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Book specifications:

by Lew Baxter

224 pages with 19 black and white photographs

ISBN: 0-9531995-4-1

Retail price £14.00, €22 and US$30

Size 240mm x 160mm - hardback

First published in November 2004 by Guy Woodland as a Cities500 project in association with Bargepole Press.

MY BEATLES HELL:
The Tragical History Tour of Beryl Adams - by Lew Baxter

This is the fascinating but often harrowing account of the life of Beryl Adams who was Brian Epstein's secretary when he 'found' the Beatles and began to shape them into a world-shattering phenomenon.

IN everyone's eyes it was a dream job but it was to turn into Beryl's personal hell. She dramatically quit Epstein's expanding empire just as it and the Beatles hit global stardom. Many of her friends thought her mad but the helter-skelter lifestyle took its toll and she even attempted suicide.

Bizarrely Beryl was also married to the late and legendary - and homosexual - Cavern Club disc jockey Bob Wooler who is today affectionately regarded as the 'Father of Mersey Beat'. He was famously given a good hiding by John Lennon but according to Beryl wasn't averse to lashing out himself.

Curiously, after ditching Epstein claiming she hated the lifestyle, Beryl went to work in Italy for showbiz impresario Alan Watts who was the manager of the outrageous Scouse comedian Freddie Starr. After that turned sour, she took a job with Ray McFall, owner of the fabled Cavern in Liverpool. She also became the first woman in Britain to manage a rock band.

Years later, in an astonishing twist of fortune, Beryl became the lover of the Beatles first manager, the irascible Allan Williams. She also remained a lifelong pal of Pete Best, the drummer ousted from the Fab Four in favour of Ringo Starr. Pete has even written an affectionate foreword in the book.

Fate dealt Beryl a final wicked blow just as she found the courage and determination to confront her old demons from the past. Two She died unexpectedly and horribly from vCJD - the human form of what is tagged Mad Cow's Disease, an affliction that strikes only a handful of people every year.

This book is the 'tragical history tour - to pun a popular Beatles song - about that 'ordinary' woman who was swept up and almost destroyed by the madcap circus that became Beatlemania.