About time... Queen to knight Ringo
BEATLES drummer Ringo Starr is said to be “chuffed to bits” after learning he will be knighted in the New Year’s Honours List.
The 77-year-old will become a Sir in recognition of his services to music and charity. The formal announcement will be made later this week.
He is the second of the Fab Four to be honoured in this way, after Sir Paul McCartney.
Ringo, made an MBE in 1965, is thought to have all but given up on becoming a Sir.
But friends said he was “made up” – Liverpool slang for happy. One said: “It’s richly deserved, if a little overdue.”
A close family friend added: “It came as a bolt from the blue. Ringo was totally knocked sideways but is chuffed to bits.”
Fans took to Twitter to express their delight. One wrote: “Happy New Year Sir Ringo Starr, very well deserved honour Sir.”
Another posted: “Ringo Starr is going to finally be knighted 20 years after Paul. Merry Christmas indeed.”
Ringo’s friend and only fellow surviving Fab Four member Sir Paul accepted his knighthood in March 1997.
Ringo’s last visit to the Palace was in 1965 when all the Fab Four were awarded the MBE including the late George Harrison, who died in 2001.
Protest
John Lennon, fatally shot in 1980, famously handed back his MBE in a protest against the Vietnam war
A source said: “Sadly, two of the Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison, are no longer here to be honoured in a similar way. But giving Ringo a knighthood will go some way towards recognising the enormous contribution The Beatles made to popular music. He is a beacon of Beatlemania.”
Ringo, real name Richard Starkey, is now said to be worth £300million but came from humble beginnings. He was born to a docker father and bakery worker mother in Liverpool.
His parents divorced and his childhood was dogged by illness. He took early jobs as a delivery boy, a trainee joiner and a barman on the Mersey ferries.
His dream came true when his stepfather bought him a drum kit for Christmas 1957 when he was aged 17.
Just five years later he was a part of the world’s biggest rock’n’roll band in The Beatles.
Sir Paul, 75, has joked that if he had tea with the Queen, he would ask her to knight Ringo.
“The last time I went by she was out,” he said. “Otherwise, I would have popped in and said ‘Look, love, Sir Richard Starkey’. I do think it’s about time.”