[3][4] During World War II, Johnny Best was a commissioned officer serving as a Physical Training Instructor in India and was the Army's middleweight boxing champion.

[5] In 1945, the Best family sailed for four weeks to Liverpool on the Georgic, the last troop ship to leave India, carrying single and married soldiers who had previously been a part of General William Slim's forces in south-east Asia.

[8] The family then moved to a small flat on Cases Street, Liverpool, but Mona Best was always looking for a large house—as she had been used to in India—instead of one of the smaller semi-detached houses prevalent in the area.

[9] The Best family claim that Mona had pawned all her jewellery to place a bet on Never Say Die, a horse that was ridden by Lester Piggott in the 1954 Epsom Derby; it won at 33–1, and she saved her winnings and in 1957 used them to buy the house.

[10] As The Quarrymen, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ken Brown played at the club after helping Mona to finish painting the walls.

[21] In 1960, the Beatles' manager Allan Williams arranged a season of bookings in Hamburg, beginning on 17 August 1960, but complained the group did not impress him and hoped that he could find a better act.

[25][14][26] As Best had passed his school exams (unlike Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, who had failed most of theirs), he had the chance to attend teacher-training college, but he decided that playing in Hamburg would be a better career move.

Best initially preferred to play in cooler short sleeves on stage, which did not match the sartorial style of the group, even though he was later photographed wearing a leather jacket and jeans.

[33][34] The Beatles first played a complete show with Best on 17 August 1960[35] at the Indra Club in Hamburg, and the group slept in the Bambi Kino cinema in a small, dirty room with bunk beds, a cold and noisy former storeroom directly behind the screen.

Upon first seeing the Indra, where they were booked to play, Best remembered it as a depressing place patronised by a few tourists and having heavy, old, red curtains that made it seem shabby compared to the larger Kaiserkeller.

Best and McCartney spent three hours in a local prison and were subsequently deported on 30 November 1960, as was George Harrison, for working under the legal age limit.

[46][47] Chas Newby, the ex-Black Jacks guitarist, was invited to play bass for four concerts, as bassist Stuart Sutcliffe had decided to stay in Hamburg.

Epstein negotiated ownership of the Decca audition tape, which was then transferred to an acetate disc, to promote the band to other record companies in London.

[60][page needed] As a part of this contract, the Beatles recorded at Polydor's Studio Rahlstedt on 24 May 1962 in Hamburg as a sessions band, backing Tony Sheridan.

Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison ultimately decided that record production was more important than having a drummer for live stage performances who was more image than substance.

In the meantime, Epstein refrained from telling Best that EMI had made a recording contract with the band (orally since June and in writing at the end of July 1962), which meant that a new drummer was now inevitable.

[35][70] Mersey Beat magazine's editor, Bill Harry, claimed that Epstein initially offered the vacant drummer position in the group to Hutchinson, whom he also managed.

The Beatles had had two years in which to dismiss him but hadn't done so, and now – as they were beginning to reap the rewards for their long, hard slog, with money rolling in and an EMI contract secured – he was out.

"[93] Epstein claimed in his autobiography that Lennon, McCartney and Harrison thought Best was "too conventional to be a Beatle" and added, "though he was friendly with John, he was not liked by George and Paul".

"[98] McCartney explained why Geoff Britton, one-time drummer in his subsequent band Wings, "didn't last long" in that group: "It's like in the Beatles, we had Pete Best.

"[99] He told Mark Lewisohn, similarly, that when George Martin suggested "changing" their drummer the Beatles responded: "Well, we're quite happy with him, he works great in the clubs",[100] but also that "Pete had never quite been like the rest of us.

According to promoter and manager Joe Flannery,[102] Mona had done a great deal for the band by arranging several important early gigs and lending them a badly needed helping hand when they returned from Hamburg the first time, but this came at the cost of having to contend with her overbearing nature.

[104] Although Epstein's publicly stated reluctance to fire Best quickly became a matter of record in the early biographies,[105] he had found Mona to be the cause of mounting aggravation.

Richie Unterberger, reviewing the CD, stated that the music's "energy level is reasonably high," that Bickerton and Waddington's songwriting is "kind of catchy," but that Best's drumming is "ordinary.

Starr added, "He took little pills to make him ill."[122] Best sued the Beatles for defamation of character, eventually agreeing to an out-of-court settlement for much less than the $18 million he had sought.

[25][129] His education qualifications subsequently helped him become a civil servant working at the Garston Jobcentre in Liverpool,[130][page needed] where he rose from employment officer to training manager for the Northwest of England,[131] and remembered "a steady stream of real-life Yosser Hughes types" imploring him to give them jobs.

"[132] Eventually, Best began giving interviews to the media, writing about his time with the group and serving as a technical advisor for the television film Birth of the Beatles.

In both the 1994 film Backbeat[147] and in the 2000 television biopic In His Life: The John Lennon Story, Best is played by Liverpool native Scot Williams.

The play, which was mainly fiction, showed a scenario where after Pete Best's sacking, he went on to become a world-famous rock superstar while his ex-group struggled as one hit wonders.

[109] Pete Best is a main character in David Harrower's 2001 play Presence, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre, London, dramatising the Beatles' time in Hamburg.