‘It’s Allen Ginsberg and he’s f****** naked.’ I didn’t know John Lennon then, but the Liverpool accent was unmistakable. The date was June 3, 1965 and we were celebrating the 39th birthday of our friend Allen, the Beat poet.
He was standing in a corner, stark naked with a drink in his hand, surrounded by people trying to get a peep. He loved to take his clothes off, especially in a crowd. I turned to see John and the other Beatles staring at Allen with amused looks on their faces. The Beat scene was spreading into the mainstream.
My wife Jill and I made a lot of new friends. Among them were John Dunbar, who ran the Indica Gallery in Mayfair, and the girl who was soon to become his wife: the young singer Marianne Faithfull. She was beautiful, with an aura of vulnerability and innocence.
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I had an ongoing problem with heroin, needing it daily, but now I had to find it for John and Yoko too. I took the train into London every day to look for work and buy heroin for myself and for them.
Meanwhile, they were moving into Tittenhurst Park, their new 85-acre estate in Ascot with its mansion framed by lawns, stately trees and great walls of rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas.
There was plenty of room there, so Yoko and John invited us to join them. Yoko and Jill were very close and I was getting us dope. It was a good solution for all of us.
One Friday in August 1969, I clunked into the house in my wellingtons to see The Beatles sitting round like morose pop demigods.
John and Yoko at Tittenhurst Park, their 85-acre estate in Ascot with its mansion framed by lawns, stately trees and great walls of rhododendrons, camellias and azaleas
Paul had begun telling the others what to do, particularly during recordings and John was angry and disillusioned. The Beatle dream was just about over.
John had discovered that Yoko was willing to be his foil: his lover, attendant, teacher, and prime minister. Imagine how effective it was for his purpose of breaking up The Beatles to always have her present at recordings and meetings. This, of course, increased the howls of derision directed at her.
Meanwhile, she was trying to transform herself into a rock star, but her singing was not going well. She had a way of wailing when she sang that belongs in a Japanese temple, not on a rock stage. The word ‘yowl’ was used to describe it. John would not hear a word of criticism, but the more she sang, the more the people at Apple couldn’t stand her. To them, she was not only an interloper but a terrible singer to boot.
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