Standing on the top floor of the house where he used to live, Pete Best is staring up at a cluster of framed photographs.
Now 82, he’s looking back at a younger version of himself. One, with dark hair in a leather jacket, is sitting in front of a drum kit.
The three men who stood beside him are easy to recognise – his former bandmates, George Harrison, Sir Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
They’d go on to form part of music’s most famous quartet.
While Best was dropped from the line-up and replaced by Ringo Starr, six decades on, he says he has had time to reflect on one of the biggest “what ifs” in pop history.
“I’ve had 60 great years of being Pete as well as being a Beatle. It is part of your life, it’s lovely to be associated with it, but life goes on,” he said.
“Initially it was a lot of hardship and financial embarrassment, but life compensates. Maybe it was my karma, maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
As well as taking the time to think, Best has come up with business ventures founded on his connection to the group.
The latest, launched today by Best and his younger brother Roag, gives the public a chance to stay in their old home.
It also happened to be one of the places where the Beatles began to take their first steps in the industry.
The Casbah Club is a grade II listed Victorian mansion, bought by Best’s mother Mona, who had the idea of a members-only club for her sons and their friends, to meet and listen to music.
The imprints of The Beatles, then known as The Quarrymen, are all over the basement where they would have played.
The group helped decorate the space and you can still see where John Lennon carved his name into the walls with a penknife. On sweaty evenings, hundreds of people would have crammed in to watch their gigs.
Today, there were dozens of people downstairs and more people in the rooms upstairs, which guests can now book.
The suites are named after Paul, John, George, Peter and original bass player Stuart Sutcliffe – but not Ringo.
“The Beatles played here, The Beatles partied here and The Beatles slept here,” said Best, adding the accommodation was a “projection” of his mother’s dream.
This moment is also a reminder of the fact that after Beatlemania, came a nostalgia that still has an appeal and still sells.
Evelyn and Andy were the first to book a room, travelling from Glasgow.
In the Paul McCartney suite, dotted with pictures of the man it’s named after, as well as a replica of his guitar, Evelyn described the Beatles as “almost like friends” to her. She added that she does her best to go to Beatles-themed events and places whenever she can.
But as well as a business opportunity, the house now being used as a bed and breakfast is a reflection on how close Best came to being part of Beatlemania.
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Debbie Greenberg, who ran the Cavern Club, another Liverpool venue famously linked to the group, can still remember when he was dropped from the line-up.
“Pete was a very good-looking guy and had a lot of followers. The word got round he’d been replaced by Ringo and we all started to chant,” recalled Ms Greenberg.
“We were all chanting ‘Pete forever, Ringo never’. To be suddenly replaced, when they were on the verge of something big, must have been so soul-destroying for him. So, you know he deserves everything he’s got today,” she added.
Source : Sky News
