Quarryman Rod Davis doesn’t remember John meeting Paul ‘because I went home for my tea!’

Original Quarrymen member Rod Davis had been playing on stage with John Lennon the day he met Paul McCartney.

But ask Rod what he recalls of that day at St Peter’s Church Fete in July 1957 when pop history was made and he’ll happily admit: “I don’t remember because I went home for my tea!”

He laughs:

“People expect angels to be tootling trumpets beyond clouds when this happened, and basically someone we knew met someone we didn’t know.

“It was as big a deal as that.

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“Obviously, we’ve heard about it from Paul since then because for him it was very significant.”

Rod says:

“Paul hadn’t brought his guitar with him, so he borrowed one, retuned it and played a few chords ‘upside down’ as he was left-handed, which impressed John mightily.

“On the way home that night, John asked Pete Shotton what he thought of him and, when he said he thought he was pretty good, John said maybe we should ask him to join the group?

“Unlike what John said which was that as soon as he saw how talented Paul was, he immediately asked him to join!”

Now 84 and living in London, Rod is one of the two remaining original Quarrymen – along with drummer Colin Hanton – who reunited in 1997 and continue to play around the world.

They’re appearing in National Museums Liverpool’s Sound of Summer event, The Quarrymen and Friends (in collaboration with The Cavern Club), at the Museum of Liverpool this Saturday, July 25.

Together with Henry Duff Lowe (son of former Quarryman John) and respected Beatles author David Bedford, they’ll entertain the audience with skiffle music and the early rock that inspired a generation.

And, of course, there’ll be laughs and memories from the days when history was made… and when The Quarrymen became The Beatles.

Rod was 14 when he joined The Quarrymen ‘because I had a banjo’.

“Basically, tens of thousands of youngsters, mostly lads, were inspired by Lonnie Donegan who had made a record called Rock Island Line, nothing to do with rock, it’s a railroad line in America,” he explains.

“It was so different from all the music that was around at the time, like I’m a Pink Toothbrush, You’re a Blue Toothbrush, and How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?

“Donegan was a banjo player who also played the guitar and so I badgered my mum and dad for either and I ended up with a banjo. The next day I went into school, Quarry Bank High, and said to Eric Griffiths ‘I bought a banjo yesterday Eric’. To which he replied: ‘Do you want to be in a group?’.

“I asked who else was in the group and he said Pete Shotton, Bill Smith, and John Lennon, and it sounded like fun so I said okay.”

Rod already knew John as he was in the same school house and year at Quarry Bank and because they went to Sunday school together.

“When John came to live with Aunt Mimi she obviously wanted a quiet Sunday afternoon and packed John off to Sunday school and that’s when I first got to know him.”

Rod grins:

“From an early age he was a bad influence. Aunt Mimi thought the sun shone out of his various orifices, but most kids in Woolton, and their parents, knew him as ‘Lennon, now you stay away from him’.

“Even at Sunday school, we took two pennies to put in the collection and John persuaded Pete Shotton to spend his on bubble gum and chewing gum.

“Obviously I was in the same year and house at Quarry Bank as John for five years and we’d spend 15 minutes in the morning in Woolton House, and we’d walk across to assembly and went to the swimming baths together and football and stuff like that, all the kids in the same house did, but I can’t say I was a very close friend of his.”

Rod was in The Quarrymen for a year, staying on at 6^th form when John went on to art school and his vacated place was taken by one Paul McCartney.

Does he have any regrets about what might have been?

“No, the band was moving towards rock and roll, and I hated rock and roll. It would be nice to have a few bob and say to the kids ‘here’s a large cheque, go and buy yourself a house’ but I have had a lot of fun in my life – Rod worked as a teacher and in travel after graduating from Cambridge – and I’m still around to enjoy it.”

Rod has played in a number of folk and bluegrass bands and more over the years. The Quarrymen got back together in ’97 to commemorate 40 years of McCartney and Lennon’s meeting and have travelled the world since, playing across Europe, the USA, Japan, Cuba and beyond.

“Occasionally, I think next year is the year for me and Colin to retire, but if people are interested, why not keep going?” he says.

“It keeps a lot of old men off the streets, and we’re cheaper than Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.”