The Beatles Museum – Liverpool, UK

Walking into the Beatles Museum, visitors are transported back to the 1960s with the music of the Beatles.

The old dock building has been used to create a series of displays each re-creating a part of the story of Liverpool’s most famous export.

The childhoods of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were all struck by tragedy and the boys who each found expression in music stumbled upon each other to create a musical collaboration which flowered into a world-wide phenomena.

Many of their songs became life theme songs for teenagers of the 1960s, 70 and 80s. Visitors to the museum are emotionally impacted by seeing the displays and by hearing the songs – and many shed a few tears along the way.

A large souvenir shop stocks records and a wide range of band memorabilia.

The Museum is open every day, Monday to Sunday, except Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Opening times are 9am-7pm in summer (25 March – 31 October) and 10am-6pm in winter (1 November to 24 March).

Tickets for the whole museum are £15.95 for adults and £12 concession and £7 for children (aged 5 to 16).

Tickets can be bought online direct from the museum.

Trains leave London’s Euston Station every hour, stopping at Liverpool’s Lime Street Station. From there, taxis and buses are available into the city.

There are many hotels along the esplanade across the road from the museum. There are also apartments within easy walking distance.

See my article on Travelling well AND cheaply in Europefor travel tips.

The CBD of Liverpool has been made into a mall Liverpool 1 and is a very busy and pleasant shopping precinct.

Name: James Paul McCartney

DoB: 18 June 1942

Parents: James and Mary McCartney

James was a munitions worker but also had his own bank and composed songs.

Mary was a nursing sister and midwife. She died in 1956, leaving her husband to bring up Paul and his brother.

Schooling

Paul graduated from Liverpool Institute HIgh School and excelled in Art and English. His father hoped he would become a teacher.

Paul worked in Lewis’s Department store and Mathews’ Coggin’s factory until the band became full-time.

Date of Birth: 25 February 1943

Parents: Harry and Louise Harrison. Harry was a bus conductor and Louise worked as an assistant in a green grocer shop.

The couple had four children, Louise, Harrold, Peter and George (the youngest).

George attended Liverpool Institute High School for Boys.

He disliked school and was rebellious, refusing to wear a school uniform.

George Harrison and Paul McCartney travelled together on the same bus to school. They both played guitar and music was a common interest. They became firm friends.

George left school at 16 and became an apprentice electrician at a department store.

Name: Richard Starkey

Date of Birth: 7 July, 1940, (Born at home)

Mother: Elsie

Ringo’s parents separated when he was aged 3. Elsie began working as a barmaid.

At high school, Ringo contracted pleurisy and spent two years in a children’s hospital.

Elsie married again in 1953, when Ringo was aged 13.

Ringo left school in 1955 and worked as a railway messenger, barman on the Mersey Ferry and as an apprectice joiner. He was nicknamed Ringo because he wore several rings.

John Winston Lennon

Date of Birth: 9 October 1940. (at Liverpool Maternity Hospital)

Parents: Alfred “Freddy” and Julia Lennon. Freddy worked as a ship steward on a Liverpool-NewYork route. Julia worked as a cinema usherette.

Freddy lost his job and left his wife. Julia moved to live with John Dykins and the couple had three daughters. John moved to live with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle Geroge.

John won scholarships to attend Quarrybank HIgh School and graduated from high school.

In 1955 John’s Uncle Geroge died. John’s mother began to visit him more often but in 1957 she was killed by a speeding car when crossing the road after visiting John.

John Lennon, who attended Quarry Bank High School formed a band when he was 15, in 1956, calling it the Quarrymen, after the school.

John and the band gave their second performance the following summer at St Peter’s Church garden fete in Woolton. Paul McCartney heard them and asked to join but his aunt Mimi was not happy for Paul to be mixing with ‘lower class’ boys.

Geore Harrison was only 14 when he joined the band as lead guitarist although John Lennon thought Geroge was too young to join the band. A friend of John’s from Art School, Stuart Sutcliffe joined as bass guitarist. Thus John, Paul, Geroge and Stuart became “The Beatles” in early 1960.

The band was planning to go to Hamburg to audition – but they had no drummer and invited Pete Best to join.

John Lennon’s aunt tried desperately to prevent John, then 19, from abandoning his study at Art School to go to Hamburg.