How diid Ringo nearly die in childhood?

Richard Starkey with his mother, Elsie

The then Richard Starkey experienced two major medical episodes. According to Lewisohn, Richard Starkey was 'a robust infant' but fell 'dangerously ill in the early summer of 1947'. 

Rushed by ambulance to the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, the six-year-old was diagnosed with acute appendicitis. An operation revealed that the appendix had burst causing infected peritonitis.

As he was wheeled into theatre, Richard requested a cup of tea. 

The nurse responded, 'When you come round,'  She kept her promise but it was ten weeks before Richard got his tea. In that time, his mother Elsie was told three times that he would not survive the night. One of these occasions was the eve of his seventh birthday.

Second Medical crisis

One fully recovered from peritonitis,  Richard Starkey appeared to return to robust health. Then six years after the first medical disaster came a second: pleurisy.

Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital, Livepool (now closed)

In early June 1954, he returned to the Royal Liverpool Children's Hospital. During a ten week stay his condition developed into tuberculosis. 

Tuberculosis (TB)

The scourge of industrial cities was still endemic in Liverpool and potentially fatal. George Orwell had died from complications just four years earlier. But the arrival of antibiotics came to the rescue of the thirteen year old Richard, as he later movingly described

“God, you know, shined his lights on me in 1953 or ’54 when they discovered Streptomycin. And that’s what saved me.”

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