photos inside the houses. On the tour, you can buy an excellent little guidebook (there is one for Paul's house too).
James McCartney, always known as “Jim,” was born in Everton (a northern suburb of Liverpool) in 1902. He was of Irish ancestry and had five sisters and two brothers; two additional siblings died in infancy. Although they didn’t have much money, his large, close family owned an old second-hand piano, and as a boy Jim taught himself to play the tunes he’d heard the night before while working as a lamplighter at the music hall (although he’d broken his right eardrum in a fall at age ten). All of the McCartneys loved to gather for sing-alongs generally orchestrated by Jim and other family members.
Jim left school at fourteen and went to work at a cotton exhange, where he stayed as his day job. At age 28, he was promoted to salesman. Toward the end of World War I, Jim and his brother Jack set up a swing band, with Jack on trombone and Jim playing piano and trumpet. Their gimmick was to wear black harlequin masks, and they were called “The Masked Melody Makers.” Eventually that got old, and they morphed into Jim Mac’s Jazz Band, wearing dinner jackets with paper shirtfronts and cuffs.
During World War II, the cotton exchange shut down, and Jim found employment in a munitions factory. He was too old to be called for service, and exempt from National Service for being deaf in one ear.
One night, Jim went to visit his sister Jin (her full name was Jane Virginia) in Walton. At the time Jin had a boarder, Mary Patricia Mohin, staying at her house. Mary was a maternity nurse at Walton Hospital.
Mary’s parents had come to Liverpool from Ireland; in 1919 her mother died giving birth to a younger sibling. Her father went back to Ireland and returned with a new wife, who didn’t get along with her stepchildren, especially Mary. At the time, there were not a lot of ways for a girl to escape her family situation. Mary moved out with relatives at age 14 and went into training to become a nurse. At 24, she had worked her way up to a position as a senior nursing sister in the maternity ward at Walton Hospital in Liverpool.
While Jim was visiting his sister’s house that night, there was an air raid. Mary and Jim spent the evening huddled together downstairs in the house. After that, it appears they were inseparable. On 15 April 1941 they got married at St. Swithins Roman Catholic Chapel in Liverpool . Mary was 31, and Jim was 38. She was Catholic; he was an agnostic Protestant, so it appears she called the shots about the wedding location. The couple moved into furnished rooms at Sunbury Road, Anfield and were living there when their first son, James Paul McCartney, was born at Walton Hospital on June 18, 1942. The younger James was immediately called by his middle name, and never went by anything else.
Mary and Jim with their new son, who is already singing
Mary didn’t think their rooms were sufficient for a growing family, and she got them moved to a council house. She gave up her job for a time, and a second son, Peter Michael, was born in January 1944 (like his older brother, he was called by his middle name). Both boys were baptized Catholic under their mother’s influence, but they didn’t go to Catholic schools.
Due to Jim’s limited pay, Mary went back to nursing, becoming a part-time health visitor and then a domiciliary midwife. As she was responsible for delivering babies in a certain region, she got a council house for a nominal rent at 72 Western Avenue in Speke, a new housing development near the Liverpool airport. Mary traveled to her patients by bicycle, as the family couldn’t afford a car.
Little Paul and brother Michael.
Mary had aspirations for her sons. She wanted them to move up in life, and encouraged them to speak properly, which resulted in their having less broad Liverpool accents. She dreamt that Paul would become a doctor; he was a bright boy, and it wasn’t out of the question. Paul, however, found another interest, and could often be found listening to his father play music. One of the earliest bits of advice his dad gave him was “Learn to play the piano, son, you’ll get invited to parties.”
Jim wanted Paul to learn the professional way, by getting lessons, but he didn’t like the structure and continued to play by ear, the way his father had. Paul liked to sing, and Jim taught the boys harmonies. At age ten, Paul was rejected for the choir at the towering Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, but got in at St. Barnabas Catholic Church on Penny Lane.
Paul, age 10, with fellow choirboys checking out a replica of the Crown.
Did you know Paul was one of 20 Liverpool kids to win an essay contest about Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation?
By 1954, Paul had passed the difficult 11-plus exam and was attending the most prestigious grammar school in town, the Liverpool Institute for Boys (Mike accomplished the same feat a couple of years later). He was becoming more proficient at piano and trumpet, the instruments he had access to at home. He developed an interest, like other local boys, in Elvis Presley and other American rock performers; he especially liked Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard. On his long bus ride home to Speke from school Paul met another boy, a year behind him at the Liverpool Institute, who happened to own a guitar. They talked music, discovered a mutual interest, and became close friends. The younger boy’s name was George Harrison. He would become a frequent visitor, playing guitar while Paul played on his family’s piano.
Paul with classmates at the Liverpool Institute
In early 1956, Mary got a promotion with the NHS. The family moved to a larger, modern council house in Allerton, at 20 Forthlin Road. It had three bedrooms, an indoor loo, room for growing boys, and Mary had the only telephone in the block so she could answer calls about her patients. By this time, she was making a good bit more than what Jim brought in as a cotton salesman. The McCartneys’ small but comfortable house was decorated in a patchwork style, with floor rugs sewn together to make a larger carpet, curtains handmade by one of Jim’s sisters, and three different wallpapers in the parlor (chosen by the boys) because the family could only afford to buy odd end rolls. But the McCartneys adored 20 Forthlin Road; it was just what they needed, and they made it their beloved home.
So here we have young Paul, living in a cozy working-class rental house with his loving, intact family, making music with his dad and his mate George, very close to his younger brother, going to an excellent school and getting good grades to make his mum proud. A definite contrast with John’s chaotic childhood, although the McCartneys’ fortunes were about to flip.
In the summer of 1955, Mary began experiencing pains in her chest. She at first put it down to indigestion. It was another year before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was taken to Northern Hospital and underwent a mastectomy, which actually exacerbated the condition. Paul and Mike were brought to visit her once in hospital before they were sent to stay with their Uncle Joe (Jim’s youngest brother) and Aunt Joan. Mary died on October 31, 1956. Paul was fourteen, Mike twelve.
For his fourteenth birthday in June, Paul had received his own trumpet from his father. Shortly after his mother’s death, he asked if he could return it to the music store and trade it in for a guitar, which Jim allowed; the lad wanted an instrument that would allow him to sing while playing. The guitar became Paul’s obsession. After he restrung it for left-handed play, his grades fell because he spent all his time working with it. He would even bring his guitar to school, where he would perform for his mates in between classes. In the meantime, Jim was learning how to be both parents for his newly motherless sons, who were probably something of a handful. Paul’s aunts were over often, helping out with the cooking and cleaning. The McCartneys managed to hold onto the Forthlin Road house after Mary’s death, with family assisting on the rental payments. Paul would live there until he left home for London in 1963.
Paul with guitar, in the backyard at Forthlin Road. Photo by Mike McCartney
20 Forthlin Road backyard, 2024
In July 1957, Paul’s classmate Ivan Vaughan introduced him to John Lennon, another guitar fanatic. John eventually asked Paul to join his band, the Quarrymen, and Paul agreed. Somewhere along the line, the boys learned they were both writing their own songs, and they began to write together. They would skip school or get together nearby (John’s art college was helpfully next door to the Liverpool Institute), go to Paul’s house while his dad was at work, and spend the day writing and practicing songs. Paul’s grades inevitably plummeted (John’s were not high enough to plummet). Paul was inexorably drawn to the life of a performing musician, which his father (who wasn’t unfamiliar with the profession) was pretty much certain would never allow his son to support his own family someday. Jim encouraged Paul to go to college and become a teacher, the only other profession that seemed to interest him.
Paul with his father Jim and brother Mike, 1962
At the height of Beatlemania, Paul dealt with the onslaught of fans hanging round his family home by purchasing a two-story mock Tudor house in Heswall, Cheshire for his father, and sneaking in the move in the dead of night. But Jim could now enjoy a quiet retirement, and his own large garden.
Paul and John at Forthlin Road, writing “I Saw Her Standing There.”
Photo by Mike McCartney
.
Paul’s brother Mike had his own success with a musical comedy group named “The Scaffold.” They had a UK number one hit with a song called “Lilly The Pink.” Mike used the name “Mike McGear” professionally, to avoid his big brother’s coattails.
A family named Jones leased 20 Forthlin Road after the McCartneys left, and bought it in a rent-to-own scheme sometime later. They lived there until 1995, when they put it up for sale and the National Trust purchased it as a “place of historic interest.” It was renovated back to the fifties when the McCartneys lived there, with assistance from Mike McCartney, whose photos decorate the walls.
According to his birth certificate, George Harrison was born in the early hours of February 25, 1943. When he was an adult, George learned that he had been subject to a wartime clerical error, and his birth actually occurred in the last hour of February 24. He found it humorous that he could claim two birthdays, but as he had for most of his life, he celebrated on the 25th.
Unlike his future bandmates John and Paul, George was born at home rather than in a hospital. Home at the time was 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool.
It’s obvious how small this house is, compared to the homes of John and Paul. While it’s still a private residence and not available to tour, recently a blue plaque was added designating George’s birthplace. He would live the first six years of his life in the same house. It had an outdoor toilet, and the only heat came from a single coal fire.
George was the youngest of four children born to Harold Hargreaves Harrison and Louise French Harrison, who met in 1927 and were married in May 1931. Harold was a former steward on the White Star line (yes, the Titanic line) who worked in Liverpool as a bus driver, and Louise was a shop assistant. Their eldest child, also named Louise, was twelve years older than her youngest brother..
The Harrison siblings: Peter, Louise, George, and Harry
George, although the youngest, was an extremely independent boy. From an early age, he knew his own mind, and once he was set on something he wasn’t about to be dissuaded. He didn’t like to be told what he could and couldn’t do, and insisted on being free to express himself in whatever manner he chose. Although more than bright enough to pass the 11-plus exam and win himself a place at the Liverpool Institute for Boys, George passed only one school qualification, in art. He once got a report card that highlighted how disappointing his performance was, and felt so guilty that he couldn’t bring himself to show it to his parents. Instead, he went out to a field and burned it.
When George was six years old, his family scored a three-bedroom council house at 25 Upton Green in the new housing development at Speke (which was actually a very tough area, but the home was a major step up for the Harrisons.)
25 Upton Green, Speke, Liverpool.
In recent years the house in Upton Green was purchased by an American Beatles fan, who opened it as an accommodation rentable through Air BnB. So if George is your favorite Beatle (and even if he isn’t), you can go to Liverpool and stay in his old house.
In his grammar school years, George would walk a short distance to the bus stop where he would catch a city bus downtown to the Liverpool Institute. George hated school, which was not surprising as he didn’t like being told what to do. He was considered an unruly student, and spent much of his time drawing guitars on his schoolbooks. George was frankly obessed with guitars, a condition which came about after he was riding his bicycle past a house and heard someone inside playing Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” He loathed the Liverpool Institute, and the contempt was mutual. George’s teachers wrote him off as being destined for factory work.
George, his hair, and his friend Arthur Kelly.
On the bus, George noticed another boy wearing the same school uniform, who struck him as odd because he would sit by himself on the bus and laugh out loud. This boy’s name was Paul McCartney, he also lived in Speke, and he was a year ahead of George at the Institute. (George apparently once said they met in 1954, which would make him about 11 and Paul 12.) The boys were different in many ways; besides being older, Paul generally did his homework, got good grades and kept his nose clean, none of which were characteristic of George. However, they soon discovered they had similar musical tastes. Paul could play piano, and was learning to play the trumpet, which he did not particularly enjoy. George was guitar obsessed; his ever- supportive parents had even bought him one. Paul didn’t own a guitar until he was fourteen, but his innate gifts allowed him to master the instrument intuitively, and before he had his own guitar he used to borrow one from a friend. He might have also played George’s, turning it upside down so he could play left-handed.
The boys swapped notes, studied chord charts and listened to records, learning to play their favorite songs; Paul even dabbled in composing original tunes. They once traveled across the city to meet a man who supposedly knew a magical new chord. George’s parents, far from being dismayed at their youngest son’s obsession, were extremely supportive. The boys were welcome to play and sing at Upton Green whenever they wanted. This continued after Paul moved from Speke to Allerton. (After Paul’s mother died, it appears Louise Harrison was a comfort to him. In an interview during Beatlemania, when asked to name his mum’s favorite Beatle George replied with his typical dry wit, “It’s Paul. But I like to think I come in second.”)
In July 1957, Paul met John Lennon and was asked to join his band, the Quarrymen. Playing lead guitar with the group during an appearance at Liverpool’s New Clubmore Hall on October 18, 1957 (according to drummer Colin Hanton, this was the first time the Quarrymen were paid for a gig), Paul had an attack of nerves and messed up his big solo on “Guitar Boogie.” At that point, Paul made a decision that he preferred to play rhythm guitar. That meant he had to find someone else who could play lead, and he had just the person in mind.
Paul then began an effort to get John to bring his friend George aboard as a third guitarist. John was nonplussed; George was only fourteen, and he looked a lot younger. John was seventeen, just starting at art college, and not thrilled about the idea of having a little kid in his band (he later said “George looked even younger than Paul, and Paul looked about ten with his baby face.”)
Young George in Upton Green.
Paul arranged for George to play for John at a local skiffle club. John was unmoved; he still thought George was too young. Undeterred, Paul again got them together, this time on the upper deck of a local bus, where George played the lead guitar part of the instrumental “Raunchy.” It seemed to turn the tide; while John didn’t completely give in at first, George was allowed to socialize with the group and fill in on guitar as needed. Just after George turned fifteen, the three guitarists played at the wedding of Paul’s cousin Ian Harris, which resulted in the first known photos of three future Beatles performing together.
Rosy-cheeked wedding singers on March 8, 1958.
Photo by Mike McCartney
Another advantage to having George in the group was his mother, who was happy to let the boys rehearse at her home and sometimes doled out small glasses of whiskey.
George’s mum was always generous with support and whiskey.
Once George was in, the nucleus of the Beatles had formed. Eventually, as happens with bands, the rest of the Quarrymen dropped away, until the only one left (besides John) was the original drummer, Colin Hanton. Even he left after clashing with John and Paul; the bond between these two was described as such that no one clashed with either and remained in the band for long. John, Paul and George, however, kept pressing ahead, as they had a calling. But there was still a piece of the puzzle missing, and would be for a couple more years.
Elsie Gleave, who worked as a waitress, married Richard Starkey, a baker, in 1936. They lived in Dingle, a working-class area in Liverpool’s inner city. On July 7, 1940, they had a son, also called Richard and known as “Ritchie.” Like George, Ritchie was born at home, in this house at 9 Madryn Street. The house still stands; it was scheduled for demolition not long ago but was saved for development.
9 Madryn Street, the humble beginnings of the oldest Beatle.
Dingle in those days was a rough area, but Ritchie’s parents were both keen ballroom dancers. They loved swing music and going down the pub. Unfortunately, after Ritchie was born and curtailed Elsie’s nightlife activities, Richard Sr turned out to be much more interested in dancing and drinking than in his family. In 1944, Richard and Elsie separated. Young Ritchie saw very little of his father after that.
When Ritchie was five, he and his mother, unable to keep up the rent as a single parent, moved to this house at 10 Admiral Grove, not far from his birthplace. The house had two small bedrooms, and no indoor toilet or washroom.
Elsie had to take many jobs to support herself and her son. Eventually she was hired as a barmaid at the Empress pub, just at the end of Admiral Grove. The building is still there…
At age six, Ritchie came down with appendicitis and was sent to a hospital for surgery. He developed peritonitis and was in a coma for several days, during which Elsie was told three times that little Ritchie wouldn’t survive the night. In order to recover, he had to spend months in the hospital, and left far behind on his education. At the age of eight, he was functionally illiterate.
Young Ritchie Starkey and his mother, Elsie
Ritchie’s mother kept him home, where he learned to read and write from a neighbor, Marie Maguire, who tutored him (although he admits he never learned to spell.) By the time he finally went to school, he had been outside the system for so long that he had great difficulty adapting and eventually just refused to go. He would instead hang out in Sefton Park, or sit at home and listen to his stepfather’s jazz records while keeping time on biscuit tins.
Elsie married Harry Graves, who worked as a painter at the American Burtonwood Air Force Base in Warrington. He was also a big-band music and vocals enthusiast. Ritchie loved Harry, and considered him his father, although he always called him by his first name.
Harry, Elsie and Ritchie at Admiral Grove
In 1953 at age thirteen, Ritchie contracted tuberculosis and had to be isolated in a sanitarium. He was saved by the advent of antibiotics, but kept in a convalescent home outside the city for TWO YEARS. One bright spot in this story is that the staff would keep the kids busy with activities, one of which was a rudimentary band, and Ritchie got the job of banging on a metal cabinet with a mallet. He discovered he enjoyed it.
By the time Ritchie emerged from the sanitarium, he was fifteen years old. He was too poorly educated for a basic clerical job, and too sickly for manual labor. He worked briefly for British Rail (he was laid off after proving unable to pass the physical examination for a railroad worker), then as a waiter on a ferry. Harry eventually found him a five-year apprenticeship as a machinist in a manufacturing firm, Henry Hunt and Sons, near to his home in the Dingle. While working there, Ritchie befriended fellow employee Roy Trafford, who had a guitar and was into skiffle. Before long, they were rehearsing in the plant’s cellar on their lunch breaks. Ritchie improvised by banging on chairs and biscuit tins.
Before long, Roy and Ritchie started a skiffle band with another co-worker, Eddie Miles, eventually calling themselves “Eddie Clayton and the Clayton Squares” and comprising two guitars and a washboard. On Christmas Day 1957, Harry Graves gifted his stepson a second-hand drum kit (that he’d gone all the way to London to get). This was enough to get Ritchie off to the races; the Eddie Clayton band went on to book prestigious local gigs until the skiffle craze began to fade in the face of rock n’ roll - and then, Eddie dissolved the band after getting married. Ritchie joined a new band, called Darktown Skiffle Group.
Because the kits were so expensive, drummers were scarce and in great demand among Liverpool’s nascent rock n’ roll scene. After meeting during a talent show, Ritchie was recruited by Alan Caldwell’s Texans, a skiffle group that needed someone with a proper drum kit to transition into a full-fledged rock band. Shortly after Ritchie joined in 1959, the group changed its name to Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Its leader Alan (aka Rory) wanted all the members to use stage names and tasked Ritchie to come up with one. Referring to his habit of wearing multiple rings on both hands, which had already earned him the nickname “Rings,” he dubbed himself “Ringo Starr” in an attempt to cultivate a “cowboy” persona.
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Ringo Starr at left
By 1960, the Hurricanes had become Liverpool’s leading band (well behind them in the hierarchy was a drummerless four-man group led by one John Winston Lennon, then going by the name “The Silver Beetles”). In May, the Hurricanes were offered a three-month residency at a Butlins holiday camp in Wales. The pay involved was so good that Ritchie decided to quit his five-year apprenticeship (with four years in, much to his parents’ dismay). While at Butlins, the Hurricanes turned down an offer for a highly-coveted residency in Hamburg, Germany - an opportunity that went to the aforementioned Silver Beetles, who at that time acquired a drummer named Pete Best and began calling themselves simply “The Beatles.”
After the Butlins season ended, the Hurricanes would end up in Hamburg themselves, where they shared the bill at the Kaiserkeller nightclub with the Beatles - who would finally become aware of Ringo Starr, the Hurricanes’ drummer. History had been made.
