On this day, July 7th, in the year 1940, Richard Starkey was born at home in a poor working-class area of a dilapidated city in northern England. His parents, both bakery workers, divorced when he was a small child. Called ‘Ritchie’ by his family and friends, he was a cheerful and outgoing boy, though quite sickly.
In the early summer of 1947, Ritchie fell dangerously ill. Rushed by ambulance to the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital, the six-year-old was diagnosed with acute appendicitis. An operation revealed that his appendix had burst, causing infected peritonitis.
He continued to slip in and out of consciousness for several months. During that difficult period, his mother Elsie was told three times that he would not survive the night. One of those occasions was the eve of his seventh birthday.
Even when he left hospital at the beginning of 1948, convalescence from his surgical wounds was slow and painful. Ritchie remained a frail child, frequently ill, and rarely attended school. He later spent two years in a sanatorium after acquiring pleurisy at the age of 13.
It was during this time that he was introduced to the drums by a health worker who gave children musical instruments to amuse them. Ritchie did not return to school after his release from the sanatorium, but worked at various jobs, eventually becoming an apprentice joiner for an engineering company, where he and other employees formed a skiffle band. In 1959 he became the drummer for another skiffle band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and adopted his stage name.
Though he might have died as a child, he always stayed upbeat — and went on to become one of the most famous and successful people in the world. Today Richard Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr, celebrates his 84th birthday.