Paul was full of admiration for the kind of man Ringo was and what he’d achieved, and the fact he was 22 (the Beatles had sequential ages when Ringo joined, with John 21, Paul 20 and George 19). Age was an important yardstick for Paul and first impressions were always the ones that stuck: he looked up to John because he was older, and he looked and talked down to George because he was younger. Ringo was even older than John, by three months, and Paul would always see him in this light: “He’s a grown-up, Ringo—always is, always has been. I suspect when he was about three he was a grown-up.”
