The Beatles are one of the most famous bands of all time, and everyone knows the story of their rise to fame from meager beginnings in Liverpool. However, many do not know the role in their rise to fame that was played by housewife Mona Best, mother of the band’s original drummer Pete Best, the man often described as “the fifth Beatle.”

Mona gave The Beatles their first booking in the club she ran out of her Liverpool basement, and she became the group’s first unpaid manager soon thereafter.

Mona also had an affair with The Beatles’ school friend Neil Aspinall, who went on to become the group’s road manager and trusted confidant. Neil and Mona had a love child together, a son named Roag, in 1962. Now, Roag has come forward to tell the story of Mona, who died in 1988.

Mona opened her little club in 1959, and on opening night, she invited the band the Quarrymen to perform. This group consisted of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and guitarist Ken Brown, who soon left the band to form his own group.

The group soon earned local fame, with Mona being their main promoter.

“She did everything in the dining room at Hayman’s Green, sitting at a big round table with her papers spread all over it, and in between talking to all the different venues, she’d be on the phone to her bookies,” Roag said. “She never gave up the gambling and she was very good at it.”

Mona soon began an affair with Neil and fell pregnant with Roag as the newly named Beatles continued to rise to stardom. Mona’s older son, Peter Best had joined the group as a drummer. However, things soured between her and the band when they fired her son and replaced him with Ringo Starr.

“She felt betrayed,” Roag explained. “She’d say things like ‘I did so much for those boys and that was how they repaid me.’ But my Dad [Neil] was still working for them so she had to put her feelings to one side.”

The Beatles never forgot about Mona over the years, and showered her with presents whenever they could. Mona and Neil split up in the late 1960s, and she passed away in 1988. Roag has since started a museum with the memorabilia he found in his mother’s possessions after her death.

“What you see here at the museum is about not just The Beatles’ legacy and my father’s legacy, but my mother’s legacy too,” he said. “She threw the pebble, that made the ripple, that caused the wave, that shook the world, and I hope this new museum reflects that.”