Sunday Times Magazine, December 9, 2018 One afternoon I was sitting with John Lennon in the kitchen at his Tittenhurst Park home in Berkshire when he asked me if I’d written his obituary yet. It was 1970, and amused, at the very idea of an obituary, when neither of us had yet reached thirty, I… Continue reading…
November 9, 2018 When it comes to rock music, events of half a century ago are almost ancient history. So, we can imagine the thrill that Giles Martin, the son of record producer George Martin, must have got, when he received a parcel from Olivia Harrison, widow of George Harrison, and found inside a collection… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, July 2018 The place won’t have looked the same, that’s for sure. Not the way it did when Paul made his debut at the Cavern with the Beatles at lunchtime on February 21, 1961. It can’t, because it isn’t the same. It isn’t even in the same place – the original Cavern having… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, July 2018 So, that’s it. We lost. England won’t now be in the final of the World Cup on Sunday and Croatia will meet France. We’re disappointed. Of course, we are. But what an incredible ride our team has given us over this past few weeks. Let’s be honest, few of us ever… Continue reading…
Daily Mail 23.6.18 When Paul McCartney was a teenage boy dreaming of greatness he would sit on the loo in his father’s council house on a Liverpool estate, play his guitar and sing. With that slight bathroom echo of lino and tiles, the room had the best acoustic in the house. From an early age… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, June 2018 Someone broke the growing tips off two of our hollyhocks last week. For some wanton reason he or she stopped on the West London pavement outside our front garden, leaned over the fence and removed the tops. At this stage in the summer, hollyhocks are only about four to five feet… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, 13.4.18 One morning in 1969 I was sitting at my desk at the London Evening Standard when we got a tip-off that John Lennon had been arrested on a drugs charge. My job at the time was, among much else, to cover everything Beatles. So, immediately, I telephoned their friendly Press officer, Derek… Continue reading…
Daily Mail 6.4.18 When the Beatles set off for India in February 1968, they left behind a degree of bemusement and even ridicule among many of their fans. Why on earth were the four most famous young men in the world going off to an ashram in the Himalayas to study something called ‘transcendental meditation’?… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, September 30, 2017 One day in the early-Seventies I had a huge stroke of beginners’ luck. Going over to a friend’s house to borrow a book, I was asked, over a cup of tea, if I would like to write a film. Just like that. Things like that weren’t unusual in those days.… Continue reading…
Daily Mail, September 7, 2017 Back in November 1965, writer Kenneth Tynan, then the literary manager of the National Theatre, was asked during a late-night BBC television discussion if he would allow sexual intercourse to take place on stage. It was a deliberately provocative question, and, slightly side-stepping it, Tynan gave the qualified answer of… Continue reading…
