EVERYONE who knew him felt easy in his company because he was so good-natured," says Harry, who edited 110 Mersey Beats between 1961 and 1965. "He had an amazing sense of humour, a deadpan wit, which wasn't like the acerbic wit of John Lennon. Ringo made people laugh a lot." In the Beatles, George and Ringo were naturally drawn together, and they remained firm friends after the Beatles split. "Ringo was the most likeable of the Beatles," says Harry. "John would try and put you down if you didn't stand up to him, Paul was nice and all the rest of it but he was the PR man, with George there was the seriousness, the intentness and the bizarre type humour. Ringo was open and funny. "George said that he would always have Ringo in a group, but he would never have Paul again. Paul criticised George's guitar playing. Ringo would also be very embarrassed because he would play the drums on the Beatles' recording and then Paul could come in at night and put his drumming on." This may have provoked John's cruel observation that Ringo wasn't the best drummer in the world, he wasn't even the best drummer in the Beatles. "But Ringo is an excellent drummer and very influential on rock groups," says Harry. "He had been forced to play in a different way because he was left-handed. "Most of all he is a lovely man." Now Bill Harry is to write a Beatles' story of 2.5 million words. * THE Ringo Starr Enclyclopedia is published by Virgin Books, on May 4, at £12.99. Making a name for himself RINGO'S solo hits include It Don't Come Easy (co-written with George), number four, 1971; Back Off Boogaloo, two, 1972; Photograph (co-written with George), eight, 1973; You're Sixteen, four, 1974. In addition to the Beatles' films in which his humour was acclaimed in the US, he appeared in Candy (1968), The Magic Christian (1969) and then the far more successful That'll Be The Day (1973). He is also the much-loved narrator of many of TV's Thomas the Tank Engine stories. | 
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