Mona Best

8 Hayman's Green had previously been owned by the West Derby Conservative Club, and was unlike many other family houses in Liverpool, as the house (built around 1860) was set back from the road, had 15 bedrooms and an acre of land.

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.

Best was born on 3 January 1924, in Delhi, British India, to English parents, Thomas (a major in an Irish regiment) and Mary Shaw.

She was the youngest of four children: Brian, Patrick and Aileen.

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.

When she was 17, her first son, Randolph Peter Scanland (later surnamed Best), was born on 24 November 1941 in Madras.

Pete's biological father was marine engineer Donald Peter Scanland, who subsequently died during World War II.

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.

Being a part of Best's family meant Mona was accorded respect on Merseyside, which included meeting well-known sports personalities of the time and receiving preferential treatment when booking a table in a restaurant, or a seat in the theatre.

The Bests lived for a short time at the Best family's large home in West Derby, which was called Ellerslie, but Mona fell out with Johnny’s sister Edna, who resented her brother's choice of wife.

The family then moved to a small flat on Cases Street, Liverpool (above Ma Edgerton's public house), but Mona was always looking for a large house— as she had been used to in India — instead of a smaller semi-detached house, which were prevalent in the area.

After moving to a three-bedroom house in Princess Drive, Mona persuaded her parents to leave India and live with them in Liverpool.

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, although he was not registered as the father on Roag's birth certificate.

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.

Mona and Johnny had separated in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a television report about The 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho, where several singers had been discovered.

Mona managed to afford this mansion by pawning all her jewellery and putting the proceeds on a rank outsider running in the 1954 Epsom Derby horse race (Never Say Die ridden by Lester Piggott) which came home at 33-1.

All the rooms were painted dark green or brown, and the garden was totally overgrown.

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.

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.

She decided to open The Casbah Coffee Club — which was located in her cellar — on 29 August 1959, for young people to meet and listen to the popular music of the day.

Mona charged half a crown annually for membership—to "keep out the rough elements"—and served soft drinks, snacks, cakes, and coffee from an espresso machine, which no other club had at that time.

The current pop records were played on a small Dansette record player, which amplified them through a speaker of 3 in.

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.

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.

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.

Best died on 9 September 1988 in a Liverpool hospital after a heart attack coupled with an unspecified "long illness".

In 2006, the property was accorded a Grade II heritage listing.