Beatles (64 page)

Barbara had grabbed him and was hitting him with a tea towel. Oh, these marital scenes. So I made an excuse and left the kitchen and wandered round the office, admiring his decorations. On one wall was a huge photograph of John and Paul, a snap taken by Ringo and blown up. They each had lots of side whiskers and longish hair. In the foreground I could just see the top of Martha’s back. It was taken in Cavendish Terrace, around 1968. Ringo was a budding photographer in those days and he took four of the photographs that appear in the fourth plate section. I remember he was pleased with the ones he took of John and Cyn, Paul and Jane, George and Pattie, but always hated the one of himself and his family. He made a mess of it, using an automatic button and having to rush back into his place after he had set the camera.

On a wall was a printed notice. ‘The trouble with always keeping both feet firmly on the ground is that you can never take your pants off.’

Ringo is still keen on gadgets and jokey things. His main home is filled with all the latest TV and hi-fi equipment, and he still has five motor cars, including his special Pullman Mercedes,
which has three rows of seats and is just two inches shorter than a London bus.

‘In 1965, I sold all my five cars. It was ridiculous. You can only ride in one at a time. But then I started buying cars again. So I’m back to five. No, we’ve got six. I’ve forgotten Barb’s Jaguar.’

He is the least affluent of the remaining Beatles, at least in terms of income, but he says he has no money problems. ‘I’m mad on spending. I do it all the time. But it doesn’t matter how much I spend, I won’t run out of money in my lifetime.’

Nothing really new or creative has happened to Ringo since the split, not in an artistic or business sense. The single most amazing event in his life, which was being asked to join the Beatles, is not likely to be repeated. He has a market garden, employing ten people, adjoining his country estate. ‘I walk round pointing at daffodils, saying that’s daffodils, but I don’t know anything.’ He has also invested in a Liverpool cable TV firm and various other smallish enterprises.

As for his musical career, he produced some nice singalong albums and singles after the Beatles split, avoiding the temptation to be too clever, but his recording career appears to have come to an end for the moment. His latest album,
Old Wave
, came out in 1984, but only in Canada. It was turned down in both Britain and the USA, the first musical failure for any of the Beatles.

‘How do you think I felt? I was furious. I go round saying it’s now very big in Afghanistan or wherever, oh yeh, Canada, I keep forgetting, but I was very disappointed. I liked the album. I thought it was the best I’d done. I called it
Old Wave
as a joke, as opposed to “New Wave”. I suppose I am the old wave generation now. A bloke in LA did want to see me recently about releasing in the States, but he cancelled when his mum fell ill.’

Unlike Paul, Ringo does not seem to need adulation as a musician, and he didn’t seem too depressed that his singing and drumming career has come to a halt. ‘I think Paul does love it still. I’ve heard the applause. It was very loud, but I’ve heard it, and I don’t think I want it now. One day the clapping has to stop.’

He was now putting on his Lawrence Olivier voice. As an actor, he has done surprisingly well. At least, he is still constantly in business, being offered parts, 15 years after the Beatles finished, which has surprised many people. After all these years, he has proved he can do it, on his own, not just on his fame as an ex-Beatle. ‘I like acting. It’s because I’m a show-off.’

His part in
Caveman
was not very taxing, as all he did was grunt and groan, and the whole film contained only 15 words. But in other films, he did have quite good cameo roles, such as in
Candy
(1968),
Magic Christian
(1970),
That’ll Be The Day
(1973),
Listo-mania
(1975),
Sextet (1977)
and
Princess Daisy
(1983). In 1984, he did the narrator’s voice in a children’s TV series,
Thomas the Tank Engine
. In 1985, he was getting ready to take the part of the Mock Turtle in a lavish six-part, American TV production of
Alice in Wonderland
.

‘When we got married, we really semi-retired,’ said Barbara. ‘I had done three films the year I met him. I’ve done very little since.’

‘Since we got married,’ said Ringo, ‘we have not spent one day apart in over four years. The most apart we’ve been is two hours.

‘We had this terrible car crash in 1981. We were going
to
a party, that was the daft thing. Coming
from
a party, you can understand. I just lost control of the car going up the A3, I think it was. We were both very close to losing our lives. I woke up in hospital feeling awful. Barbara was in a rotten state as well. This nurse brought us round and was saying here you are, dear, a nice cup of tea. That’s England for you. Tea cures everything. It only cost us £12.50 for that hospital. In the States, I’d still be paying.’

He also had a serious operation on his stomach, for the same complaint he suffered from for so many years as a child. This was when he lived in Monte Carlo and he collapsed with intestinal pains. ‘They cut me to pieces and took away five feet of gut.’

Despite these frights, he still lives a rather hectic life, for a gentleman of his mature years, going out regularly to nightclubs and parties.

‘I
lived
in nightclubs for 20 years. I still stay up all night, because I can’t help it. It’s nothing to do with those years on tour or playing in Hamburg. That’s just the way I am. Even as a child I never closed my eyes till dawn. I still don’t. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve had more than four hours’ sleep in any one night. Barbara was horrified when we started going out. When it gets dark, she thinks it’s time to go to bed, being a good little actress. When it gets dark, I think it’s time to go out. I prefer going to bed at four. She prefers ten o’clock.

‘So we don’t go out
that
much now. I’m always getting at George because he’s supposed to be the “recluse”. When George is in England, he can be out at dinner four times a week, but nobody ever knows. He’s probably just as sociable as me, but he does it all privately. I do it publicly. I love going to things like premieres. I like wearing a bow tie. I don’t feel I’m dressed till I’m in a bow tie.’

‘We’ve just been to Hawaii to see George’s new place,’ said Barbara. ‘It’s fantastic. He’s got these thousands of acres of jungle which he’s converting into a tropical garden. He took us round, saying there will be a bridge there, a little lake there. He’s just like a kid.’

If George’s new passion in life is gardening, what is Ringo’s? Did he not miss having something like that to devote his energies to?

‘What do you mean? That’s my passion there. Barbara. I’m in love, man. And it’s amazing. Better than a garden. You don’t have to water her every day. I never thought it would happen to me again. It’s the best thing in my life. I’ve never been happier.’

He didn’t mind talking about the Beatle years, and says they were happy too, but he doesn’t particularly want them back. ‘I had a lot of good times. I wouldn’t like to cancel them out. But I couldn’t do it again. It was great doing all that at 20. I couldn’t do it at 45. It was only eight years of my life anyway. That’s all.’

His ambition in the old days was to end up with his name in school textbooks, and this has basically come true. ‘The group
just happens to be one which goes on from generation to generation. You can’t stop it now. But I am a bit sickened by all the present-day Beatles commercialization. I feel sorry for kids being ripped off by the
new
souvenirs being manufactured. Then you get people stealing old golden discs and flogging them to some Japanese for £13,000.

‘I got sent an autograph book the other day which had John’s, Paul’s and George’s signature in. They wanted mine. So I put it in, then added “1985”. I knew at once that would ruin the price. They couldn’t pass it off as a genuine 1960’s autograph.’

Ringo is the only one of the remaining three who has not done any sort of book, or allowed others to do one about his life, his times or his music.

George presented him recently with a special, leather-bound volume, which said on the cover, ‘Ringo Starr: greatest drummer on earth’. Inside, all the pages were blank.

‘George told me to start writing, to fill it up. I haven’t even written January 1st. I’ll never do a book about being a Beatle. I might write that we had three cups of tea on a certain day, then someone will say no, you had four cups of tea. I know what I know, so that’s it. Why bother?’

Ringo missed his three children growing up, as he was wandering round the world for most of the ’70s, but now he is closer to them. Zak, his oldest, now aged 19, and his other son Jason, now 17, were sent to well-known English public schools, to Haileybury and to Highgate. Lee, his daughter, now aged 14, is still at school, at Queen’s College in Harley Street, London. ‘Oh, I paid for the best, but it didn’t do much good. The boys both wanted to leave at 16. What could I say? I wanted them to stay, but I left school at 13.’

The two sons are both drummers. He thinks Zak is very good and Jason could be good, but he’s shy. ‘I’ve been telling Jason he’ll have to get over that, if he wants to appear on stage. The other day he came to me and said he had this idea. He would play the drums in one room, on his own, while they
filmed him on video, then he could be shown with the group on stage. He had it all worked out.

‘Zak is always finding new music that he thinks I’ve never heard of before. He’ll come across a blues tape and say Daddy, listen to this. Or a soul thing and say this is great, Daddy. Of course he calls me Daddy. That’s what I am. The other day he put on this really great thing he’d discovered – and it was Ray Charles. No, it doesn’t make me feel old, though Zak does refer to me as the “Old Hippy”. I’m just amused.’

Zak is currently (1985) playing with a group called Night Flight but not doing all that well. At first, when he started his drumming career, he appeared to hate being Ringo’s son or at least being always linked with him.

‘He would be mentioned in a newspaper as “Zak Starr, son of Ringo Starr” and he would get furious. I told him that I didn’t ring up the papers, telling them to put my name in, but he seemed to think it
was
my fault. He just didn’t understand how newspapers work. Then he came to me one day and said he thought the group was just using him, for his name. Son, I said, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

For a while, Zak lived with Ringo and Barbara at Tittenhurst Park, in the same house, but that led to scenes.

‘Oh, the usual, parent–child rows. I’m sure you’ve been through them. I always loved him, I know that, but I didn’t always like his attitude. It didn’t get very friendly, living all together. In the end, I threw him out after a row. It was all stupid and trivial. We just began to feel that we were being ignored by this teenager. He would eat and sleep at home, but not talk to us at all. So I chucked him out. He left for about six months, then he came back. He now lives in a cottage on the estate and we’re much closer.’

In February 1985, Zak rang Ringo at his office, at the mews house in London, asking him when he would be home from work.

‘I said I wasn’t sure, probably about 7.30. He said in that case pop in and see me, I’ve got a surprise for you. I thought it
must be some recording deal. When I got home, it turned out that he’d got married that morning …’

Ringo laughed. Wasn’t he at all worried, being the father of a 19-year-old, without a regular job or qualifications, who had just got married to a girl six years older than himself?

‘Not at all. We’ve known the girl, Sarah [Menikides], for some time. We didn’t
expect
them to get married, not just then, but I was quite glad he’d done it secretly, with no fuss. I couldn’t be more pleased. She’s very nice. They’re like chalk and cheese, but so are me and Barbara, but it works. Barbara’s not musical, doesn’t like staying up late. Basically she’s quiet, yet she’s married a rock drummer. You know how noisy they can be. Sarah’s done the same thing.’

Although it was a secret wedding, with no photographs in the newspapers, Ringo knows that the next stage will be very hard to keep quiet.

‘I was telling them only last night about their “global” baby. When they get round to having one, it’s bound to be global news. I think it will be great. Fabulous. I’m dying to be a grandfather. I’ll spoil the shit out of my grandson. Of course it will be a boy. I’ve already told Zak that. And I want him to be called little Richard, after me. They’re not very keen on Richard.

‘When Zak was born, I really wanted to call him “XL”. I thought names were boring for people. Letters would be much better, but Maureen refused. So we agreed on a short name that couldn’t be abbreviated. It was the old cowboy in me, calling him Zak.

‘Yes I know Jason is two syllables, but we usually call him Jay. He’s an inch taller than me now, so he says, but I deny it. Zak is about my height. I deny that as well. I’m bigger than both of them and always will be.’

It will be interesting to see if any of Ringo’s children make it as pop musicians. Paul has three children, yet to emerge into the public glare, and perhaps one of them will inherit his musical ability, just as he inherited some from his own father. In 1985, it was Julian Lennon, of the second-generation Beatles, who was
doing best in the pop world, with a successful album behind him and a song that got into the Top Twenty. His voice does have overtones of John and he can write pleasant tunes.

But as Ringo well knows, it will be the arrival of a third-generation Beatle that will most amuse the world at large. It is hard to imagine, but it will happen soon that a still small voice will be able to say, ‘My Grandad’s a Beatle.’

George started off in great style after the Beatles split, obviously thankful to be on his own at last, in charge of his own destiny, able to concentrate on his new passion, which was Indian music and mysticism.
All Things Must Pass
in 1970 was highly acclaimed and so was his concert for Bangladesh in 1971. An enormous amount was raised for refugees, some ten million dollars, although not without several law cases. There were further legal problems when it was alleged he had ‘subconsciously plagiarised’ bits from someone else’s song in ‘My Sweet Lord’. This case dragged on for years, in Britain and in the US, and George was eventually fined a large amount. By which time, oh dreadful irony, he had to pay up money to a company run by Allen Klein, of all people, who had bought up the copyright of the original song, the one from which George is supposed to have taken bits.