AFTER 58 YEARS, LET’S LET IT BE!
Original Beatles drummer finally buries the hatchet with Ringo
THE man who was sacked from the Beatles to make way for Ringo Starr in 1962 finally appeared to bury the hatchet yesterday as the drummer turned 80.
Original drummer Pete Best extended an olive branch to Sir Ringo by wishing him many happy returns.
Best reportedly never spoke again to any of the Beatles after manager Brian Epstein fired him in August 1962 as the band were on the cusp of stardom.
Watching his former bandmates go on to achieve their dreams made Best so depressed that he attempted suicide.
With the support of his family, however, he returned from the brink and, more recently, revealed that he had let go of any bitterness and regrets.
‘What’s the point in saying, “I should have been this”, or “I could have been that?” ’ he said. ‘What’s important is what’s happening today and tomorrow. When you realise that, you get on with it.’
Yesterday Best, 78, tweeted: ‘Thought about it and thought why not. Happy birthday Ringo. It’s a special one. Have a good day.’
Fans praised Best as a ‘class act’ and said his comments proved ‘time obviously does heal wounds’. Best was invited to join The
Beatles in August 1960 on the eve of their first season of club dates in Hamburg, Germany.
As the Quarrymen, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison met Best some years earlier at the Casbah, a cellar club in the
Liverpool suburb of West Derby set up by Best’s mother Mona.
After returning from Germany, Best was fired in favour of the apparently more technical drummer Sir Ringo. From that day, not one of the Beatles ever contacted him again. Nor did he try to contact them. ‘We were cowards,’ Lennon said years later. ‘We got Epstein to do the dirty work for us.’
Best left the music industry to be a civil servant for 20 years before starting the Pete Best Band.