Beatles (61 page)

When they are all together, he does tend to be the withdrawn one, stuck out on drums while the rest crowd the microphone. He’s always said he wasn’t the talking one. But his jokes and observations were as wise and witty as theirs. The difference is that he doesn’t keep up the patter, the way Paul can, or the way George does when he’s on his hobby horse, or the way John can make daft jokes and observations all the time. Ringo keeps quiet, until he’s spoken to.

In repose he does
look
withdrawn and worried. His grey streak is now greyer than it used to be. Apart from the left side
of the front of his hair, it has now affected his right eyebrow as well. Some doctors think there might be psychological reasons for premature greyness, but most agree it is meaningless.

His nose isn’t as big as it can look in photographs, or, of course, in caricatures. It has been taken by many people as a sign that he must be Jewish. ‘I never realized I had a big nose till I was famous. I never even thought people were thinking I was Jewish, till one day a bloke from the
Jewish Chronicle
rang me up. I had to tell him I wasn’t.

‘I’m beginning to see now that I am what I am because of the sort of upbringing I had, with no father and with my mother always out at work. It did make me very quiet and introverted. I’m only figuring myself out now, though I was very happy at the time. I saw a programme on TV the other day about the effect a long period in hospital can have on a child. It can make them very withdrawn.’

Ringo isn’t withdrawn. He is completely open and friendly, the sweetest of them all really. He is not self-centred in any way. His wife Maureen thinks he could make more of himself, if he wanted to.

‘It was his idea to do it with sequins, didn’t he tell you? I know it’s rubbish really, but he never takes credit for things.

‘I think he often underestimates himself. He does forget what good ideas he has had, because he thinks he’s not creative. He says it’s for the others to have the good ideas. But he is good at many things. He’s a good painter. I think films will be very good for him, so I hope they come off. He’s great at all things. He’s a lovely dancer.’

Ringo is a much stronger personality than he has appeared. He’s also much handsomer in real life, with rich blue eyes. He is in no sense the buffoon of the group, or even their pet mascot. His opinions are as valid as theirs. But in the light of Paul and John’s more obvious talents, he has kept himself even quieter than he is. But they rely on him a great deal. He is a vital part of the four, contributing elements that they need – that old sentimentality again, but also a strong common sense, the ordinary
human touch. He has some good ideas and opinions about the Beatles, and about himself.

‘I think four of us together, all sort of equal, made us one whole. We’re different from each other, yet alike.

‘When you have a single star, or a leader and a backing group, you either take him or leave him. With four, you can associate with one of us, yet still like the rest of us. If you didn’t like Elvis, that was that. With four of us, there’s more to go on.

‘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.’

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.

I’ve tried to keep myself out of the book as much as possible, though I’m sure my prejudices have crept in all over the place. I’ve also tried to resist the temptation to analyse. Too many millions of words have already been trotted out by the interpreters. Someone can do a critical biography of them in 50 years’ time, if anyone remembers them by then.

Naturally, I think they will do. I wouldn’t have done all this lot otherwise. But their immediate future is still very hazy. Will they do more films on their own? Will Apple come off? What will happen to Maharishi? Will they get bored and just pack it all in?

Perhaps by the time this book is out, some of these questions will be answered. They have gone through so many stages that there is no reason to doubt that there are more to come.

They are confident that they can succeed in films and in anything else they might try, but in the history of show business,
no one has yet repeated a phenomenon. Elvis Presley stood still almost immediately. Charlie Chaplin went on to direct some very professional films, but no one can say they were phenomenal. As with Beatlemania, his little man, bewildered by the big new corporations, was right for the times. Can the Beatles be right again?

It remains to be seen whether the Beatles will be handicapped by living such isolated lives. Is art affected by lack of stimuli? According to some art experts, if Picasso had gone off and seen new people and new places, he wouldn’t have messed around doing little drawings on menus.

But Apple is at least providing some new stimuli, though their private lives are as private as ever. Apple is perhaps their most constructive stage so far. After years of being anti-help and anti-most organizations, like benevolent despots, they are now pouring back their money and power into helping and backing others. And whatever one thinks of transcendental meditation, their interest in religion is also positive and only for the good, which is again a reversal of their early attitudes. Having scorned the idea that pop idols should have responsibilities, they are now almost missionary, in spiritual and in materialistic matters. If their boast that they haven’t started yet comes true, their biographer in 50 years’ time will have more than just the records of a beat group to write about.

It now remains to be seen whether, and in which ways, they can go on alone. They had Brian Epstein when they were emerging as personalities, and George Martin when they were emerging as composers.

All the experts can’t see them doing it again, not in a new medium and not without help.

‘In their music,’ says George Martin, ‘they have an instinctive awareness of what to do. They are always ahead of everyone else. But in much of their other thinking, they tend to be juvenile psychologists.

‘They are very like children in many ways. They love anything magical. If I had to clap my hands in front of John and
produce a vase of flowers, John would be knocked out and fantastically impressed and I would be able to do anything with him.

‘They like everything to be like instant coffee. They want instant recording, instant films, instant everything.

‘I think they do need an organizer round them. This would allow them to be more outlandish. If they try to do everything on their own, things could go wrong.’

They are very young, no one can deny that, which is good, because they still want to do things on their own. It’s to be hoped they keep on trying.

But they could and might pack up tomorrow, live on their millions and contemplate their navels. They haven’t done badly so far. They’ve given us quite a lot. And in return, they have got their MBEs.

When that little End Bit was written, I carefully did not predict what I thought would happen to them. There seemed so many exciting possibilities, such as films, and exciting new creations, such as Apple. They had already stopped appearing in public, and had started to go their separate ways, living separate lives, but I never thought for one moment that a final split was imminent. I hadn’t realized that, in fact. I had recorded the growth and rise of the Beatles and had captured them at their peak. All that was to come was the end. And rather petty and nasty it turned out to be.

In the meantime, back in 1968, I rewarded myself with a year abroad. After the book was finished, and all the boring arguments with Apple executives settled, and the Beatles and their respective families pacified about the contents, I went off with my wife and family, first of all to Gozo in Malta, and then to Portugal. We had two children at the time, aged four and two when we set off, so it seemed a good time to travel, before they started school. I wrote a novel abroad, and so did my wife. I never went back to the
Class of ’68
, which was what my pre-Beatles book had become. The student sit-ins and radical movements had started, and all my interviews and material, gathered in 1966, had become very out of date.

One night in December 1968, while we were staying in a rented house in Praia da Luz in the Algarve, we were woken by a tremendous banging and shouting on the outside gate. We thought at first it was some fishermen on the way home, having drunk too much. Our house, formerly a sardine factory, was right on the beach, with a large garden and high wall all the way
round. I then realized my name was being shouted out, by someone with a strong Liverpool accent. ‘Wake up, Hunter Davies, you bugger.’ I thought at first it might be John, as the voice was so raucous. I got up and went into the garden and opened up the big gates, and there was Paul, standing with a strange woman I had never seen before and a young girl, of about five or six.

That evening, back in London, Paul simply decided that he would come out and have a holiday with me. I had been in touch with all of them, and had sent Paul a postcard inviting him to stay, so he knew where I was, though we were not on the telephone. When the idea had suddenly come into his head, Neil was detailed to get plane times. There were none that evening. Paul, of course, could not wait for the next day. Having thought of the plan, he wanted it
now
. Instant satisfaction. So a private plane was hired and told to be ready for Paul’s pleasure. It landed at Faro in the middle of the night, much to everyone’s surprise. Faro airport had opened only the previous year and was still pretty primitive, hardly used to scheduled flights, never mind private executive jets.