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Alice Mona Best (née Shaw; 3 January 1924 – 9 September 1988) was a British music club proprietor, best known as the owner of The Casbah Coffee Club, a club in Liverpool which served as a venue for rock and roll music during the late 1950s and 1960s. Among the bands to play at The Casbah was the Beatles, for whom her son Pete Best (b. 24 November 1941) was a drummer at the time. Mona Best also had two other sons, John Rory (b. 29 January 1945), and Vincent "Roag" Best (b. 21 July 1962). It was later confirmed that Roag's father was Beatles' associate, music executive Neil Aspinall, Williams, Richard. "Obituary – Neil Aspinall", The Guardian, 25 March 2008 although he was not registered as the father on Roag's birth certificate.
After moving to Liverpool from India, where she was born, Best used gambling winnings to buy a house in 1957. She later opened The Casbah Coffee Club in the cellar of the house. It was planned as a members-only club for her sons and their friends. The club was often referred to as The Casbah Club, or The Casbah. In 2006, the property was accorded a Listed buildings.
Best died in 1988 after a heart attack coupled with an unspecified "long illness". Liverpool Echo, 12 September 1988, p. 14.
Mona was training with the Red Cross when she met Johnny Best, who came from a family of sports promoters in Liverpool that once owned and ran the Liverpool Stadium. At the time of their meeting, Best was a commissioned officer serving as a Physical Training Instructor in India, and was the British Army's middleweight boxing champion. After their marriage on 7 March 1944, at St. Thomas's Cathedral, Bombay, the Bests had one child: John Rory Best (b. 29 January 1945). Less than a year later, the family sailed for four weeks to Liverpool on the Georgic, which was carrying single and married ranks who had previously been a part of General Sir William Slim's forces in southeast Asia. The ship docked in Liverpool on 25 December. General Sir William Slim and the Georgic , red-duster.co.uk. Retrieved 26 November 2007.
After moving to 17 Queenscourt Road in 1948 – where the Bests lived for nine years – Rory saw a large Victorian house for sale at 8 Hayman's Green in 1954, and told his mother about it. 17 Queenscourt Road , beatlestours.co.uk, UK. Retrieved 1 December 2007. This house was built around 1860 and had previously been owned by the West Derby Conservative Club. Unlike many other family houses in Liverpool, it was set back from the road, had 15 bedrooms and an acre of land. All the rooms were painted dark green or brown, and the garden was totally overgrown. Photos of The Casbah Club, samleach.com. Retrieved 10 October 2007. In a widely repeated story (which Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn believes to be false), Mona managed to afford this mansion by pawning all her jewellery and allegedly putting the proceeds on a rank outsider running in the 1954 Epsom Derby horse race. The horse, Never Say Die ridden by Lester Piggott in his first Derby victory, came home at 33-1.
Mona decorated the living room in an Oriental style, which reflected her own upbringing in India. She had previously tried to interest her husband in other houses, including a Formby lighthouse, a windmill in St. Helens and a circular house in Southport, which John disliked and rejected.
From 1961–62, Neil Aspinall became good friends with Pete and subsequently rented a room in the Bests' home. Aspinall became romantically involved with Mona, and during this period, he fathered a child by Mona: Vincent "Roag" Best. Roag was born on 21 July 1962, and just three weeks later, on 16 August 1962, Pete was dismissed from the Beatles. Neil Aspinall Biography – Mersey Beat, triumphpc.com. Retrieved 11 February 2007. Roag's birth certificate was registered on 31 August 1962, stating his name as "Vincent Rogue sic Best" and naming John Best as his father, even though Mona and Johnny had separated in the late 1950s or early 1960s.
Mona had booked the Les Stewart Quartet to play the opening night with George Harrison on guitar, but they cancelled the booking after Stewart and Ken Brown had a quarrel. Stewart was angry that Brown had missed a rehearsal, because Brown was helping Mona to decorate the club. As 300 membership cards had already been sold, Harrison said that he had two friends in a band called the Quarrymen, who would play instead.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Harrison went to the club to arrange the booking, to which Mona agreed, but she said she needed to finish painting the club first. All four took up brushes and helped Mona to finish painting the walls with spiders, dragons, rainbows, stars, and a beetle, which still survive. Lennon was short-sighted, mistaking gloss for Paint paint, which took a long time to dry in the dark, damp cellar. Cynthia Powell, later Lennon's wife, painted a silhouette of Lennon on the wall, which is also still intact.
The Quarrymen played a series of seven Saturday night concerts in The Casbah for 15 each, from 29 August to October 1959, featuring Brown, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, but without a drummer, or a Public address system. Casbah photos beatlesource.com – Retrieved 4 November 2007 The opening night concert was attended by about 300 local teenagers, but as the cellar had no air-conditioning, and people were dancing, the temperature rose until it became hard to breathe. As there was no amplification, Lennon later persuaded Mona to hire a young amateur guitar player called Harry to play a short set before the Quarrymen, but this was only so they could use his 40-watt amplifier. After the success of the first night, Mona gave the Quarrymen a residency, and paid the whole group Pound sterling3 a night (equivalent to £ in ). Every Saturday thereafter, queues lengthened onto the street, which was financially good for Mona, as she charged one shilling admission on top of the annual membership fee.
Pete was studying at the Collegiate Grammar School when he decided he wanted to be in a music group, so Mona bought him a drum kit from Blackler's music store and Best formed his own band, the Black Jacks. Icons: A Portrait of England icons.org.uk. Retrieved 26 November 2007. Radio DJ Jim Ladd interview with Best eskimo.com. Retrieved 26 November 2007. Chas Newby joined the group, as did Brown, but only after he had left the Quarrymen. geocities.com. Retrieved 4 November 2007
The reason for Brown's exit from the group was that he turned up on the seventh Saturday night of the Quarrymen residency at The Casbah with the influenza, so Mona ordered him upstairs to the Bests' living room to rest. This caused a massive quarrel with the rest of the group when Mona came to pay them, as they wanted Brown's money to be shared amongst the three of them, since Brown had not played. Mona refused, and so the Quarrymen angrily cancelled their residency and stormed out. Colin Manley, from the Remo Four, was also given a booking to play in the club, which was the only venue that young amateur bands could play at the time. Other groups like the Searchers and Gerry and the Pacemakers later played in the club. Drinking coffee with the Beatles – 27 January 1999 BBC. Retrieved 26 November 2007 The Black Jacks became the resident group at The Casbah, although the Quarrymen occasionally played there again and often visited. It was in The Casbah Club that Lennon and McCartney convinced Sutcliffe to buy a Höfner president bass guitar and join the Quarrymen.
Although the membership list later spiralled to over a thousand, Mona closed the club on 24 June 1962, with the Beatles as the last group to perform. The end of the club and the performers who played there casbahcoffeeclub.com. Retrieved 29 November 2007.
In 2006, the Bests' ex-coal cellar was awarded Grade II listed building status by English Heritage. It has now been opened as a tourist attraction in Liverpool, along with Lennon's and McCartney's previous homes. The man who was a Beatle cnn.com – Retrieved 8 December 2007
After the Beatles signed a management contract with Epstein, Mona did not relinquish her control over them, as they had been using her telephone to call agents, and frequently slept over in her living room between concerts. She reportedly harassed Epstein about the quality of their bookings, and his management of them, which led to Epstein never referring to her by name, but always calling her " that woman". One musician commented that if Mona said it was a Sunday when it was Tuesday, one would be forced to agree with her.
After Best, McCartney and Harrison were deported from Hamburg in November 1960, Mona made numerous phone calls to Hamburg to recover the group's equipment, which she eventually managed to do.”The Beatles Anthology” DVD 2003 (Episode 1 – 0:49:56) Notice telling Harrison to leave Hamburg. Mona wrote to Granada Television in 1961, in an attempt to gain the group a booking on the television programme People And Places, but was sent a letter telling her that they would contact her in the future. After Pete had been dismissed from the Beatles on 16 August 1962, Mona was later quoted by biographer Hunter Davies as saying:
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