The Beatles: Messages from John, Paul, George and Ringo

THE postcard on the cover of this book says it all. The card was written by John Lennon and sent to his friend Chris Hutchins. On the card’s photograph of the Beatles, John had drawn a fifth member – the founder of the group Stuart Sutcliffe who John went on to describe as the best friend he ever had. This is the kind of confidence John, Paul George and Ringo shared with writer Hutchins who they befriended in their days as ‘unknowns’ in Hamburg. He shared their adventures during the heady days of Beatlemania; he was with them during their American tours in the 60s, sharing their euphoria and their sad moments. It was, for example, at Hutchins’ Chelsea apartment that Paul met the actress Jane Asher, who he later became engaged to. And it was Hutchins who arranged a party with Elvis Presley, the man they had always wanted to meet – alas, a meeting which was to cause a cataclysmic feud between Presley and Lennon which the author explains in detail along with how President Nixon and J Edgar Hoover got involved. This is the Beatles story from the inside . . .