‘There was never any competition between us, either privately or publicly, though we all have our special fans.
‘If all four of us had to stand up there in front of a million fans and they had to line up behind the one they liked best, I think Paul would get most. John and George would be joint second. Ringo would be last. That’s what I think. You can tell, from the letters and the fans screaming and mobbing.
‘With John and Paul, their own fans tend not to like the other one as much. But with me, I get John fans and Paul fans as well. They all like me at the same time as their own special favourites. So perhaps if you counted second votes, I might win.
‘They all want to mother me. I know that. It brings out the maternal bit, sentimental little Ritchie. I’ve always had it, as a kid. Old women like me as well as girls. Paul has a bit of this as well.
‘That’s me, I know it. Why change it? Now and again I do feel like being different. When people keep on asking me to do films, I think I’ll pick a part as a right bastard. That would be nice. Just to see the reaction.
‘I’m not the creative one. I know that. But people expect I must want to be. They write and say why don’t I try. I did try, a couple of years ago, to write two little songs, but they were such pinches, without me really realizing it.
‘It can get you down, not being creative. You know people are thinking you’re not the creative one. But out of four people you wouldn’t expect them all to be creative, would you? Fifty per cent is enough. Think of all the groups, good groups, who can’t write anything at all.
‘I’d love to be able to, of course. It’s a bit of a bind when I realize I can’t. I’ve got a piano, but I can’t play it really. I often get a feeling. I just feel like writing a lovely song today, but I go and I can’t. I don’t know how to. I can knock out things in C, as long as it’s 12-bar. That’s a musical joke. It means nothing.
‘I do sometimes feel out of it, sitting there on the drums, only playing what they tell me to play. Often when other drummers of groups say to me, that was great, that bit, I know the others have usually told me what to do, though I’ve got the credit.
‘Making films is OK, but I get cheesed off with it sometimes. It’s just guessing, isn’t it, hoping it’s going to come off and you’ve got something good.
‘But I’m quite interested in films, seeing as how I’m not writing or creating that way, I might as well get in there if I can.
‘I know people said I was OK in A Hard Day’s Night, but I had no idea what was going on. That little scene with the little boy on the canal that they said was good. I was stoned out of my mind when I did that. I had a real thick head. I’d been up all the night before. I just came on with me mac on, feeling dead weary. I couldn’t hardly move. Dick had to shout everything at me. But it did turn out OK. That bit where I kicked the stone along, that was my gag. Yeh, it was. But everything else was Dick’s idea. I was still in a haze.
‘I had lots of films offered after that, but they were all big star things, expecting me to carry the show. I nearly agreed to one about Sherlock Holmes, with me as Dr Watson, but I thought it was too big. I don’t want to try and carry anything yet. It would be awful if it was a flop. But a minor part would be OK, then I wouldn’t have the responsibility. If that was OK, I could try bigger stuff.
‘I took Candy because it wasn’t too big a part, and there was them other stars — Marlon Brando and Richard Burton. I thought, they’ll be carrying the film, not me, and I’ll learn from them. It was only a ten-day part, as the Spanish gardener, with not much dialogue.
‘I can’t act, of course. I don’t know how to. I watch these actors on television. You can tell they’re actors, because their faces are going all the time. You should see their eyes. I can’t do all that. I just don’t do anything. I don’t know. Perhaps that’s acting.’
He says he wouldn’t mind if it all just disappeared tomorrow. He still feels he’s lucky and would be able to earn a bit of bread somehow, even if it meant going back to being a fitter.
‘No, I probably wouldn’t have been a fitter today. I gave that up before I finished my time, to join the groups. If Rory Storm hadn’t come along and then the Beatles, I’d have continued running around in the Teddy Boy gangs. Today, well, I’d probably just be a labourer.
‘I’m glad I’m not, of course. It’ll be nice to be part of history, some sort of history anyway. What I’d like to be is in school history books and be read by kids.’
It was forty years ago, and counting, that my biography of the Beatles was first published, on September 30, l968. In a trade advertisment, Heinemann, the publisher, was doing its best to make it sound terribly exciting…
The Beatles at home with their families in 1968, taken by ace photographer, Ringo Starr, especially for the first edition of this book:
Paul McCartney and Jane Asher.
Bottom: the John Lennons: Julian, Cynthia and John.
The Ringo Starrs: Jason, Maureen, Zak and Ringo. A bit grainy as Ringo had to set the timer on his camera and rush back to his position.
Pattie and George Harrison.
Me, right, with Neil Aspinall in Abbey Road, 1967, listening to the Beatles working on Sergeant Pepper.
Postcard from John in India, 1968, out there with the Marahishi. Note the joke. It is signed John and Cyn.
The only photos, alas, that I’ve been able to find of me actually with the Beatles during my l8 months work on the book — and even then it’s only a photocopy. Thanks all the same to the Cheshire Observer of Sept 1, l967, for snapping the Beatles through a railway window carriage when their train stopped at Chester, on the way to meet the Maharishi in Bangor. Top, me, right, with George. Below — the back of my head as I sit facing Paul, Ringo and John.
Fred Lennon, holding up his number as a prisoner aboard a liberty ship. He was about 40 at the time, the same age as John was when he was killed. The resemblance is striking. Fred gave me this photo, but too late to include it in the first edition.
I tried to buy the original artwork for the first UK edition of the book in l968, done by the inimitable Alan Aldridge — who lived in the next street to me at the time, and played in the same football team. But by the time I’d made him a half-decent offer, he had already sold it to a Japanese collector. However, first editions of the book itself are now greatly prized.
On holiday in Portugal in 1968. From left to right: Me, holding my son, Jake, Linda, Paul, Linda’s daughter, Heather, my wife, Margaret and our daughter, Caitlin.
Postcards from Paul, sent to me in Portugal.
end bit
Doing a biography of living people has the difficulty that it is all still happening. It is very dangerous to pin down facts and opinions, because they are shifting all the time. They probably won’t believe half the things they said in the last four chapters by the time you’ve read them. They might have found new houses as well.
But at least with living people you can get it all firsthand, as long as they are willing to give up the time. In this case they were, though having to think about their Beatlemania days bored them stiff. Luckily, this is the most chronicled part of their lives so far, but as this is meant primarily to be a book of record, I have tried to give an outline of those Beatlemania years.