Paula was very close to the Beatle crowd, and hung out with Ringo's previous girlfriend Pat Davies, and two other Beatle girlfriends. These four girls were the most supportive of the Beatles crowd and would travel all over with the boys to attend gigs. They became especially close to Paul has he was the one who took care of them, but all the lads were enthusiastic about giving them lifts back and forth to gigs. "There were four of us who used to go 'round with the Beatles - Pat Davies, Louise Steel and Linda Robinson and myself. We were crazy about all four of them, particularly Paul. He had a kind, gentle way with him, and sent us all lovely Christmas cards. He was the only one of the Beatles who would dance, and in between numbers at the different halls and clubs he would come down onto the floor and join in dancing with us. He was smashing. Nearly every night the boys took us about in their van. To Preston one night, then Whitchurch another - and to all the places they used to play in Liverpool; Aintree Institute and so on."

"Ringo is wonderful fun to be with. He's so happy and has a tremendous sense of humor - but, like all The Beatles, he is afraid that the press will jump to the wrong conclusion if he is photographed with a girl. When we first met, it was different. The Beatles were not as well known, and Ringo could just drop in to the Blue Angel for a quiet drink whenever he wanted to. But later, when we went to the Ad Lib Club off Leicester Square, he was worried stiff in case any journalist saw us there together.

Paula moved to London to study sociology at London University around the same time that The Beatles moved down to London in order to be nearer the recording and TV studios where they frequently had to work. Ringo didn't take much time to install her as one of his regular London dates, but things were so very much more complicated in London. "I remember one late evening when Ringo offered to drop me off on his way home. But when he went down in the lift, he insisted on turning away into a corner with his coat collar pulled up over his face in case anyone recognised us. It was terribly funny, really. When the lift reached the bottom, he waited in a doorway - still with the collar pulled up over his face - and asked me to go down the street and find a taxi. Then I had to ask the driver to pull up slowly outside the Ad Lib Club, and I had the door open so that Ringo could suddenly dash into the cab without anyone realising it was him. I laughed about it at the time, but he told me that the Beatles always had to do this to avoid being harrassed by the press. Ringo said he always had to do this in case anyone recognised him and saw that he was with a girl. Ringo said that all the other Beatles had the same trouble trying not to be seen with their dates. Partly, it was because they wanted to avoid bad publicity and partly, they tried to protect their girlfriends from the press."

The other problem Ringo was having was that now he was famous, his girlfriend back home in Liverpool was constantly in danger of finding out in great detail what fun he'd been having down in London without her, and with pictorial evidence. While in Liverpool Ringo was still dating Maureen Cox, but Paula became one of his regular London girls and only disappeared off the scene when Ringo and Maureen married.

By the age of 24 when her relationship with Ringo had ended Paula was working as a typist and still living in London.

SOURCES: 1965 Interview, 1960s magazines.

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