Royston Ellis and his Beatles connection!
Royston Ellis was born on
February 10, 1941 in Pinner, England, and educated at State schools
until he left at age 16, determined to be a writer.
Two years later, his first book, Jiving to Gyp, a sequence of poems,
was published and he performed his poetry on stage and TV to backing by
Cliff Richard’s original group, The Shadows; also by Jimmy Page, later
of Led Zepplin, and by John, Paul, George and Stuart who became famous
as the Beatles, a spelling Royston suggested to them, instead of
Beatles.
 According to the Resident Abroad (1994) publication, at the dawn of
the Sixties, Royston found himself in Liverpool.
There he fell in with John Lennon. They chewed the fat and told each
about their ambitions: Ellis wanted to be a writer; Lennon a pop star.
The association had momentous repercussions: Lennon had already
thought of a name for his new group but it was Ellis who suggested
spelling it with an “a”.
The Beatles went on to have a No 1 hit with the song Lennon and
McCartney wrote about Ellis, Paperback Writer.
‘Polythene Pam’ was a song written by John Lennon. Beatles expert
Pattie Noah said that John based the song on two people. One was
Patricia Hodgett, who was a Cavern Dweller (someone who hung out at the
Cavern Club, where The Beatles used to play). Pat used to actually eat
polythene! They started calling her ‘Polythene Pat.’ Not a far stretch
to Pam. The other woman was named Stephanie, and she was the girlfriend
of John’s good friend, poet Royston Ellis. John was with Ellis and
Stephanie in the Channel Islands.
In 1960 Ellis caused a nationwide controversy by his remarks on
teenage lifestyle in the TV program Living For Kicks. In 1961 his book
The Big Beat Scene was first published. For his literary achievements
Royston was awarded the title Duke Gypinoy Tintinabulation de Redonda by
the king of that Caribbean island.
At 20, Royston left England for a life of travel that took him to
Moscow, where he read his poetry on stage with the iconic Russian poet
Yevtushenko, and then to the Canary Islands where he acted briefly as an
Arab with Cliff Richard in the movie Wonderful Life, and wrote three
novels.
From 1966 to 1980 he lived in Dominica and wrote the bestselling
Bondmaster series of historical novels as Richard Tresillian; as well as
becoming President of the Dominica Cricket Association, a member of MCC
and of the Windward Islands Cricket Board of Control.
In 1980, he settled permanently in Sri Lanka where he now lives in a
colonial cottage overlooking the Indian Ocean, and in 2003 was appointed
as the Warden (a kind of Honorary Consul) of southern Sri Lanka for the
British High Commission.
The author of over 60 published books (guides, novels, biographies
and volumes of poetry) he also writes travel features for inflight,
international and Sri Lankan magazines.
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