A Couple of Friends

By some quirk of the English education system,  John Lennon, a rather unpromising student but brilliant iconoclast, had gotten a place a the Liverpool College of Art.  He brought his music, which by this time was mostly American early rock and roll, with him to school and would organize jam sessions in the common room of the college.  It was at the college that he met and befriended a very promising art student named Stuart Sutcliffe.

The Beatles story is full of lots of  "cameo" players who arrived, played their parts and then exited the stage, after having done their bit in advancing the story. There is no one, however, as important to the story as Stuart Sutcliffe.  John being the leader of all his friends activities, eventually prevailed on Stu to obtain a bass guitar so as to participate in the musical aspect of his life.

Another friend was called Pete Best.  Pete's mother, Mona, was a very friendly woman of East Indian heritage. In the basement of her large Victorian home, she decided to establish a "teen club" to bring in a few bob and to give her son, Pete, a place to hang out with his friends.  The club was called "The Casbah" and it became a place for the Beatles to hang out and play their music.  Pete, though not yet a member of the Beatles, did play the drums.