"but it seems to me sometimes that he wasn't as working class as he made out to be, John too to a certain extent. They certainly would have not have started out on the instruments they had in the early days especially in 50/60's working class Liverpool unless they had a bob or two. Both attended the same art school with Mick Jagger, Keith Richard etc. so all pretty affluent compared to a lot of working class. Ringo was the closest to being genuinely working class."

John Lennon - yes, fairly middle class background. Paul McCartney, not so much. They bought their instruments in instalments, like many people do today. Paul's dad disapproved - any 'debt' was seen as a bad, even a shameful thing to many in those days. Paul chose his Hofner partly due to the fact it wasn't very expensive, but also that it was symetrical, so when he played it upside down it wouldn't look quite so daft.

They certainly didn't attend 'the same art school as Keith Richards and Mick Jagger'. Richards was at art school in Sidcup, while the Beatles were in Liverpool. And Jagger went to the London School of Economics. He was a bit middle class - although the son of a PE teacher isn't exactly a 'silver spoon' upbringing. Keith Richards dad worked in a light bulb factory.

Art schools in the 60s in the UK would take people with no qualifications, if their headmasters wrote them a reference that they showed promise artistically. This didn't mean you were necessarily 'middle class'. However, bringing together so many creative types, many of whom formed bands, certainly seems to have had a major effect on how popular culture developed in the UK.