George Harrison dies

We held hands. It’s funny, even at the height of our friendship — as guys — you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing. But it was lovely. I sat with him for a few hours when he was in treatment just outside New York. He was about 10 days away from his death, as I recall. He was very poorly. But it was lovely, really lovely, and the years just stripped back. We joked about things. One of the things I remember him saying, because he’d been moved from, like, Switzerland to a clinic in New York, and then to a clinic somewhere else — because you do, you sort of follow the treatment — and at one point he said (exasperated), ‘Can’t we just stop in one place?’ And I was going, ‘Yeah! Let’s go to Speke Hall!’ It’s an old Tudor tourist place in Speke [Liverpool], where me and George are from. ‘We should go to Speke Hall.’ And he’s going, ‘Oh, that’d be great.’ Just amusing, nutty stuff. It was good. It was like we were dreaming. He was my little baby brother, almost, because I’d known him that long.

Paul McCartney – Interview with UNCUT, August 2008

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001

An updated edition of the best-seller. The story of what happened to the band members, their families and friends after the 1970 break-up is brought right up to date. A fascinating and meticulous piece of Beatles scholarship.

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