Guess Who Their Best Friends Are!

 

Guess Who Their Best Friends Are

By Anne Nightingale 

Sunday Mirror

December 19, 1965

    "The Beatles? Oh yes, knew them when we were muckers together back in the old Liverpool days. We're still the best of friends."  Four young men who could use this intriguing line and name-dropping with perfect truth, if they wished, are Peter Shotton, Roy Trafford, Ivan Vaughn, and Arthur Kelly.

     Ordinary names, ordinary faces. They have ordinary jobs too. Peter is 25 and a supermarket director. Roy, 25, is a joiner. Ivan, also 25, is an educational researcher, and Arthur, 22, is an aspiring actor. The Beatles themselves often say that the price of fame is having no time for a private life, but that is not strictly correct, for John, Paul, George, and Ringo can still occasionally get off the pop roundabout for a get-together with these four who knew them before the world did. What does it take to become and stay a friend with the most famous group in the world? Here is an exclusive interview with the TV personality and journalist Ann Nightingale. The Beatles themselves try to explain this bond that has lasted.

 Paul McCartney:  "I first met Ivan Vaughn when we were together at Liverpool Institute. We were friends from the time we were about 11. And it may have all started because we have the exact same birthday, June 18, 1942.

    It was he who introduced me to the group that was to become the Beatles. Ive, who played bass in a group, took me to a village fete at Woolton, Liverpool, where part of the future Beatles group was playing.

     Ivan's wife, Janet, teaches French at a London school, and I expect she'll be a heroine when her pupils find out that she helped me write a song. Recently, I was around at Ive's playing and trying to complete the song, which hadn't even got a title. We thought of "Michelle", and Janet suggested "Ma Bell" to rhyme with the title. Then she translated some of the lyrics into French, and that's how I sing it.

     Ive has stayed a good friend because he's just good to be with. He lives in London, and quite often he and his wife and Jane Asher and I go out together."

 George Harrison:  "Arthur Kelly and I have been friends since we were about 12. We went to school together, and even then, he was quite hip. 

    The funniest result of my friendship with Arthur is that Sybil Burton's Discoqutece Club in New York is named after him, although she didn't realize it at the time. The whole thing started when I was asked at a press conference, "What do you call your haircut?"  I just said, "I call it Arthur." because I knew this bloke, Arthur. Then the club was named after my haircut. Arthur, which was named after  this friend of mine.

    Arthur comes to stay at my house sometimes.  I like him because he's not a drag. But some of the people I used to know are a bit funny now.  I just have to say, 'How's it going then?'  And they start going off about, 'Well, there's no need to ask YOU how you're getting on.' Arthur's not like that. "

Ringo Starr:  "I met Roy Trafford when we were both about 16. He's just a month older than me. I was working in Liverpool as a messenger boy. I wanted to become an apprentice joiner. That's what Roy did. He was a joiner and still is. Anyway, I became a fitter. But although Roy and I were doing different jobs, we used to sit and eat our canned beans and chips together. I suppose we were friends, partly because we both liked music. We were both involved with groups. 

    We can't see each other too often nowadays because Roy is still in Liverpool, but he comes to London to see me sometimes. Actually, he and his wife, Margaret, stayed at my flat for a week when I invited them to the premiere of Help.

     I like Roy because he's not a drag. Somehow we still have a lot in common.

 John Lennon: "Peter Shotton, has been known as long as I can remember as "Pean and Laughter." That was short for 'peanuts', and he was called that because he had a red face and blond hair and looked like a peanut.

     He lived near me in Liverpool, and I had known him since my early school days at Quarry Bank School, the name that inspired the original Beatless group, the Quarrymen.  He was always laughing, and because he was always laughing, he made other people laugh. 

    At school, we were always getting thrown out of class for laughing. He might have done well at school if it hadn't been for me; he was good at maths, you see, and I wasn't good for him, but he still laughs a lot. 

    We've stayed friends because when I talk to him, I can talk frankly. We don't have to pretend to each other and talk about things we're not interested in. At one time, Pean and I and another friend, Nigel Walley, thought we'd join the merchant navy. We thought it would be great to have all those raves on a ship in South Africa and so on. We're about to sign all the papers. But then we found out that we might all get split up, so we pulled out at the last minute.