Ringo Starr loved boozy holiday lunches with Cilla Black but feels regret over final days of childhood pal
They were two young working-class kids growing up together in Liverpool, Richie Starkey and Priscilla White. Then he was a drummer in bands and she was the cloakroom girl who got up to sing at the Cavern Club. Then suddenly he was Ringo Starr of the world-conquering Beatles and she was Cilla Black, chart-topping singer and TV personality.
Now Ringo, 75, who knew Cilla long before his bandmates John, Paul or George had ever met her, has spoken for the first time about the death of his old childhood friend. “I was in LA when I found out she died, and actually found out via a news outlet rather than someone ringing me up to tell me,” he says.
She was three years younger than Ringo and he was shocked that she went so suddenly following a fall at her home in Spain on August 1. They had always kept in touch and over the years went on lots of holidays together, particularly when they both had young children.
“Cilla started at the same time we did,” Ringo recalls. “She was important in Liverpool and so were we – and then we had to fight the rest of the world together!
“I remember her before she ever made it – she lived in a tenement. Her mother was a friend of my mother’s and we would just hang out. "We didn’t think about it at the time, we never, ever thought. ‘Oh wow, we’re going to be a part of something so big’.”
By: Clemmie Moodie
Source: The Mirror
