1959 photo of John, Paul and George unearthed

Paul, John and George in Mona Best’s living room, late 1959.

Causing quite a commotion among Beatles fans when it was published by the BBC as well as in the Daily Mail on April 9, a hitherto unknown photo of the pre-fame Beatles has come to light.

The photo came in the hands of Beatles memorabilia expert Paul Wane of the Tracks company. He was keen to find out what the location might be, and sent it secretly to Mark Ashworth, keeper of the “There are places I remember: Liverpool Beatles Locations” blog. Ashworth guessed that it was taken in one of the living rooms of Mona Best, one floor up from the Casbah Club.

Likely from the latter part of 1959, the pre-fame Beatles used to perform at the Casbah Club at the time, Paul, George, John and fourth member, Ken Brown. For a short while, the drummerless trio had called themselves Japage3, but when Brown joined they took back their Quarry Men name for lack of a better one. This was before Pete Best got his first drum kit.

Roag Best, who runs the Magical History Museum in Mathew Street, Liverpool says that he has the heads on the wall behind John in the photo in a box somewhere. It now seems likely that he will get them out of the box and on display in his museum, because of this photo.

Roag’s brother Pete noticed his granddad’s golf clubs leaning against the wall between George and John in the photo.

Not long after the publication of the photo, people on the internet had it colourised.

Colourised version of the photo.

Read more about the photo in Mark’s blog.