Beatles museum exhibits George Harrison's Japanese tea set
A Japanese tea service bought by George Harrison when Beatlemania confined him to a hotel room has gone on display. It is one of three bought by Harrison when the band was on tour in Japan in 1966.
Roag Best, who runs the Liverpool Beatles Museum, said: "Beatlemania had truly hit Japan [and] they couldn't go out." The tea service is on display at the museum, in Liverpool's Mathew Street. Mr Best, the half-brother of the band's original drummer Pete Best, and son of tour manager Neil Aspinall, said: "The Beatles had gone to play the Budokan.
"They played five shows in a three-day period and were playing to in excess of 10,000 people a show." He said his and John Lennon had had to leave their Tokyo hotel in disguise, and Paul McCartney had done the same. But Ringo Starr and Harrison stayed confined to their rooms.
"They liked buying stuff when they were touring but because they couldn't go out they were having people bringing their wares up to their rooms to sell," Mr Best said."George bought three really ornate Japanese tea services, which he then had shipped back to England."He kept one and gave my dad the choice of the other two, then the third he gave to his mother."
The crockery made its way back to Liverpool and was put in a display cabinet in the house of Mr Best's mother Mona Best, who owned the Casbah Club in West Derby.
Source: Paul Burnell,PA News
