ONE of the guitarists with the Remo Four, Don was at Liverpool Institute with Paul and George. Don, along with the late great Colin Manley, formed a skiffle group. He remembers those Merseybeat days with great affection.
Don knew the Fabs from school days and appeared with them more times than any other group. Says Don: "We started a skiffle group when we were in the sixth form at the Liverpool Institute.
"We all brought in our prized second hand guitars into school for the last day of term. There was a huge crush of bodies outside the Music Room, all straining to see the main attraction of the day.
"It was Paul and George with a gleaming new Hofner electric guitar playing early Elvis and Little Richard classics. It was shades of things to come."
The Remo Four were the busiest of the bands and played regularly at Litherland Town Hall, The Aintree Institute and Blair Hall as well as residencies at the Cavern.
The Remos were very smart, too, with tailored suits, expensive fender guitars and modelled themselves on Buddy Holly's Crickets and The Shadows.
Recalls Don: "You can imagine our shock when we were booked to appear with a sensational but scruffy and noisy group 'from Germany' who tuned out to be our old schoolmates, Paul and George plus John Lennon, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe.
"Although none of us approved at first it soon became obvious that the world was going to be their oyster. Like many of the other Merseybeat groups, we had our own loyal following.
"But the Beatles followed us on to the Cavern stage on many nights with long hair, black t-shirts and black leathers and proceeded to give a merciless Lennon-inspired send up of our Shadows routine before pounding into their own R & B repertoire to send the girls wild.
"We went on stage before The Beatles every night on their last UK tour. You couldn't hear yourself speak for the screaming and the stage was ankle deep in jelly babies.
"It was the Lennon charisma and their brilliant song-writing which put the Beatles in a class of their own."
