The People

I met several nice people on my cruise of the British Isles.  Some were on the ship, and some were in the various ports where we stopped. I think we’re all more alike than different no matter where we live.

We hired four different Uber drivers in London and private cars in Glascow and the Orkney Islands.  I don’t mean to get political, but all six drivers talked politics a bit.  No one is satisfied with their current leaders, and they had a very low opinion of ours.

They held their national elections a couple of days ago on July 4th.  I read that the Labour Party won in a landslide ending fourteen years of conservative leadership.   BBC announcers declared the results to be “seismic, landmark, huge, and gobsmacking”.  Gobsmacking must be big. Our drivers will be happy.

The day before arriving in Liverpool I attended a presentation on the ship from Pete Best, the original drummer for the Beatles.  He was there when they were known as the Quarrymen and made the transition to the Beatles when they hired Brian Epstein as their manager.

Best’s mother opened the Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the Bests’ house in Liverpool.  Pete, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon helped set up the club and paint its walls.  It remains unchanged today.  I saw the location of the club during our tour of the city. The Quarrymen played some of their first concerts there.  They rotated their play between Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany and established a loyal following in both cities.

They needed a drummer and Best agreed to give it a go, even though he had no experience, joining the band in August of 1960.  He started with a snare drum and a single cymbal. After earning enough money, he bought a full set.

Ringo Starr replaced Best two years later when the group’s manager, Epstein, fired Best at the request of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison following the band’s first recording session.  The trio felt that Best performed well during their live performances, but recorded music required a higher level of expertise.  Out went Best and in came Starr.

Over 30 years later, Best received a major monetary payout of over $6,000,000 for his work with the Beatles after the release of their 1995 compilation of their early recordings on Anthology 1. Best played the drums on 10 of the album’s tracks.

He spoke positively of the Beatles in spite of his personal disappointment.  He shared several interesting tales and still claims Paul as a good friend.

And while Best’s shipboard presentation was informative, the most interesting man I met in Liverpool was Tommy.

TBC