Did George Martin have a 'secret history'?
The George Martin who the Beatles first met in 1962 presented as Professor Higgins to their Eliza Doolittle. With his smart suit, upper class (southern) accent and courtly manners he appeared to be what Brian Epstein described as “a stern but fair-minded schoolmaster”. “We were rednecks” as Ringo later put it. George Martin was the archetypal ‘square’: solid and suburban. They automatically assumed that he was backed by family wealth and a private education. The Beatles, with the arguable exception of Ringo, did not grow up in poverty. George Martin unquestionably did Early history According to a recent biography, Maximum Volume (2017), George Martin came from a seriously impoverished background. Author Kenneth Womack was …very surprised about the degree of George’s childhood poverty — he describes a family that had no electricity or running water and had one gas jet. Nor was Martin the product of a privileged education. Several changes of school marked his early