REVEALED: The Shocking Truth Behind Ringo's 'Live and Let Die' Moment That The Beatles Establishment DON'T Want You To Know!

Bond girls, burning cars, and the bizarre Beatles death curse that nearly claimed our beloved drummer

• Ringo's 1980 car crash occurred just yards from Marc Bolan's fatal accident spot, in a cosmic coincidence that'll make your head spin

• All four Beatles have had terrifying near-death experiences - from John's skiing disaster to Paul's Scotland farm mishap

• George Harrison's love of racing cars led to his own motorway drama that could have ended the Quiet One's journey prematurely

When Ringo Nearly Crossed Abbey Road For The Last Time

If you're reading this, chances are you already know that Ringo Starr isn't dead. But on 19th May 1980, the cosmic drumbeat very nearly stopped forever on a foggy Surrey A-road, when our Richard Starkey MBE came a whisker away from joining the Great Gig in the Sky. Forty-five years on, what really happened on that fateful night remains one of pop's strangest near-misses – and just one chapter in the Beatles' surprisingly dangerous existence.

The year was 1980. Margaret Thatcher was busy dismantling Britain, the Cold War was terrifyingly tepid, and Ringo had just met the woman who would become his second wife – Bond girl Barbara Bach. In the grand tradition of rock star love affairs, they'd met on the set of a spectacularly dreadful prehistoric comedy called Caveman, where Ringo demonstrated his acting range by playing, essentially, a prehistoric version of himself. Not that anyone noticed – all eyes were on Bach, fresh from her turn opposite Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me.

As the couple motored through the Surrey fog that night, heading to what was undoubtedly a star-studded soirée (probably at some ghastly tax exile's mansion), they approached the ominously named Robin Hood Roundabout on the A3. At precisely 60mph – because rock stars are nothing if not precise about their speeding – Ringo was forced to swerve violently to avoid an oncoming lorry, transforming his pristine white Mercedes into a £50,000 somersaulting metal death trap.

After a fifty-yard skid that would have impressed even the most jaded Top Gear presenter, the car eventually came to rest after a head-on collision with not one, but two lampposts. Because if you're going to crash, darling, do it properly.

What happened next has passed into rock legend. Despite suffering a leg injury that would have sent lesser drummers into hysterics, Ringo coolly extracted both himself and Barbara from the wreckage. Then, in a moment that deserves its own blue plaque, he turned around, climbed BACK into the mangled Mercedes, and retrieved his cigarettes. One imagines he lit up with the burning wreckage, muttering "It's been a hard day's night" while Barbara contemplated her life choices.

The accident site, in a twist so deliciously macabre it could only happen to a Beatle, was just half a mile from where T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan had met his untimely end three years earlier. Bolan, a close friend of Ringo's (because of course he was – it was the '70s and everyone famous knew everyone else famous), had died instantly when his purple Mini slammed into a tree. Ringo, in that peculiar way celebrities have of forming connections that normal people don't, was godfather to Bolan's son Rolan. One wonders if, as his Mercedes pirouetted through the Surrey night, Ringo had a fleeting thought about his departed glam-rock chum.

Eight Miles High: The Beatles' Collective Death Wish

The extraordinary thing about Ringo's brush with mortality is that it was merely one in a long line of near-fatal incidents that have plagued the Fab Four since they first topped the charts with "Please Please Me" (and wouldn't that have been a ghastly epitaph?).

Let us not forget that George Harrison – yes, Quiet George, Spiritual George, Mystical George – was actually a complete petrolhead with a passion for Formula One that bordered on the obsessive. While Eric Clapton was busy stealing his wife, George was falling in love with racing cars. The irony that the most peaceful Beatle was drawn to one of the most dangerous sports in the world is delicious enough to serve at a dinner party.

In December 1972, Harrison found himself in his own life-threatening motor incident when his Mercedes (what is it with Beatles and Mercedes?) skidded off the M4 motorway during a rainstorm. George, his wife Pattie, and his mother Louise were returning from a visit to the Harrisons' country home when their car hydroplaned and smashed into the central reservation. Miraculously, all three escaped with only minor injuries, though the car was completely written off.

"I just remember seeing a lot of lights coming towards me," Harrison later recounted, with characteristic understatement. "Then nothing." One suspects the former Beatle might have muttered something about karma, before returning to his meditation practice with a slightly higher appreciation for impermanence.

The incident becomes all the more intriguing when you consider that Harrison was, by far, the most accomplished driver among the Beatles. He regularly attended Grand Prix races, counted racing legends Jackie Stewart and Damon Hill among his close friends, and even owned a collection of performance cars that would make Jeremy Clarkson weep with envy. That George of all people would lose control on a wet motorway suggests that perhaps the universe has a rather warped sense of humour. "My Sweet Lord" indeed.

The Tour That Nearly Took Them All

But individual mishaps pale in comparison to the collective dangers the Beatles faced during their touring years. Between 1963 and 1966, the band narrowly avoided disaster on multiple occasions, proving that Beatlemania wasn't just a threat to teenage virtue but to the actual lives of its four protagonists.

Perhaps the most notorious incident occurred in 1964, when the Beatles' plane nearly crashed while flying through a fierce electrical storm en route from Amsterdam to Hong Kong. The aircraft dropped several thousand feet in seconds, sending tea trolleys, stewardesses, and terrified moptops hurtling towards the ceiling. Paul McCartney, ever the chronicler, later described the scene as "bloody terrifying – we all thought we'd had it."

John Lennon, with his trademark gallows humour, reportedly turned to the others and deadpanned, "If we're going to die, let's die with a drink in our hand." The band proceeded to down several miniature whiskies while contemplating their imminent demise over the South China Sea. When they finally landed safely in Hong Kong, they were so shaken that their manager Brian Epstein briefly considered cancelling their upcoming shows.

Similarly hair-raising was their experience in the Philippines in 1966, when the band unwittingly snubbed First Lady Imelda Marcos by failing to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace. The perceived insult led to a nationwide backlash, with the Beatles' security detail suddenly "disappearing" and angry mobs gathering at their hotel. Their escape from Manila resembled a scene from a particularly chaotic spy film – roadblocks, physical intimidation, and the genuine fear that they might not make it out alive.

"We were really frightened," Ringo later admitted. "We had people yelling and screaming at us, trying to punch us. You know it's serious when they turn off the bloody escalators so you have to carry your own bags through an angry crowd."

The band's final American tour that same year included another brush with mortality when they played Memphis just after John's infamous "more popular than Jesus" comment had set the American Bible Belt ablaze with righteous fury. Death threats poured in, the Ku Klux Klan picketed their concerts, and someone fired a shot at the stage during their Memphis performance. The bullet missed, the show continued, and the Beatles decided shortly thereafter that touring wasn't really their cup of tea anymore. Sensible lads.

John's Slippery Slope and Paul's Highland Fling

Individual Beatles continued to court disaster even after the band's breakup. In 1974, John Lennon nearly killed himself in what must rank as one of rock's least rock 'n' roll near-death experiences – a skiing accident. Yes, the leather-clad, acid-dropping revolutionary who told us to "Give Peace a Chance" almost met his maker while engaging in that most bourgeois of pastimes: winter sports.

During a holiday in Karuizawa, Japan, with Yoko Ono, John – who had never skied before and, let's be honest, didn't exactly have the physique or disposition for it – lost control on a beginners' slope and collided with a tree. He suffered a severe concussion and was hospitalised for several days. The accident occurred during his infamous "Lost Weekend" period away from Yoko, adding a layer of poetic justice to the whole affair. The man who sang "Imagine no possessions" nearly died surrounded by them, wearing expensive ski gear on a luxury holiday.

Meanwhile, Paul McCartney – the Beatle most obsessed with his public image – had perhaps the most embarrassing near-death experience when he nearly drowned in a bog on his Scottish farm in 1977. Sir James Paul McCartney, Knight of the Realm, multimillionaire, and author of "Let It Be," found himself slowly sinking into the muck while out for a wholesome countryside ramble.

"I was up to my waist before I realised what was happening," he later recounted. "It was touch and go for a minute." The mental image of Macca flailing about in a peat bog, desperately trying to preserve his dignity while contemplating how the headlines would read ("BEATLE BITES BOG DUST"), is almost too delicious for words.

One imagines the Queen, upon hearing the news that she'd nearly lost a national treasure to some mud, pursing her lips and muttering, "We are not amused." Though privately, one suspects, she might have been just a tiny bit.

The Fifth Beatle's Final Journey

No account of Beatles brushes with death would be complete without mentioning the tragedy that befell their producer and so-called "Fifth Beatle," George Martin, who narrowly escaped death in circumstances so bizarre they could only happen to someone associated with the band.

In 1965, Martin was scheduled to fly from London to Los Angeles to oversee a recording session. At the last minute, he decided to take a later flight because he wanted to attend his son's school play. The plane he was originally booked on – BOAC Flight 911 – crashed near Mount Fuji, killing all 124 people aboard.

When told of his near miss, Martin reportedly went quite pale and said, "Good Lord, that would have been a rather unfortunate end to the Beatles story, wouldn't it?" Classic British understatement from the man who helped create "A Day in the Life" and "Eleanor Rigby."

A Hard Day's Fright

By the time Ringo's Mercedes performed its death-defying acrobatics in 1980, the Beatles had collectively amassed enough near-death experiences to fill a particularly morbid episode of "This Is Your Life." Which begs the question: is there something about immense fame, talent, and cultural significance that attracts the Grim Reaper's attention? Or do we simply notice and record every close call because, well, they're the bloody Beatles?

What is certain is that Ringo's crash marked yet another chapter in the band's strange relationship with mortality. Three weeks after the accident, Barbara told her father she was going to marry Ringo. They tied the knot at Marylebone Town Hall in 1981 – the same venue where Paul had married Linda years earlier – and remain together today, splitting their time between homes in London and Los Angeles.

It's easy to imagine an alternative timeline where things went differently on that foggy night in Surrey. Where the car rolled one more time, or where Ringo's reflexes weren't quite quick enough. In that darkest timeline, 1980 would have marked the deaths of both John Lennon (shot outside his New York apartment in December) and Ringo Starr, leaving just half the band to carry the Beatles legacy forward.

Instead, we got forty more years (and counting) of Ringo's peace signs, his Thomas the Tank Engine narration, his surprisingly decent All-Starr Band tours, and his endearingly terrible paintings. Not to mention his steadfast refusal to sign autographs, which he announced in 2008 with a video message that concluded, "I've got too much to do. Peace and love, peace and love."

The next time you find yourself humming along to "With a Little Help from My Friends" or "Yellow Submarine," spare a thought for the cosmic near-miss that could have silenced that distinctive Liverpudlian drawl forever. And perhaps, if you're feeling particularly reflective, ponder why a band that sang so beautifully about peace, love, and happiness spent so much of their time narrowly avoiding violent, premature ends.

As John Lennon might have said, life is what happens when you're busy making other plans – like avoiding oncoming lorries on foggy Surrey roads.

It's all rather cosmic when you think about it. Or perhaps, as Ringo himself might say with a shrug and a peace sign, "It's just one of those things, y'know?"