Beatles (45 page)

There has always been a certain element, very often even governments, who try to turn the Beatles’ presence or interest to their own advantage. The same sort of thing happened with Greece, around the same time in 1967. They were thinking of buying a Greek island. They’d seen it during a cruising holiday, and had even got the money organized. This was very difficult at the time because of the currency restrictions. But the Treasury gave them special dispensation to help them to take the money out of the country.

It was agreed that, as they’d brought so many millions into the country, they should be allowed to buy an island refuge. The
price was agreed. They didn’t care about the military regime that had just taken over in Greece. On one trip they were asked by an official if they would be kind enough to look at a very quiet little village. When they got there, they found hordes of press and TV people. It had been organized by the tourist people to use the Beatles as propaganda. They decided to forget about Greece.

It might seem far-fetched that governments should wish to court four members of a beat group. Many said the Labour government did, by giving them an MBE. But it has always happened, since the beginning, from people trying to get them to go to embassy parties to state visits. Most governments see the Beatles as a way of keeping in with the young voters.

But all the wheeling-dealing that went on around the Maharishi didn’t put them off him. Most of it had nothing to do with Maharishi anyway, although his natural enthusiasm to spread the word led him to be talked into lots of things by press and PR men. But the Beatles did want to help if possible. George and John even went on the David Frost TV show, the first time they agreed to talk on any TV programme for over two years.

George and John spent two months in India studying under Maharishi in the spring of 1968. Paul spent one month. Ringo managed ten days. He felt a bit homesick, even though, like the others, he took a consignment of baked beans with him. But all of them found their stay spiritually rewarding.

Despite everything, the year 1967, the year of LSD and meeting Maharishi, turned out to be their most creative year up to that time. In the first six months they recorded more new songs (16 in all) than in the first six months of 1963. This equalled what they’d done in the
whole
of 1966, which shows how much they gained from giving up touring.

Later in 1967, in November, they did another single, ‘Hello, Goodbye’, then the
Magical Mystery Tour
in December. This was their hour-long, colour TV film. They spent more time making the film than doing the songs for it.

They’d done no work on the film from April, when they thought of the idea and recorded the title song, until September, when they started shooting. They set off for Devon in a bus with 43 people on board, none of them, including the Beatles, knowing precisely what would happen. There was no script.

They did two weeks of shooting in all. They’d blithely expected to do a week in the studios at Shepperton after Devon, thinking you could just turn up. Instead they had to use an airfield in Kent.

The main work was done at the editing stage, which took eleven weeks in all, eleven times as long as they’d expected. Paul, as with the shooting, was the main inspiration. He directed every minute of the editing, along with the editor. The others were there most of the time, usually having a singsong with a drunken street singer who wandered into the cutting rooms.

They disregarded all the rules and conventions making this film, but just bashed on, unworried by their lack of film knowledge and experience. It was a completely new medium for them but most of all, for the first time ever, they were doing something on their own, with no Brian Epstein to stage-manage things or George Martin to lend his accumulated wisdoms.

It was shown at Christmas time 1967 in Britain on the BBC, and was seen in most countries in Europe, South America, Australia and Japan. The lack of plot and experienced direction did show, and it was savagely criticized by most of the British TV critics. The
Daily Express
called it ‘blatant rubbish’ and ‘tasteless nonsense’. The pre-publicity had made most people forget it was an experiment, and they possibly expected too much. It was the first time the Beatles had been criticized in five years. Most critics made the most of it.

Long before it was out, the Beatles had almost forgotten it, having learned their lessons, though Paul perhaps was still hoping it would be liked. But they’d gained enough to make them feel confident enough to have a go at a full-length feature film.

Apart from the TV film, it had been a good year.
Sergeant
Pepper
, particularly, was looked upon as their biggest advance so far.
The Times
music critic, William Mann, took 30 inches to say it was more genuinely creative than anything else in pop music.

The year had begun with them searching as individuals, and ended with them as a group once more, though without a manager. But they’d found Maharishi. And as individuals they’d begun, at last, to put their own minds and own homes and own organizations into some sort of order. Which brings us, roughly, to where they are today in 1968.

There are no blue plaques on the Beatle birthplaces in Liverpool today, though all the old homes get thousands of fans making pilgrimages to look at them every year. There is only one Beatle parent left living in Liverpool, but Liverpool does have an ex-Beatle – Pete Best.

Pete Best is married with two children. He lives in Liverpool with his in-laws and has a job slicing bread in a bakery for £18 a week. He did work in other groups after he left the Beatles, but in 1965 gave up show business for good. He did nothing for a year, refusing to see people, almost becoming a recluse. He turned down large sums for his life story. His memories of Hamburg, especially of their girls, drink and pills, would have been very lucrative.

‘What good would that have done, apart from the money? It would just have seemed like sour grapes. I wanted to try to get a life of my own, but it took a long time.

‘What I dreaded most was people’s cruelty. When I met people, I knew what they were going to say or think. I was the bloke that was no good. It was the sort of psychological knowledge which got me down. People were rude and said awful things to me.’

He has lost a bit of heart. He looked very tired, slumped in front of the TV at his mother’s home. He has a Beatle hairstyle
at last, but he was still wearing a leather jacket and jeans, as they’d all done in their Hamburg days. Mrs Best has given up all show business work, but she’s as forceful as ever. She still maintains the Beatles chucked Pete Best because they were jealous of him.

Pete says he knew all the time that they were good and obviously going to be successful. ‘That was what was really disappointing, knowing what I was going to miss. I did regret everything at first. When they kicked me in the teeth I did wish I’d never set eyes on them. I’d have just had an ordinary job, perhaps teaching, and never known all this anxiety.

‘But not now. I’m glad really. I’ve got a lot of happy memories. I had some great times. I’m grateful for them. Then the Day of Judgement came.’

In Hamburg, the clubs are still full of British groups, but Klaus is no longer there. He’s joined a British group, Manfred Mann. His fascination with the Beatles led him to follow them back to England and to join a group, even though he could play no musical instrument, except the piano. He is still very friendly with them. George composed one of his songs in Klaus’s house. Klaus also does a bit of drawing – he did the cover for the Beatles LP,
Revolver
.

Astrid is still in Hamburg, but she’s no longer a photographer. She says she got sickened by the press and refused all offers for her memories of the Beatles.

Her last job was serving in a bar in one of Hamburg’s small but strange night clubs. She is married, to Gibson Kemp, a Liverpool-born ex-beat-group player. At one time he played in a trio with Klaus. Astrid still has Stu’s room almost as it was. It is very dark and eerie. The candles are still burning.

Fred Lennon had no contact with John, or even bothered to go and see him or inquire about him, from 1945, when John was five, until 1964. Fred was then washing dishes at a hotel in Esher. ‘One day the washing-up woman said to me, “If that’s not your son, Freddy, then I don’t know what.” She said there was a boy in this group with the same name as me and the same sort of voice, though he didn’t sing as well as me. I’d never heard of them.’

John must have passed the hotel where his dad was washing dishes many times, without knowing it, going back and forward to his home in Weybridge.

When Fred realized it was his son, he was immediately appearing in all the newspapers, giving interviews. Fred says, of course, he didn’t seek publicity. It just happened. It also just happened that
Tit Bits
paid him £40 for his life story, and that he made a record. He says that singing on this record didn’t make him any money. ‘I lost, if anything. They made me get my teeth seen to. It cost £109. I’m still paying it up, £10 a month.’

He had a short 20-minute meeting with John and then was shown out. He tried to see him again, by just arriving at his house one day, but had the door slammed in his face. He’s surprisingly small, but almost dapper. He has thick greying hair, which is swept back lushly at the sides, like an ex-theatrical. He’s 55 but very cheerful and young-looking. ‘I can still get the girls, you know. If they think I’m smashing, I must be OK. I know John has a horror of old age. But tell him this from me. I’m younger than he is.’

He has watched John’s progress very carefully. ‘He’s only let me down twice. Once was accepting that MBE. I wouldn’t have done it. Royalty can’t buy me. The other time was not speaking at the Foyles literary lunch. I would definitely have given them a speech, and a song too.’

Since 1964 he said that his ambition was to meet John properly. ‘Just to let him see what sort of bloke I
really
am.’ And he wouldn’t say no to any help. ‘If John happened to offer it.’

When John heard that Fred Lennon was so full of memories of Julia and John’s childhood, the great reconciliation took place. They met and became friends, much to Fred’s delight. Since early 1968 he has stopped washing dishes and is now living in a smart flat, subsidized by John.

Mimi today lives alone in a luxury bungalow near Bournemouth, with her cat Tim, a stray that John brought home many years ago. The house is very white and sunny, with a magnificent
setting, right beside the sea. It has its own little steps at the bottom of the garden, leading down to the sea. It cost £25,000.

The front and the back of the house are completely un-over-looked. Only in the summer, when steamers go up and down across Poole Bay, can she be in any way interrupted. As they go past the house, she can hear a megaphone on board announcing: ‘And that is John Lennon’s house with the striped blinds. That will be Mimi sitting there.’ The first time she heard it, she was so furious that she ran down to the bottom of the garden, stood on her sea steps and shouted ‘Shut up!’ Everybody on the boat just laughed.

Apart from that, her life is fairly uninterrupted. A few lamps from the front of the house have been stolen by fans. Now and again, she’s seen them snatching photographs of her and the house, but nothing much. She says she keeps her telephone number and address secret.

Most of the furniture is reproduction antique. It all looks very new, but most of it was brought from her old home in Liverpool. She did have some nice things there, she says. When a reporter came to see her once in her old house in Liverpool, he looked round at everything and said how nice it all was – ‘Wasn’t John good to buy it all for her.’ She threw him out immediately.

There are lots of books around, mainly classics and biographies. She’s just been reading
Max
by Lord David Cecil. She doesn’t care for novels.

On the TV set she has John’s MBE medal, though she is a bit worried some people might think it a slight on royalty. John had arrived one day and pinned it on her, saying she deserved it more than him.

In the hall and on the walls of the bedrooms she has some of their gold discs, although not as many as the other parents. She has a large plaque, which John presented to her. Engraved on it is the phrase she used at him almost every day of his adolescent life: ‘The guitar’s all right as a hobby, John, but you’ll never make a living with it.’

She had no strong desire to leave her house in Liverpool. ‘I was very happy. It was a very comfortable house. I’d spent hundreds on it. But John went on at me for about two years, then he said OK, stay.

‘Then he started again, when the other parents began to move into their new houses. “You silly little sausage,” I said to him. “There’s no need to lift me out of the mire.”

‘I was staying in London with him after the premiere of the first film. He came down to breakfast and said “OK, I’m going to find you a house. Where would you like it?”

‘I said Bournemouth, just for something to say. He picked up the phone and called Anthony, his chauffeur. He told him to get the maps out for Bournemouth, we’re leaving now.

‘Well, I thought, it would be a run. We came down and got a list of houses from Rumsey’s. We went round a lot, but I wanted one by the sea and there wasn’t one. So I thought, that’ll be it, now we can go home. Then the man suddenly remembered one that had just come up.

‘The people were still living in it and I didn’t want to go in, especially the way John was dressed. He had old jeans with holes in them and an old suede jacket I’d bought him years ago, which was miles too small for him. He had a silly yachting cap on as well.

‘I said we shouldn’t go in and just to land on them like this. John told me it was just a tuppenny ha’penny little bourgeois home. If I wasn’t careful, I’d get a mind to match.

‘He marched in and said how do you do, mind if I look round. The man and his wife just gaped at him. John said, “Do you like it, Mimi? If you don’t, I’ll have it.” So he rang his accountant and bought it.’