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One day, it struck Ringo Starr that he would never be able to go back to being plain Ritchie Starkey.

He was with his family at his auntie’s house in Liverpool, when some of Ringo’s tea spilt into his saucer. He was shocked by what happened next.

‘Everyone’s reaction was, “He can’t have that! We have to tidy up!”’

In the old days, he would have been left to clear up his own mess. But not any more. Now they were treating him differently, as though he were a superior outsider, and not one of them. It felt, he said, ‘like an arrow in the brain’: ‘Suddenly I was “one of those”, even within my family, and it was very difficult to get used to. I’d grown up and lived with these people and now I found myself in weirdland … Once we’d become big and famous, we soon learnt that people were with us only because of the vague notoriety of being a “Beatle”. And when this happened in the family, it was quite a blow.’

There was no way back. Any complaint would serve only to reinforce their attitude. ‘I couldn’t stand up and say, “Treat me like you used to,” because that would be acting big-time.’