(Top photo) Ruth Morrison, and (bottom photo) George, Paul, Ken Brown, and John at the Casbah; both images scanned from The Beatles: The True Beginnings.
“The skiffle craze had finished, and George Harrison and I were playing in the Les Stewart Quartet with a chap called Skinner. We spent hours practicing in the Lowlands Club, Heyman’s Green — but the most we ever earned was £2. We would probably have gone on playing at clubs but for George’s girl friend Ruth Morrison. […] He suddenly seemed to go head over heels for Ruth, a lovely girl with long auburn hair who later moved to Birmingham to become a nurse. [...] They went everywhere together. One evening the three of us were sitting in the Lowlands drinking coffee, moaning about the fact that we had nowhere regular to play. Ruth sat, twiddling a spoon, as we talked. Then she said: ‘Why don’t you ask Mrs. Best?’ ‘Who’s that?’ asked George, and Ruth explained that this woman [Mona Best, Pete Best’s mother] at 8 Heyman’s Green, was planning to open a coffee bar club. […] [Months later, on opening night — August 29, 1959 — Les Stewart informed them that he wouldn’t be playing at the Casbah with them.] [George] told me he would go with me, so we left Les at his house. As we were walking down the road, I turned to George and said: ‘We can’t let Mrs. Best down. Let’s try and get a group together ourselves. Do you know anyone?’ ‘There’s two mates I sometimes play with out at Speke,’ ventured George. ‘O.K., let’s ask them,’ I said, and George went off on the bus, joining me two hours later at the Casbah with his two mates — John Lennon and Paul McCartney.” - Ken Brown, RAVE (December 1964) For those wondering what happened to George and Ruth’s relationship, Ken Brown explained: “[George] was not really in love with her, though perhaps, she was with him. One evening I went round the back of the Casbah for some fresh air — it used to get very hot downstairs in the basement — and found Ruth sitting on a bench sobbing. ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, putting my arm round her shoulders to console. ‘George won’t go to the pictures with me,’ she sobbed. ‘He just doesn’t seem to bother any more.’ I went inside and told George, who was sitting down having coffee in the interval. He just shrugged, and we started playing again without his going out to Ruth. That was the end of them, really. They still saw each other, but it was never the same after that.” - Ken Brown, RAVE (December 1964) Plus: August 29th was of course also be the date of The Beatles’ last concert (at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, on August 29, 1966).
