The Ringo that might have been

It’s hard to picture Ringo Starr as a retired factory worker, said Cole Moreton in the London Daily Mail. Yet had fate not intervened back in 1962, that might have been his reality today. Starr was working in a factory when he got an offer to play drums for a local band; he was then approached to play a gig with the Beatles. “Within Liverpool I was more known than them,” says Starr, 70. “They were lucky to get me.”

At that time, Starr didn’t see a future in music. “We didn’t think it would last. Even Paul thought, ‘Well, I’ll probably end up as a writer.’ So did John. George was going to have a garage. I was an apprentice engineer, which was a big thing in my family. All my uncles and aunties came over to try and tell me that drumming was okay as a hobby.’’

Half a century later, he and Paul McCartney are the last remaining Beatles. “He likes to think he’s the only one,” says Starr, a bit testily. He still feels that he never got his due: Why hasn’t he been knighted like Sir Paul? “People have tried campaigns, but it never goes anywhere. Maybe you should just start one. That’s why I called my last album Y Not?”

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