Colin Hanton

The original drummer with the Quarry Men.

Colin, who lived in King’s Drive, was two years older than the other members of the skiffle group and worked in a local factory as an apprentice upholsterer. Despite his age, he was quite small and used to carry his birth certificate around with him to prove his age. His friend Eric Griffiths immediately thought of him when the Quarry Men needed a drummer.

Colin had recently acquired a £38 Broadway drum kit from Hessy’s and was invited to join the group. His father was manager of a Cooperative shop and the Quarry Men were often able to practice at his house on Saturday afternoons.

The relationship came to an end early in 1959 during an argument when the members of the group had had too much to drink, particularly Hanton, who liked Black Velvet, a mixture of Guinness and mild bitter.

George Harrison’s father had booked the group for a Saturday night dance at the Picton Road Busmen’s Social Club and had told them he’d arranged for the manager of a local cinema to see them perform, with a view to booking them to appear in the intervals between films. Because they’d been drinking, their performance that night was quite bad, which obviously caused the loss of the cinema bookings.

Hanton was upset and had a furious argument with the others during their bus journey home from Wavertree. He was so angry that he got off the bus with the drums before he’d even reached his own stop — and didn’t see the other members of the group for many years.

In the early 1990s he got together with some former members to record a selection of their original repertoire under the name the Quarry Men and also began to appear at conventions. When the Beatles Anthology I was issued in November 1995, he was originally offered £500 from Apple for a one-time royalty payment for his drumming on ‘In Spite of All the Danger’, and finally settled for £1,500.

Copyright: Bill Harry, from 'The Beatles Encyclopedia', published by Virgin Publications.

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