And then there was the matter of ambition. “There was a feeling we all had, built into us all, that something was goingto happen,” George recalled in his memoirs. Who else would have presumed to write their own songs? Or team up so audaciously with a manager? Ambition. It was never more apparent than in their long-range outlook: none of them had anything to fall back on. Their peers all had day jobs; the Beatles had never even thought seriously about punching a clock. It was only ever music, only the band, only the Beatles. There were no other options. This was their life’s work.

If perfectionism was one objective, continuity was another. Neither John nor Paul wanted to rock the boat, so itwas George who ultimately was “responsible for stirring things up.” As a perfectionist, it bugged him that the drumpatterns remained so static. Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk! Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk! They provided no contrast tothe music, no matter what was being played.

Paul’s own deep passion for drumming had never been concealed. He’d long had a trap set at home, which he mastered as he did all the other instruments in the band. And during jam sessions at the Blue Angel, with Gerry Marsden and Wally Shepherd, he “always made for the drums.” Earl Preston’s drummer, Ritchie Galvin, recalled encountering Paul and Pete huddled at the Mandolin Club one afternoon in 1962 after a lunchtime session at the Cavern. “Paul was showing Pete the drum pattern that he wanted on a particular song,” Galvin remembered. “Pete tried to do it, but he didn’t get it.”

And by now it was no secret that the other Beatles resented [Pete’s mother] Mona Best. The band had used her house as its unofficial headquarters since 1960, camping in the Bests’ upstairs Oriental living room between gigs and using her phone to confirm dates;as a result, they suffered her persistent interruptions—and opinions. “Mona was an attractive, strong, very forceful woman, in the tradition of John’s aunt Mimi,” says Bill Harry, who admired her. “She ran the Casbah with an iron fist, and she tried to run the Beatleswith the same vigor.” Radio personality Spencer Leigh shared Harry’s regard for Mona but wrote that “she could also bea harridan.” “If she said it was Sunday when it was Tuesday,” one musician related, “you’d say it was Sunday too.” Her high-handedness seemed particularly accentuated when the Beatles were there holding court. She came to view herself as their adviser, their patron, and the Beatles, who were fiercely independent, to say nothing of chauvinistic, “didn’t want her interference.” Only one person dreaded her more, and that was Brian Epstein. She was the bane of his existence, always on his back, always haranguing him, demeaning his position, challenging his authority, belittling him. In self-defense, he referred to her impersonally, as that woman, never by name.

Aside from a two-month stint with Tony Sheridan, Ringo had been with [Rory Storm and] the Hurricanes for four years, but rumors abounded that he was again up for grabs. Kingsize Taylor’s band, on tour in Hamburg, was losing its drummer, Dave Lovelady, who was due back at school in September to finish his degree in architecture. “Teddy wrote to Ringo to ask him if he’d take my place,” Lovelady recalled. A decent raise was proposed: £5 a week more than the £15 Rory was paying him. A 35 percent hike was nothing to sneeze at. “[Ringo] wrote back to say that he would [do it,] and he gave Rory Storm his notice.”

But Ringo and Johnny Byrne were tight. They had shared a [Butlins] camp chalet at Pwllheli for two years running, and this summer at Skegness, on the east coast of England, arrangements remained the same. Truthfully, their chalet was an awful hole—a shabby little room so primitive that it had no electricity aside from a solitary bulb hanging by a frayed cord. But otherwise, “the lifestyle,” as Byrne says, “was ideal.” There was a snazzy new performing center, the Rock ’n Calypso Ballroom, with energetic crowds and “an electric-type atmosphere” that recharged itself every night. The boys would get up late and go for a swim or a horseback ride.Johnny and Ringo, in particular, enjoyed some lazy roller-skating in theafternoons, then came back for “a lie-in.” If they behaved, Rory’s sister, Iris, who worked in the camp dance troupe, brought some of her friends around.Recalled Johnny, “We had food, money in our pockets. We weren’t getting our hands dirty. And the girls! We did quite well with them at Butlins. There were different campers every week, so nothing ever got messy. After all, they were the main reason we’d gotten into rock ’n roll—the money and the girls.What else was there? Well, maybe the music.”

Ringo remembered the scene was “fabulous . . . the best place we could have been.” And his years with the Hurricanes were loaded with similar memories. “But Ringo was like all of us,” according to Byrne, “ruthless. You had to be to stay on top. Rory was that way;I was, too. And the Beatles were the most ruthless of all. No one was goingto stand in the way of success.”

On the morning of August 15, 1962, Johnny and Ringo had slept late after having been up “until nearly dawn” the night before following a raucous show and its vital cool-down. Two weeks earlier Johnny and Ringo had been unceremoniously “put off” the Butlins grounds for “security purposes.” At two in the morning, after yet another uproarious show, the boys had been caught “committing the cardinal sin” of playing music in their chalet. The two young girls lounging there, however innocently, didn’t help matters.

So as not to jeopardize the gig, the two boys had rented a trailer, laying out a precious £2 per week, and parked it rather presumptuously opposite the Butlins front gates. “Ringo had one end, I had the other,” Byrne recalled. They decorated it withposters of American rock ’n roll artists and brought therecord player out of hiding. Johnny brewed coffee; Ringo heated “tins of beans,” which before would have tipped them to “the camp Gestapo.” And it was there, on that Wednesday morning in August, just after ten o’clock, they were so rudely awakened by a knock.

Drowsily, Byrne answered the door. “It was John and Paul,” Johnny recalls vividly. “As soon as I saw them, I knew what they wanted. They wanted Ringo.” Apparently they’d been driving since dawn, roaring along the narrow highways toward Wales, around the sprawl of Manchester and Sheffield, then winding, with slow progress that continued mile after mile, through Wragby, Horncastle, and Spilsby, traveling even narrower roads that took a good five hours to negotiate. Byrne invited the two Beatles inside, but he grew increasingly distraught at the sight of them. He loved Rory Storm and the music they’d made together, and this development haddisaster written all over it. As Johnny rubbed his eyes, sinking into the dullreality of the situation, John Lennon confirmed his worst suspicions. “Pete Best is leaving [the band],” John stated, “and we want Ringo to join.” Everyone stood there awkwardly, embarrassed,as Johnny and Ringo got dressed. “Let’s find Rory,” they suggested, and set off for their leader’s chalet.

It took more than two hours to locate Storm. He’d been in the coffee shop having breakfast and had sunk into a tranquil reverie. He was thinking, planning new routines, sending out discouraging vibes to any friendly camper who might otherwise intrude, so much so that he missed hearing the repeated announcements blaring over the camp’s P.A.system: “Would Rory Storm report toReception. Rory Storm—please reportto Reception.”

When he finally arrived, Johnny, Ringo, John, and Paul were already deep into discussions about an exit strategy and timing. The Beatles were pressuring Ringo to leave immediately with them. They had a gig that night at the Cavern and planned to introduce himas their new mate. The whole situation caught Rory totally off guard. “He was angry,” Byrne recalls. “We’d had no warning. Ringo had been with us for four years. We were in the middle ofa season-long gig, doing two shows a day—and suddenly your drummer’s going on you.” Pinched by longtime pals. Still, even the ambitious Rory recognized a golden opportunity when he heard one. The Beatles were offering Ringo a king’s ransom: £25 a week! As Byrne says, “They were also waving a recording contract around, which was a big thing in 1962. Nobody was queuing up to sign us. If they had come to me and said, ‘George is leaving and we want you to replace him,’ I wouldn’t have thought about it for very long.” The same went for Rory; a pragmatist at heart, he refused to stand in Ringo’s way. Yes, he was annoyed, but he also knew the score. “You should go,” Rory told him with a shrug of inevitability.

But not so fast. Rory insisted that Ringo finish out the week: two more nights. If Ringo left them cold, they’d likely lose a week’s wages, which would sour everything. Ringo, who “was embarrassed” by the state of affairs, agreed. And reluctantly, so did John and Paul before they headed back to Liverpool—empty-handed but content. They got what they had come for, a drummer and, ultimately, a legacy.

Forevermore, the Beatles would be John, Paul, George, and Ringo.