‘He would still be crusading for peace’

ROD DAVIS, 78, was a member of John Lennon’s group the Quarrymen from his Liverpool schooldays. After a career in the travel business and teaching tourism and marketing, he still plays and tours in a revived version of the Quarrymen that includes fellow original members Colin Hanton and Len Garry

JOHN and Paul Mccartney first met on July 6, 1957. It was the church fete that we Quarrymen were performing at and Paul had come along to watch.

Yet the truth is that though it was probably the most momentous day in rock ’n’ roll history, I didn’t remember Paul being there! Instead I made up some story that I’d had to go for a pee when they met but it soon became legend. In fact, when a fan recreated the meeting in a painting, everyone is in the picture, but I’m represented by my instrument, a banjo, left on a chair while I made my supposed call of nature.

I first recall seeing Paul a week or two later, when we were practising at John’s Aunt Mimi’s house where he lived. I saw this guy I didn’t recognise, until John said: “This is Paul, he’s come to listen to us practising”. It wasn’t that much longer before I drifted away from the band to concentrate on the sixth form and my exams.

I’m sure that if alive today John would be pursuing crusades on peace and the environment, but it’s hard to say because by the time of his death he was already so different from the John I’d known at school. He was what they’d today call a disruptive pupil, one they could not tame.