Pete Best Leaves the Beatles

It strikes me that the word on Pete’s leaving the band got out pretty fast and the protests – with girls carrying signs and all — got organized awfully well for the time and place. Picketing wasn’t nearly as popular in 63 but it’s reported by reasonably dependable sources (Spitz) that they were picketing NEMS and the Cavern. Made me wonder if Pete’s mother, Mona Best, might have had just a little to do with it.
She’d been driving Brian crazy calling to give him advice and to complain about what he was doing with the band. She was convinced that Pete was THE member of the Beatles. Mona would have known the girls who were particularly Pete’s fans from the gigs the Beatles had played at the Casbah. Picketing, demonstrations complete with signs strike me as rather unlikely for a small collection of girl fans to come up with on their own. Mona may well have had a grudge against the other Beatles because of them choosing Brian to manage them when she had been thinking of herself as being their manager.