ALS signed “Stuart,” nine total pages, 8 x 10.5, October 1959. Lengthy letter addressed to his former girlfriend Sheila Garbe, in part: "I had the opportunity to go to Spain for five weeks with my father at the beginning of the next week, but unfortunately I can’t get permission to have any more than two weeks off college. Not that they can’t do without me, it’s just that they feel I ought to get on with my work…As you said earlier in your letter nothing very exciting ever happens. Things come and go in a very artificial way, we seem constantly to need excitement (that’s why I am getting a motor-bike, not a car). I felt that I was slowly being suffocated by my work, and I just had to do something about it, something to take my mind off the rat-race which we are all part of. Last Saturday there was this party at Brenda’s at Austen’s. I must admit it was the most exciting party I have ever been to, I couldn’t really say why it was good, because I was on my own for most of it because Janet had to go at one. It was absolutely packed. Rod went berserk on two different occasions when he tried to strangle Bucky, the police intervened the second time—he was dead lucky he wasn’t arrested….Geoff from next door has just given me a glass of very strong gin—he tells me that Allan Williams from the Jac. Had it smuggled in from Holland—…Life is warming up at college, this is mostly due to the efforts of Elvis Presley and Co., on records at lunch time rock meetings. The general age seems to be much younger with the first years than usual.” In fine condition, with mild scattered creasing. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Tracks. On the constant urging of roommate and Liverpool College of Art classmate John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe joined The Quarrymen in late January 1960, purchasing a bass guitar with money he earned from selling one of his paintings. Along with Lennon, Sutcliffe is credited with creating the band name 'Beetles,' an ode to Buddy Holly and the Crickets. The smuggled gin belonged to Allan Williams, the owner of the Liverpool coffee bar the Jacaranda, of which Lennon and Sutcliffe were frequent customers. When the pair inquired about performing music at the “Jac,” Williams instead hired them to paint a mural for the ladies room. Williams eventually became the band’s unofficial first manager—when they were called The Silver Beetles—and his legendary coffee club soon hosted some of the earliest known ‘Beatles’ shows.
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