Cynthia comes up with that hoary old chestnut that Brian Epstein hadn’t heard of the Beatles until a lad walked into his shop and asked for ‘My Bonnie.’ This is because Epstein opened his autobiography suggesting this, but it isn’t true. He says the event took place on 28 October 1961. Brian Epstein took copies of Mersey Beat from 6 July 1961. The second issue, which he ordered 144 copies of, featured the ‘My Bonnie’ story across the entire cover. Epstein became my record reviewer with Issue No. 3. He took advertisements on pages with the Beatles features on them. He took me to lunch at the Basnett Bar to discuss them with me, he even sold tickets to their forthcoming gig at the Tower Ballroom in his store and I was the person who arranged for him to see the Beatles at the Cavern on 9 November. 

Cynthia says he read Mersey Beat “In which the Beatles were often mentioned and pictured, but he’d never noticed them.” What evidence does she have for that? Brian used to discuss the local scene with me every time I brought copies of Mersey Beat for him and he read it avidly. Why would he want to write record reviews for a paper if he never read it? 

She says that Brian discovered “they had no manager and no record contract,” They had no manager, but they still had their record contract with Polydor which they’d signed on 1 May 1961 for one year, which was renewable for periods of one year and they were to record four songs a year. Epstein wrote to Bert Kaempfert on 20 February 1962 asking him to release the Beatles from their Polydor contract, which he did.

Cynthia comments that Brian invited them to his office on 3 December for a chat, then a week later offered to be their manager and “a few days later they signed a contract, giving Brian 25 percent of their earnings.” Actually, their first contract was signed on 24 January 1962 and Epstein’s commission was 10 per cent. Although the Beatles signed it, Brian didn’t and he had a new contract drawn up on 1 October 1962 in which he’d increased his percentage to 25 percent. If Cynthia wishes to write about specific contracts and percentages she should really get the facts right.

John, Paul and Ringo didn’t fly to Hamburg on 10 April and find that Stu had died only hours before, as Cynthia writes. Stu did die on 10 April but John and the others didn’t fly out to Hamburg until 11 April.

When writing about Ringo joining she states “When they heard he’d left Rory’s band they decided to offer him a job.” Wrong again. Rory was playing a season at Butlin’s with Rory Storm & The Hurricanes and they went up and offered him the job while he was still a Hurricane. He immediately left the Hurricanes in the lurch without a drummer and they had to use a Redcoat for the rest of the season.

She also says “He changed his name from Richard Starkey to Ringo Starr, ‘Ringo’ after the gold rings he always wore and ‘Starr’ because Butlins shortened his name so that they could call his solo spot ‘Star Time.’ Wrong. It was Rory Storm who decided to give the members of his group Western sounding names. His own name was Alan Caldwell. He named Johnny Byrne Johnny Guitar after the Joan Crawford film, Wally Eymond became Lu Walters, Charles O’Brien became Ty Brien after Western star Ty Hardin and Richard Starkey became Ringo Starr, probably after Johnny Ringo. It was also Rory, not Butlin’s who decided on giving Ringo his own solo spot which Rory called ‘Ringo Starrtime’ during which Ringo performed numbers such as ‘Boys.’

Incidentally, on his wedding night John played with the Beatles at the Riverpark Ballroom, Chester. The Remo Four were also on the bill.

Regarding the incident at Paul’s 21st birthday party when John beat up Bob Wooler, she says Wooler “made a crack about his holiday. John, who’d had plenty of drink, exploded.” This is scant information on what had happened. Wooler, who had a habit of making mischievous remarks, said “How was the honeymoon, John?” inferring that John had had a homosexual relationship with Brian Epstein on their recent trip to Spain. Cynthia then says, “He sent Bob a telegram saying, ‘Really sorry Bob stop terribly worried to realize what I had done what more can I say.’” John was unrepentant and didn’t send the telegram. Brian Epstein wrote it and sent it. When the Beatles arrived for their Civic Reception in Liverpool in 1964 John saw Wooler and said “Hi, Bob. Has anyone given you a black eye lately?”

She says that just prior to leaving for their first trip to America “they did a tour of France.” Sorry, Cynthia, it was a short season at the Olympia Theatre, Paris, hardly a tour of the country.

Of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ she says “the title, used for a hit single as well, came from a phrase Ringo had used.” Though this is generally acknowledged, I thought Cynthia had realized that the phrase had originally been used earlier by John. In his first book ‘In His Own Write’, in a story called ‘Sad Michael’, he’d written, “He’d had a hard day’s night that day, for Michael was a Cocky Watchtower.”

Discussing ‘Strawberry Fields’/’Penny Lane’, she writes, “The single reached number one, but it was the first to fail to go straight to the top of the charts since ‘Please Please Me.’” Of course, the single DIDN’T go to number one, its highest position was number two. Incidentally, ‘Please Please Me’ also officially only reached number two in the British charts

She talked of going to the Ad Lib club where they’d meet “our old Liverpool mates Freddie and the Dreamers.” Freddie and the Dreamers were actually a Manchester group, living in Manchester.

There are many other such mistakes, but it would be tedious to detail them all. Cynthia may have reached No. 2 in the best seller lists in the U.K. but she’s given an awful lot of misinformation about the Beatles early years to an awful lot of people!

The basic difference between this book and her earlier ‘A Twist of Lennon,’ was that she makes John’s Auntie Mimi into a monster. Admittedly, Mimi was a very strict woman, widowed when her husband George died, trying to bring up a young, rebellious teenager.

June Furlong, the art college model was furious with the book, she told me that Cynthia’s savaging of Mimi was unforgivable as Mimi had loved John, always ensured that he was clothed well and looked after and there was utter devotion there.

We all know the famous quote Mimi gave about John and the guitar – but the fact is that she was the person who bought John his guitar in the first place. Millie Sutcliffe also told me that she was with Mimi when they went to the Cavern to see the group.

Strangely enough, I found the most informative and insightful part of the book detailed the events which took place after John’s murder. The treatment John’s son Julian received from Yoko is heartbreaking to read and there is something almost Machiavellian about Yoko’s manipulation of him and her efforts to distance him from his association with his own father.

Finally, it is refreshing to read a book which isn’t dominated by the John/Yoko relationship or crammed with photos of Yoko sticking to John like a limpet. After all, John lived 28 years of his life before he met her and it is those first 28 years which are the most inspiring, prior to the depressing stories of a drug-ridden recluse in the Dakota building, seemingly under the thumb of a mother substitute.

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