•Food-tablets were available for families like the Starkeys for whom a meal with chicken was a most unlikely luxury (Clayson, p. 3).

•Ringo received pints of milk at school courtesy of the Welfare State.

•From 1950-1955 the average number of guitars sold in Britain was about 5,000. By 1957 sales were up to about 250,000 (Porter, A. Before They Were Beatles, p. 18).

•When Ringo was young he bought a bottle of perfume from Woolworth's for a neighbor (Marie Maguire) because she taught him lessons in how to read and write (Goldsmith, M. The Beatles Come to America, p. 52).

•With the port dominating their employment as boilermakers, tinsmiths, ...the Starkey men might have aspired, as Richard would, 'to have a semi in a posh part of Liverpool' as his cousins, the Fosters did, in Crosby (Clayson, p. 1).

•Ringo would return to Dingle Vale School in 1963 "where they were charging people to look at my desk"- or, at least, one that might have once been his (Clayson and The Italian Broadcasting Company).

•On his seventh birthday Ringo received a bright red toy bus. When Ringo was about to leave the hospital he saw that the boy in the next bed was very sad, so he gave him the toy bus to cheer him up (Clayson, p. 6).

•Ringo would sometimes spend his dinner money on a few pennies' worth of chips and a chunk of bread and save the rest for the fairground or the pictures.

•After Ringo returned to school at fifteen he wanted to complete his education and get a certificate to prove he left. He felt he needed that to get a job. He also felt that they didn't even remember he'd been there.

•Ringo: We were poor. But we were never in rags. I was lucky. I was her only child.

•Ringo's stepfather bought him a second-hand drum kit with a Broadway "kat" snare and symbol outfit that normally sold for £10. The kit was purchased in Romford and transported by train (Porter, A. Before They Were Beatles, p. 43).

•The Cavern was opened in 1957 as a jazz club in a former wine stone cellar by Alan Sytner (Schultheiss 10).

•Playboy: "How about your family, Ringo, old man?"
Ringo: "Just workin' class. I was brought up with my mother and me grandparents. And then she married me stepfather when I was 13. All the time she was working. I never starved. I used to get most things."
George: "Never starved?"
Ringo: "No. I never starved. She always fed me. I was an only child, so it wasn't amazing."
John: "Yeah, we saw those articles in the American fan mags that said, 'Those boys struggled up from the slums..."
George: "We never starved. Even Ringo hasn't."
Ringo: "Even I."
(Beatles Ultimate Experience. Playboy Interview With The Beatles. Interviewed by Jean Shepherd in Edinburgh
Copyright © 1965 Playboy Press)

What If The Beatles Had Released Albums In The 70's?  The Slider Beatles by Mike V.

Income:

•Rory Storm offered Ringo $45 per week to play with the Hurricanes at Butlins.

•Ringo: "[my mother] always gave me enough money to buy a decent lunch, but it seemed to me to be a pity to waste all that money on food. I'd buy four-penny worth of chips and a chunk of bread and save the rest of the money for visits to the flicks".

•Ringo's stepfather Harry bought him a £10 secondhand set of drums when Ringo was young and brought them home by train (Harry). Harry was reportedly nervous about Elsie's reaction as Harry had been upset when she arranged for Ringo to attend a rehearsal with a band (Clayson, p.20).

•Ringo's grandfather lent him £50 to help purchase a drum st.

Parents:

•Elsie Gleave and Big Ritchie's eyes first locked among the cakes and tarts of the bakery where they both worked (Clayson, p. 1).

•Harry Graves, Ringo's stepfather, used to buy him DC comics when Ringo was a child (Goldsmith, M. The Beatles Come to America, p. 41).

•Other than the regular maintenance he sent, Richard Starkey might as well have been lost in the hostilities that had caused the Ministry of Transport officials to remove signposts and direction indicators that might have assisted invading Germans (Clayson, p. 2)

•Elsie was busy with diverse menial jobs such as pulling pints of Tetley's ale behind the bar of the narrow Empress pub.

•When Ringo's mother was 31 she and Ringo moved to Madryn Street because the rent was cheaper. It was here that she worked as a barmaid.

•Elsie wanted Ringo to join a part-time band because she didn't want him to throw away four-year's worth of apprenticeship at Hunt's (Clayson, p. 32).

•Ringo: Elsie and Harry tried everything they could to get me to stay [at Hunt's?]. "Get your trade", they told me, "And you'll never be stuck for a job". It's good advice for any lad (NME, October '76).

•Ringo's mother worked for periods as a barmaid and as a fruit seller (Fast).

•Ringo’s father sent 30 shillings a week child support, but after a few months he stopped sending the money. This caused Elsie to move to cheaper living quarters and find take a job as a barmaid when Ringo was young (Brown, p.85).

Employment:

•Ringo had an interview with the Youth Employment Agency, where, if he agreed to a secondment to Riverside Technical College to complete basic education, there was a vacancy for a delivery boy with British Rail.

•In 1957 Ringo tried to look like a cowboy by wearing a belt studded with washers stolen from work (Clayson, p. 15).

•During his teens Ringo worked for one week as a railroad messenger and two weeks for the merchant navy. He also worked for six months as an apprentice to a joiner.

•...Elsie's lad wasn't much of a catch if you were after a man for his money-especially now he'd been sacked from the ferry when, on clocking-in directly from an all night party, he was emboldened enough by booze to impart pent-up home truths to his supervisor. However, Harry was able to persuade Henry Hunt and Sons, an engineering firm specialising in gymnasium equipment, to take on his stepson as a trainee joiner as it had Eddie Miles (Clayson, p. 15).