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shocks. It wasn’t just the fact of the four boys becoming celebrities and millionaires. The parents had also been turned into celebrities, suddenly living and being treated like millionaires. All of them reacted to this process slightly differently.
    Ringo’s mother, Elsie, and his stepfather Harry were the most stunned by it, almost frightened, caught like rabbits in the searchlight of fame. They had just moved into a new posh bungalow, and felt completely isolated, knowing nobody, not knowing what to do with themselves all day. I tried, in the book, not to paint it as bleakly as that, but I did feel sorry for them. They had been forced in the end to move from their old terrace house in the Dingle because life there had become unbearable.
    I explained to them on the phone what I was doing, and that I had permission. Sitting there, in their new lounge, which still smelled of plastic coverings and paint, I could feel theirnervousness, scared of saying the wrong thing, so I rang Ringo, on their phone, and got him to talk to them, before finally they relaxed.
    ‘We began to get really fed up,’ said Elsie, ‘when they started taking away the letter box, chipping bits off the door, taking stones away from the outside. We came home one night and they’d painted “We Love You Ringo” all over the front door and on every window.
    ‘Most of them were nice kids. They did buy the records, so they deserved something. They’d ask for his old socks, or shirts, or shoes. I’d give them some, till there was none left.
    ‘If Ritchie was at home, he had to sneak in and out in the dark. He’d be crouching inside sometimes, and I’d have to say he wasn’t in. So, we just had to move here in the end.’
    On the other hand, Louise Harrison, George’s mother, was sitting proudly in her new gleaming home, loving it all. She welcomed the fans and the interruptions from the very beginning, enjoying talking to them, opening fêtes, signing autographs, making little speeches. She turned being a Beatle mum into a full-time occupation.
    When I first went to see her, in early 1967, there were rumours, yet again, about the Beatles splitting up. (It was either that, or one of them, usually Paul, was dead.) To cope with all the mail she was personally getting about this momentous topic, Mrs Harrison had prepared typewritten replies ready to send to fans.
    Through the fact of being George’s mother, she had opened a new shop in Liverpool and met some Liverpool TV stars, such as Ken Dodd and Jimmy Tarbuck. She and her husband had recently been invited to the funeral of a local pop singer, even though they never knew him. She thought it their duty to turn up, to represent George.
    Mrs Harrison was the only one of the parents who actively encouraged their early music, and became something of a groupie herself, going to many of their early concerts. She still loved talking about it. After all, in 1967, it was fresh in her mind.
    ‘I remember when they did “Love Me Do”, their first record, and George told us it might be going to be on Radio Luxembourg. We all stayed up till two o’clock, glued to the set, and nothing happened. Harold [her husband] went to bed, as he had to be up at five for the early shift on the buses. In the end, I went up to bed as well. I was just in the bedroom, when George came rushing up the stairs with the radio, shouting “We’re on, we’re on.” Harold woke up and said, “Who’s brought that noisy gramophone in here?”’
    Mrs Harrison had a better memory of their early concerts than the Beatles themselves, which was a great help in getting the sequence of events in order. They were useless, when it came to dates, and even the years.
    ‘I went to 48 of their shows when they became the Beatles. Manchester, Preston, Southport, all over the North. I used to sit in the front rows. In Manchester one night they were doing a show that a TV company was going to record. I got tickets as usual, for the first and for