BARRY MILES. "THE BEATLES DIARY VOLUME 1: THE BEATLES YEARS"

January

Paul asked his housekeepers, the Kellys, to leave after he found that they had written an article about his home life for an Australian magazine.

Paul: "Mr and Mrs Kelly are looking for another place and I'm getting another couple to replace them. There have been disagreements over the running of the household. I haven't asked them to leave instantly because that would be unreasonable."

They were replaced by Mr and Mrs Mills. ("She still hasn't given me a tune yet," quipped Paul, referring to popular pianist Mrs Mills.)

January 4

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Continued work on 'Penny Lane'.

January 5

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Paul's vocal track on 'Penny Lane' was followed by a free-form, "Freak Out", The Beatles' only combined effort at producing "a bit of random". David Vaughan, of the design team Binder, Edwards and Vaughan, had asked Paul for some music for a sound and light rave to be held at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm. Paul obliged, and at 13 minutes, 14 seconds, produced the longest Beatles track ever completed. There was no rhythm track, just heavily echoed bursts of percussion, shouts and random bits of piano and guitar. George refused to allow it onto the Anthology series of CDs in 1996.

January 6

Abbey Road. Sgt Pepper sessions. More work on 'Penny Lane'.

The album The Family Way (Original Soundtrack Album) by The George Martin Orchestra and written by Paul McCartney was released in the UK as Decca SKL 4847. Side One: 'Love In The Open Air' (cuts one to six); Side Two: 'Love In The Open Air' (cuts one to seven).

The Beatles' German friend, Hans-Walther Braun, appeared on the German TV programme Damals In Hamburg, and played an extract from a 1960 recording by the group which they had given him that year, featuring the earliest known rendition of Paul's song, 'I'll Follow The Sun'. Remarkably, this event passed unnoticed by Beatles fans outside Germany, and nothing more was heard of Braun's tape until similar material surfaced on bootleg albums in the early 1980s.

January 7

The Daily Mail newspaper published adjacent stories about the inquest into the death of John and Paul's friend, Tara Browne, and a report on the poor state of the roads in Blackburn, Lancashire, where 4,000 holes needed to be filled. Both themes found their way into the lyrics of 'A Day In The Life'.

January 8

Paul and John attended a fancy-dress party thrown by Georgie Fame at the Cromwellian Club.

January 9

Abbey Road. Sgt, Pepper sessions. Wind instruments added to 'Penny Lane.'

January 10

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. More work on 'Penny Lane'. American ABC TV broadcast the 1965 recording of The Beatles At Shea Stadium.

January 11

Paul saw the BBC2 programme Masterworks, on which David Mason played piccolo trumpet on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F Major with the English Chamber Orchestra from Guildford Cathedral. Paul realised that this was the sound he wanted on 'Penny Lane'.

Later that evening Paul and Ringo saw Jimi Hendrix perform for the first time, at one of his regular London club gigs at the Bag O'Nails.

January 12

George Martin telephoned David Mason and booked him for a session on the 17th to

play piccolo trumpet on 'Penny Lane'. Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. More work on 'Penny Lane'. Afterwards Paul and Jane had a "candlelit dinner" at Paul's house in Cavendish

Avenue before Jane left to tour the US with the Bristol Old Vic Repertory Company.

January 14

It was reported in the London press that Paul had turned down an offer from the National Theatre to write music for the songs in Kenneth Tynan's production of Shakespeare's As You Like It which would have been staged at the Old Vic and starred Sir Laurence Olivier. Paul told them that he could not write contemporary music to go with Elizabethan words, but he would write 'The Larry O Stomp' if they wanted.

January 15

John had a minor car accident but was not hurt.

Paul and George saw Donovan at the Royal Albert Hall.

January 17

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. David Mason added his famous piccolo trumpet solo to 'Penny Lane'. Paul improvised the part by singing it to George Martin, who then wrote it out on score paper for Mason to play.

Paul: "I got the idea of using trumpets in that pizzicato way on 'Penny Lane' from seeing a programme on television. I didn't know whether it would work, so I got the arranger for the session into the studio, played the tune on the piano and sang how I wanted the brass to sound. That's the way I always work with arrangers." The song was now complete.

January 18

Paul was interviewed in London by Jo Durden-Smith for a Granada Television documentary on the London underground scene, of which Paul was part. The film, for the Scene Special programme, was subtitled It's So Far Out, It's Straight Down (whatever that meant).

January 19

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The basic track for 'A Day In The Life' was recorded with Mal Evans counting off the 24 empty bars in the middle and marking the end with an alarm clock.

January 20

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Vocal tracks added to 'A Day In The Life'.

John: "Well, it was a peak. Paul and I were definitely working together, especially on 'A Day In The Life' that was real... The way we wrote a lot of the time: you'd write the good bit, the part that was easy, like 'I read the news today', or whatever it was, then when you got stuck or whenever it got hard, instead of carrying on, you just drop it; then we would meet each other, and I would sing half, and he would be inspired to write the next bit and vice versa. He was a bit shy about it because I think he thought it's already a good song. Sometimes we wouldn't let each other interfere with a song either, because you tend to be a bit lax with someone eise's stuff, you experiment a bit. So we were doing it in his room with the piano. He said, 'Should we do this?' Yeah, let's do that. But Pepper was a peak all right."

January 21

Paul attended a party given by Julie Felix at her flat in Old Church Street, Chelsea. George gave Donovan his first lesson on the sitar.

January 25

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Paul supervised a new mix of 'Penny Lane' because he was not satisfied with the old one.

Brian Epstein signed a deal allowing Sunday Times newspaper journalist Hunter Davies to write an authorised biography of The Beatles, granting their co-operation in exchange for a percentage of the royalties.

January 27

The Beatles and Brian Epstein signed a new nine-year worldwide recording contract with EMI Records, updating their previous deal, which had expired the previous day.

January 28

Paul and George went to see The Four Tops, presented by Brian Epstein, at the Royal Albert Hall.

January 29

John and Paul saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Who at Brian Epstein's Saville Theatre.

January 30

EMI were desperate to release a new Beatles single, so Brian Epstein asked George Martin for two tracks from the Sgt. Pepper sessions. George reluctantly gave him 'Penny Lane' and 'Strawberry Fields'.

The Beatles began filming the promotional films for 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' at Knole Park, Sevenoaks in Kent where director Peter Goldmann filmed them next to a dead oak tree in the park.

January 31

Pirate station Radio London became the first station to play Tenny Lane' on the air.

John bought an 1843 circus poster in an antique shop in Sevenoaks, near where they were filming. The poster provided him and Paul with almost the complete lyrics for 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite', which they wrote together at Kenwood, where John had hung the poster on the wall of his den.

Filming was completed for the 'Strawberry Fields' promo at Knole Park.

February 1

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club' theme was recorded.

Paul: "I had come to the conclusion that The Beatles were getting a little bit safe, and we were a little intimidated by the idea of making 'the new Beatles album'. It was quite a big thing: 'Wow, follow that!' So to relieve the pressure I got the idea, maybe from some friends or something I'd read, that we shouldn't record it as The Beatles. Mentally we should approach it as another group of people and totally give ourselves alter egos. So I came up with the idea of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the song 'It Was Twenty Years Ago Today'."

February 2

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Further work on 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.

February 3

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work on 'A Day In The Life'. Ringo added his wonderful drum track, replacing the previous one.

February 5

Part of the horse-riding scene for the 'Penny Lane' promotional film was made at Angel Lane in Stratford, East London.

February 7

The Beatles returned to Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent, to shoot more horse-riding and the candelabra scenes for their 'Penny Lane' promotional film.

Monkee Micky Dolenz and his road manager, Ric Klein, spent an evening at Paul's house in Cavendish Avenue.

February 8

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work began on John's 'Good Morning, Good Morning', which he had written the previous week (inspired by a TV commercial for breakfast cereal) and demoed in his home studio.

February 9

The Beatles recorded three takes of 'Fixing A Hole' at Regent Sound Studios, Tottenham Court Road, instead of at Abbey Road. It was their first time away from EMFs own studio facility. Paul brought a visitor to the session, who had turned up unannounced at his home just as he was about to leave for the studio, and declared that he was Jesus Christ.

February 10

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The famous orchestral chord on 'A Day In The Life' was recorded. To encourage the classical musicians to let down their hair, Paul ensured that they were kitted out in full evening dress, masks and false noses.

Guests at the session included Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richards, Donovan, Micky Dolenz, Patti Harrison, clothes designers Simon Postuma and Marijke Koger of The Fool, and various friends.

Paul: "Once we'd written the main bit of the music, we thought, now look, there's a little gap there and we said oh, how about an orchestra? Yes, that'll be nice. And if we do have an orchestra, are we going to write them a pseudo-classical thing, which has been done better by people who know how to make it sound like that - or are we going to do it like we write songs? Take a guess and use instinct. So we said, right, what we'll do to save all the arranging, we'll take the whole orchestra as one instrument. And we just wrote it down like a cooking recipe: 24 bars; on the ninth bar, the orchestra will take off, and it will go from its lowest note to its highest note."

February 11

BBC's Juke Box Jury showed part of the 'Penny Lane' promotional film.

February 12

Sussex police raided the home of Keith Richard of The Rolling Stones, having been tipped off that illegal drugs were being consumed on the premises. Richard, bandmate Mick Jagger and art connoisseur Robert Fraser were arrested. Subsequently, rumours spread that George and Patti Harrison had also attended the party, and that the police had waited for them to depart before making their arrests.

February 13

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. George's 'Only A Northern Song' was begun. (Not used on Sgt. Pepper, but finally released on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album.)

The single 'Penny Lane'/'Strawberry Fields Forever' was released in the USA as Capitol 5810.

PENNY LANE

" 'Penny Lane'/'Strawberry Fields Forever' was the best record we ever made," reckoned Beatles producer George Martin. McCartney's nostalgic Tenny Lane' didn't have the psychic tension ofLennon's 'Strawbery Fields', but it was every bit as imaginative and lyrical. No other single displays the complementary talents of the Lennon/McCartney pairing so well.

While John's song was locked in the mind, Paul's roamed the streets of Liverpool with a smile on its face. The music matched that sense of freedom, with the crowning touch supplied by David Mason's piccolo trumpet solo. A closing Mason flourish was removed from the song in the final mix, though only after an early mix had been sent to the States, for use on promo copies of the single.

STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER

The greatest pop record ever made? Almost certainly it is, though it shares with its partner, 'Penny Lane', the less glorious fate of having broken a run of Beatles No. 1 hits that went all the way back to 'Piease Please Me' four years earlier. In what is arguably the most disgraceful statistic in chart history and to the eternal shame of the British record buying public, Engelbert Humperdinck's vacuous ballad 'Release Me' prevented The Beatles' double sided slab ofgenius from reaching the top.

Ostensibly inspired by a Liverpool children's home familiar from his boyhood, 'Strawberry Fields Forever' was actually an attempt by John Lennon to chart the process of consciousness and understanding, through fragmented lyrical images. The story behind the finished record is familiar: two different renditions of the song, in entirely different moods and keys, were cleverly edited together by George Martin via the use of variable tape-speed. If ever a song deserved such serendipity, it was this one - a record that never dates, because it lives outside time.

February 14

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. More work on 'Only A Northern Song'.

February 16

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work on 'Good Morning, Good Morning'.

BBC Television's Top Of The Pops showed the 'Penny Lane' and 'Strawberry Fields Forever' promotional clips.

February 17

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work on 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite'.

The single 'Penny Lane'/ 'Strawberry Fields Forever' was released in the UK as Parlophone R 5570.

John: "We don't often write entirely on our own - I mean, I did bits of 'Penny Lane' and Paul wrote some of 'Strawberry Fields'."

Paul played Mellotron on the opening of 'Strawberry Fields' using the flute setting and getting it in one take. George and Paul played timpani and bongo drums while Ringo played electronic drums.

February 19

Another Brian Epstein presentation at the Saville Theatre: John and Ringo saw Chuck Berry and Del Shannon perform.

February 20

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Fairground sounds were added to 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite'.

George Martin: " 'For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite' was an attempt to create atmosphere. John wanted a circus fairground atmosphere and said he wanted to hear sawdust on the floor, so we had to try and provide that! I wanted a backwash, a general melange of sound, the kind you would hear at a fairground if you closed your eyes. To achieve this we found a load of old steam organ tapes which played things like 'Stars And Stripes Forever'. I chopped them up into foot-long sections and joined them together, sometimes back to front. The whole thing was to create a sound that was unmistakably a steam organ, but which had no particular tune at all."

February 21

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. 'Fixing A Hole' was completed.

February 22

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The giant piano chord was added to 'A Day In The Life'. Paul, John, Ringo and Mal Evans, seated at three pianos, all played E major. After overdubbing the chord lasted for 53 seconds. The recording levels were turned up so high in the mix that the sound of Abbey Road's air conditioning system could be heard.

February 23

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work began on Paul's 'Lovely Rita'.

February 24

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. More work on 'Lovely Rita'.

February 26

Brian Epstein bought Rushlake Green Mansion in Sussex. It was always a great joke with Brian that in order to get to his country house he had to drive through the village of Black Boys.

February 27

A story in the Daily Mail newspaper about a missing teenager, headlined "A-Level Girl Dumps Car And Vanishes", inspired Paul to begin writing 'She's Leaving Home'.

Paul: "That was enough to give us a storyline. I started to get the lyrics: she slips out and leaves a note and then the parents wake up ... It was rather poignant. When I showed it to John, he added the Greek chorus, long sustained notes. (The lines) 'We gave her most of our lives, we gave her everything money could buy' may have been in the runaway story, it might have been a quote from the parents."

February 28

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The day was spent in studio two rehearsing 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'. Three-year-old Julian had brought home a drawing from school showing a schoolmate and some diamond shaped stars in the sky. Julian's teacher had asked him what it was, and was told "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds". The teacher then carefully wrote the title across the top of the drawing, which is where John found the title for his song.

Paul: "So we had a nice title. We did the whole thing like an Alice in Wonderland idea, being in a boat on the river, slowly drifting downstream and those great Cellophane flowers towering over your head. Every so often it broke off and you saw Lucy in the Sky, with Diamonds all over the sky. This Lucy was God, the big figure, the white rabbit. You can just write a song with imagination on words and that's what we did.

"It's like modern poetry, but neither John nor I have read much. The last time I approached it I was thinking 'This is strange and far out', and I did not dig it all that much, except Dylan Thomas who I suddenly started getting, and I was quite pleased with myself because I got it, but I hadn't realised he was going to be saying exactly the same things.

"It's just that we've at last stopped trying to be clever, and we just write what we like to write. If it comes out clever, OK. 'Love Me Do' was our greatest philosophical song. For it to be simple and true means that it's incredibly simple."

March 1

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work on 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'.

March 2

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work on 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'.

March 3

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Four French horns were added to the 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' track. As usual, Paul hummed the melody, George Martin transcribed it and the session musicians played it. Afterwards they mixed 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'.

March 6

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Sound effects of audience laughter and applause were added to the title track.

March 7

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. More work on 'Lovely Rita'.

Peter Blake and Jann Howarth had supper with Paul and Jane at Cavendish Avenue and Paul played them an acetate of 'Lovely Rita'.

Granada Television transmitted It's So Far Out, It's Straight Down in their Scene Special programme.

March 9

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work began on Paul's 'Getting Better', which had been inspired when he remembered how stand-in Beatles drummer Jimmy Nicol always used the expression "It's getting better" whenever he was asked how things were going during his brief time on tour with The Beatles in 1964.

March 10

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. More work on 'Getting Better.'

March 11

The Beatles won three Grammy Awards for their releases in 1966: "Best Vocal Performance" for 'Eleanor Rigby'; "Best Song" for 'Michelle'; and "Best Cover Artwork" for Klaus Voormann's Revolver design.

March 13

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The brass section was added to 'Good Morning, Good Morning'.

March 15

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work began on George's 'Within You Without You' using four Indian musicians on tabia, dilruba, swordmandel and tamboura. The other Beatles did not play on this track but were there. Afterwards Peter Blake and Jann Howarth had dinner with John and Paul.

March 17

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The orchestral track for Paul's 'She's Leaving Home' was recorded. George Martin had been unavailable to orchestrate it (he was producing a Cilia Black record), so Paul used Mike Leander as an arranger instead, which upset George Martin considerably. The Beatles themselves did not actually play on the finished track.

March 20

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. John and Paul recorded the vocal track for 'She's Leaving Home'.

While at the studio, Brian Matthew interviewed the group for the BBC Transcription Service programme Top Of The Pops (no relation), and recorded acceptance speeches for three 1966 Ivor Novello Awards to be edited into the BBC Light Programme's The Ivor Novello Awards For 1966 programme which John and Paul did not want to attend in person. During these interviews, the two Beatles hinted strongly that they would not be touring in the future.

March 21

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The piano solo was added to 'Lovely Rita' but vocals on 'Getting Better' were interrupted when John found himself on an accidental acid trip. John: "I never took it in the studio. Once I did, actually. I thought I was taking some uppers, and I was not in the state of handling it... I suddenly got so scared on the mike. I said, 'What is it? I feel ill.' "

Because so many fans were gathered outside the studios, George Martin took John up onto the flat roof to get some air. When Paul and George realised what was happening they ran up the stairs after them. They knew that the studio roof had just a low parapet and were worried that John might try to fly. Paul and Mal Evans took John back to nearby Cavendish Avenue and Paul decided to keep him company on the trip - Paul's second.

Paul: "Me and John, we'd known each other for a long time. And we looked into each other's eyes, which is fairly mind-boggling. You dissolve into each other. And it was amazing. You would want to look away, but you wouldn't, and you could see yourself in the other person. It was a very freaky experience, and I was totally blown away."

March 22

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. George continued work on 'Within You Without You' while the others listened to playbacks.

March 23

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Further work on 'Getting Better'.

March 25

It was announced that The Beatles had won two Ivor Novello Awards for 1966.

March 28

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. John added the lead vocal to 'Good Morning, Good Morning'. The animal noises were added to it, and further work was done on 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite'.

March 29

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Work began on 'With A Little Help From My Friends'.

The title of The Beatles' next album was announced as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a name which Paul and Mal Evans came up with on a plane flight, when Mal asked Paul what the "P" on the paper packet with the in-flight meal meant.

Paul: "I was just thinking nice words like Sergeant Pepper and Lonely Hearts Club, and they came together for no reason. But after you have written that down you start to think, 'There's this Sergeant Pepper who has taught a band to play, and got them going so that at least they found one number. They're a bit of a brass band in a way, but also a rock band because they've got the San Francisco thing.' We went into it just like that;

just us doing a good show."

March 30

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Further work was done on 'With A Little Help From My Friends'.

THE PEPPER SLEEVE

During the afternoon, the sleeve for Sgt. Pepper was shot at Michael Cooper's photographic studio at 4 Chelsea Manor Studios, Flood Street, off the King's Road, with a number of friends present.

Paul: "I came up with the title and went to Robert with some drawings for the idea of the cover."

Robert Fraser: "The whole concept of the cover was Paul McCartney's. He asked me if I knew anybody who could execute this idea. It was my suggestion to put it through Peter Blake and his wife and Michael Cooper, as I knew they were the only people who would understand. It was built in Michael's studio in Flood Street and everybody came up with ideas - all The Beatles, all of us - it became a collaboration."

Peter Blake: "We had an original meeting with all four Beatles, Robert Fraser and Brian Epstein; most of the subsequent talking was done with Paul at his house and with John there sometimes."

Paul: "The original idea was to be a presentation from the mayor and corporation, like a Northern thing. There'd be a floral clock and there'd be us, and then on a wall or something, we'd have photos of all the band's heroes -they were going to be on a photo. So I said to everyone, "Who are your favourites? Make a list.' Marlon Brando was one of the first choices, Brigitte Bardot, Monroe, James Dean - all obvious ones. Then George came up with a list of gurus, and all sorts of other things came in."

The original list of "Heroes" made by The Beatles before the Sgt. Pepper sleeve was given to Robert Fraser and Peter Blake was as follows (sic throughout): "Yoga's; Marquis de Sade; Hitler; Neitch; Lenny Bruce; Lord Buckley; Alistair Crowley; Dylan Thomas; James Joyce; Oscar Wilde; William Burroughs; Robert Peel; Stockhausen; Auldus Huxley; H.G.Wells; Izis Bon; Einstein; Carl Jung; Beardsley; Alfred Jarry; Tom Mix; Johnny Weissmuller; Magritte; Tyrone Power; Carl Marx; Richard Crompton; Tommy Hanley; Albert Stubbins; Fred Astaire". In addition, Paul's original sketch for the sleeve featured Brigitte Bardot six times larger than anyone else.

Paul "I took the idea of the floral clock, and the heroes and the presentation by a mayor to Robert and he and I went to Peter Blake and Peter developed it all from there. The lists were his idea, and all the cut-outs instead of using real people, and the floral clock got changed around; but basically it was the original theme."

The list grew enormously, with Robert adding in his favourite LA painters, and Peter and Jann adding their favourites. The final line-up on the sleeve was: Stuart Sutcliffe; Aubrey Beardsley; five gurus; two anonymous women; drawings of three girls; Sonny Liston; George (in wax); John (in wax); Ringo (in wax); Paul (in wax); "Cheeky" Max Miller; Sir Robert Peel; Aleister Crowley; Mac West; Lenny Bruce; Aldous Huxley; Dylan Thomas; Marlon Brando; Tom Mix; Terry Southern; Karlheinze Stockhausen; W.C. Fields; Dion; Tony Curtis; Oscar Wilde; Wallace Berman; C.G. Jung; Tyrone Power; Edgar Allan Poe; Tommy Handley; Marilyn Monroe; Dr Uvingstone (in wax); Larry Bell; Johnny Weismuller; Fred Astaire; William Burroughs; Stephen Crane; Issy Bonn; Merkin; Stan Laurel; George Bernard Shaw (in wax); Richard Lindner; Oliver Hardy; Albert Stubbins (footballer); Karl Marx; Huntz Hall (of The Bowery Boys); H.G. Wells; Einstein; Bobby Breen (singing prodigy); Marlene Deitrich; Simon Rodia (creator of Watts-Towers); Robert Alien Zimmerman (Bob Dylan); Lawrence of Arabia; Lewis Carroll; an American legionnaire; Diana Dors; and Shirley Temple.

Paul: "Jesus and Hitler were on John's favourites list but they had to be taken off. John was that kind of guy but you couldn't very well have Hitler and so he had to go. Gandhi also had to go because the head of EMI, Sir Joe Lockwood, said that in India they wouldn't allow the record to be printed. There were a few people who just went by the wayside."

April 1

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. The 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)' was recorded and mixed all in one session.

April 3

Paul flew to Los Angeles with Mal Evans. Shortly after midnight, Mal Evans took his bags around to Paul's house in Cavendish Avenue. Paul went to bed at 3.30am but was up early because decorators arrived to begin working on the house. Two Air France officials arrived to collect Paul and Mal and not long afterwards they flew into Paris-Orly Airport. From there they took a flight to Los Angeles. Paul had intended to bring a copy of the photograph for the front of Sgt. Pepper to show Jane when he met up with her in Denver but he forgot. Paul's American visa turned out to have expired but American customs and immigration at Los Angeles sorted it out in 30 minutes. Then a private Lear jet, hired from Frank Sinatra, took them to San Francisco.

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. George added his lead vocal to 'Within You Without You'.

April 4

Paul and Mal Evans flew in to San Francisco which had had its first snow in 42 years and was much colder than they had been expecting. They did the sights, photographed the Golden Gate Bridge and bought records. They stopped by the Fillmore Auditorium and found Jefferson Airplane rehearsing there. They returned to their house, where Paul jammed with them, and played them the acetate of Sgt. Pepper which he'd brought over from England. Paul smoked pot with them but declined the DMT he was offered, despite the stories to the contrary still circulating in San Francisco.

April 5

Paul flew into Denver, Colorado, where Jane Asher was playing Shakespeare with the Bristol Old Vie company, to pay a surprise visit on her 21st birthday.

Paul's Lear jet covered the journey from San Francisco to Denver quickly: 650 mph at 41,000 feet. At Denver Airport Paul was met by Bert Rosenthal who had lent Paul his house. Mal booked into the Driftwood Motel. Later in the day, Paul and Jane were collected by Rosenthal and taken to the hotel where Jane's 21st was to be held. The Bristol Old Vie people laid on a wonderful party.

April 6

Mal hired a Hertz rental car and drove Paul and Jane up into the Rockies. They parked off the road among the trees and walked down a rocky gorge to the river where they ended up paddling in the cold water. They walked barefoot in the drifts of snow in the crisp air. That evening they demolished a huge meal and fell asleep in front of Rosenthal's colour television.

April 7

Mal took Paul's camera to be fixed, then went to the park to see the Greek Theatre. Paul filmed Jane walking among the trees and it was then that Paul thought of the Magical Mystery Tour as an idea for a TV special.

April 8

Jane had a matinee performance, so Paul and Mal drove into the mountains, past Central City to the old Boodle Mine, complete with its own graveyard. Both Paul and Mal got stuck in snow and mud and finished up looking pretty scruffy. Back in Central City they found "Paul's Cafe" and went in to refresh themselves and eat. Across the street, in the Gilded Garter bar, they had a few drinks and listened to a local country singer. The singer approached them and asked if they were folk singers because he was sure he knew their faces. They returned to Denver in time to see Jane in Romeo and Juliet.

In Chertsey, Surrey, John visited the workshops of coach builders J.P. Fallon Limited to discuss the possibility of having his Rolls Royce repainted in a psychedelic pattern. They were happy to oblige and the car was driven to the workshop a few days later.

April 9

The Old Vic company flew out of Denver to continue their tour of America. In the afternoon, Paul and Mal went to see the Red Rocks Stadium, scene of a memorable Beatles concert three years before. Paul signed a lot of autographs and really enjoyed himself. Then Bert Rosenthal drove them to the airport. The Lear Jet was late in arriving but they were soon in Los Angeles and ensconced in the home of Mr and Mrs Derek Taylor.

April 10

Paul and Mal spent the day shopping at Century Plaza, surprising the locals. Mal bought a talking pillow. Afterwards they visited John and Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas and sat around watching the rain. It was a very friendly visit but Paul also wanted to visit The Beach Boys, and drove off leaving Mal beside the Phillips' log fire.

Brian Wilson was producing the track Vegetables' released on The Beach Boys' Smiley Smile album. Paul is said to have had a hand in its production.

April 11

After playing guitar on 'On Top Of Old Smokey' at The Beach Boys session, Paul arrived back at John and Michelle Phillips' house at midnight, bringing Brian Wilson and his wife with him. John and Michelle got out their collection of instruments. At Paul's request, John brought out a tray of glasses, filled with different amounts of water, which he demonstrated how to play. Paul played cello and even flugelhorn. The jam session lasted most of the night. They arrived at Derek Taylor's house in time for breakfast and to pack. Paul spent the flight back to London working on new songs and on the idea of a Magical Mystery Tour film.

April 12

Paul and Mal arrived at Heathrow airport.

Paul: "The Beatles are definitely not splitting up. We have never even thought of splitting up. We want to go on recording together. The Beatles live!"

April 19

The Beatles' tax lawyers had suggested that they form an umbrella company controlling all their subsidiary interests. This company, later known as Apple, would have them under an exclusive contract. The Beatles themselves would become a legal partnership, sharing all their income, whether from group, live or solo work (except songwriting) and The Beatles & Co. was created to bind them together legally for ten years on a goodwill share issue of £1 million.

April 20

Abbey Road. Sgt. Pepper sessions. Standing around a single microphone, The Beatles recorded several minutes of gibberish which was then overdubbed, reversed and edited to make the final run-out groove on the album. While recording this, Ringo felt faint. "I think I'm going to fall over," he said and toppled backwards, to be caught by the ever resourceful Mal Evans.

John also suggested that a high-pitched note, beyond the range of the human ear, be added especially for dogs and considerable time was spent with all The Beatles, several friends, and George Martin, seeing how high they could hear. All of them still had good hearing, due in part to the fact that stage foldback had not yet been introduced, so the volume at their concerts was low by modern standards. Also, mixing and playback was then conducted at relatively low levels compared to the practice in the Seventies and Eighties.

April 24

The single 'Love In The Open Air' by George Martin & His Orchestra, written by Paul McCartney, was released in the US as United Artists UA 50148.

All four Beatles attended the first night of Donovan's week-long engagement at the Saville Theatre.

April 25

Abbey Road. Work began on the 'Magical Mystery Tour' theme song. Despite the fact that Sgt Pepper was not yet released, The Beatles moved straight on to another project:

Paul's idea for Magical Mystery Tour which Brian Epstein thought was a fine vehicle for all four Beatles.

John: "Magical Mystery Tour was something Paul had worked out with Mal and he showed me what his idea was and this is how it went, it went round like this, the story and how he had it all... the production and everything. Paul had a tendency to come along and say well he's written these ten songs, let's record now. And I'd say, 'well, give us a few days and I'll knock a few off', or something like that."

April 26

Abbey Road. Further work on 'Magical Mystery Tour'.

April 27

Abbey Road. Vocals were added to 'Magical Mystery Tour'.

April 29

The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream benefit party for the underground newspaper International Times was held at Alexandra Palace - The Ally Pally. John Lennon and John Dunbar saw a news clip about it on the television at John's house in Weybridge while they were on an acid trip, and John immediately called his driver and had them driven there. John was filmed at the event. Coincidentally, Yoko Ono was one of the 41 performers.

May 1

The single 'I Don't Want To See You Again' (Lennon & McCartney)/'Woman' (Paul McCartney) by Peter & Gordon was released in the US as Capitol Starline 6155.

May 3

Abbey Road. The trumpets were added to 'Magical Mystery Tour'.

May 4

Abbey Road. A mixing session for 'Magical Mystery Tour' which Paul and possibly other Beatles attended.

May 7

Ringo saw The Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Saville Theatre.

May 9

Abbey Road. The Beatles recorded an instrumental jam which was probably intended for the film of 'Magical Mystery Tour', but was never completed or used.

May 11

'Baby You're A Rich Man' session held at Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes, intended for the cartoon film Yellow Submarine but in fact used on their next single. Mick Jagger was among their guests at the session.

May 12

Pirate station Radio London became the first station to play Sgt. Pepper in its entirety -before copies had even been pressed.

Abbey Road. 'All Together Now', for the Yellow Submarine film, was recorded and mixed all in one session. The Beatles were committed to providing three exclusive new songs for the film.

May 15

Brian Epstein held a dinner party for The Beatles to mark the imminent release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Afterwards, Paul went to see Georgie Fame at the Bag O'Nails nightclub on Kingly Street, Soho. There he met Linda Eastman, who was there with Chas Chandler and The Animals. Afterwards they went on to The Speakeasy Club, on Margaret Street, where Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Shade Of Pale' was being played for the first time.

LINDA EASTMAN

Linda Eastman was an accomplished photographer when she met Paul. Raised in a wealthy household in Scarsdale, New York, her father Lee Eastman was a successful entertainment business attorney who also represented various painters, including the noted abstract artist Willem de Kooning, and she majored in art history at the University of Arizona. Contrary to popular belief she was not related to the Eastman family of Eastman-Kodak fame. Initially a receptionist at Town And Country magazine, Linda was assigned to photograph a number of musical acts beginning with The Dave Clark Five. Married first to geophysicist John Melvyn See, she had one daughter. Heather, by him before marrying Paul, the last Beatle bachelor, in 1969. She produced three further children, Mary, Heather and James, by McCartney.

Paul: "She passed our table. I was near the edge and stood up just as she was passing, blocking her exit. And so I said, 'Oh, sorry. Hi. How are you? How're you doing?' I introduced myself, and said, We're going on to another club after this, would you like to join us?'

"That was my big pulling line! I'd never used it before, but it worked this time!"

May 17

Abbey Road. Work began on 'You Know My Name, Look Up The Number', the lyrics to which John had found written on the front of the London Telephone Directory while visiting Paul at Cavendish Avenue. ("You know their name, look up the number.")

John Lennon and John Dunbar made a brief appearance on BBC2's Man Alive, a television documentary about the 14 Hour Technicolour Dream.

May 18

Photo session in Hyde Park with Marvin Lichtner from Time magazine.

Paul and John sang backing vocals on The Rolling Stones' single 'We Love You' at Decca Studios. Allen Ginsberg attended the recording session and described them as "two young princes in their finery".

May 19

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was launched with a small press party held at Brian Epstein's house at 24 Chapel Street. Brian had only recently emerged from several weeks of seclusion at a private clinic called the Priory in Surrey, where he had been treated for his drug problems.

Linda Eastman was invited to the party as a press photographer and met Paul again. Around a dozen reporters attended the event, at which they were served champagne, poached salmon and caviar.

George Martin: "Obviously Paul and John were the prime movers of Sgt. Pepper, Paul probably more than John. But their inspiration, their creation of original ideas was absolutely paramount, it was fundamental to the whole thing. I was merely serving them in helping them to get those ideas down, so my role had become that of interpreter. In John's case, his ideas weren't all that concise so I had to try to realise what he wanted and how to effect it, and I would do this either by means of an orchestra or sound effects or a combination of both. This role was an interesting one because it presented many challenges for me. I would come up to new problems every day because the songs themselves presented those problems. The songs in the early days were straightforward and you couldn't play around with them too much. Here we were building sound pictures."

Paul: "Whereas we'd just been The Beatles and songwriters, I now started to sort of nudge with the avant-garde and said, 'Hell, we could do this'. The whole idea of taking on a new identity came out of all this. The idea that we didn't have to be The Beatles any more. We could be The Enlightened Beatles or we could be somebody altogether different - Sgt. Pepper's Band.

"It seemed obvious to us that peace, love and justice ought to happen. We were opening ourselves to millions of people's influences, things that arrived in the form of, say, 'A Day In The Life'."

May 20

Ringo invited John, Cynthia, George, Patti and Brian Epstein to take afternoon tea with Maureen, Zak and himself at "Sunny Heights".

DJ Kenny Everett officially previewed Sgt. Pepper on his BBC Light Programme show Where It's At. He was unable to play the final track, however, because BBC censors had banned 'A Day In The Life' on the grounds that it advocated the use of drugs. The show also featured pre-recorded interviews with John, Paul and Ringo about the album.

May 24

All four Beatles went to the Speakeasy to see Procol Harum.

May 25

The Beatles recorded 'It's All Too Much' at the De Lane Lea recording studio on Kingsway.

John took delivery of his Rolls Royce, now painted with psychedelic fairground patterns like a gypsy caravan. Rolls Royce launched a formal objection.

May 28

All four Beatles attended a party at Brian Epstein's new country house near Heathfield in Surrey. John took the opportunity to convert former Beatles press officer Derek Taylor to the delights of LSD.

May 31

Further work was done on 'It's All Too Much' at the De Lane Lea recording studios.

June

The Beatles' office announced that the group were planning to begin work on their long-delayed third feature film this autumn, probably a vehicle called Shades Of A Personality in which the four Beatles would display four different sides to the same man's character. The film was set to be made in Spain.

June 1

An unstructured instrumental jam was recorded at De Lane Lea studios in Kingsway.

The album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the UK as Parlophone PMC 7027 (mono) and PCS 7027 (stereo). Side A: 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', With A Little Help From My Friends', 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds', 'Getting Better', 'Fixing A Hole', 'She's Leaving Home', 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite'; Side B: 'Within You Without You', 'When I'm Sixty Four', 'Lovely Rita', 'Good Morning Good Morning', 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)', 'A Day In The Life'.

Paul: "We recorded Sgt. Pepper to alter our egos, free ourselves and have a lot of fun."

John: "The people who have bought our records in the past must realise that we couldn't go on making the same type forever. We must change,"

The amazing thing was that Sgt Pepper was recorded on an antique Studer J37 4-track. In 1981 it was auctioned by Jackson Music Ltd. for £500.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

"The biggest influence on Sgt. Pepper was Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys," said Paul McCartney in 1980. "That album just flipped me. When I heard it, I thought, "Oh dear, this is the album of all time. What the hell are we going to do?' My ideas took off from that standard. I had this idea that it was going to be an album of another band that wasn't us - we'd just imagine all the time that it wasn't us playing. It was just a nice little device to give us some distance on the album. The cover was going to be us dressed as this other band in crazy gear;

but it was all stuff that we'd always wanted to wear. And we were going to have photos on the wall of all our heroes."

That's the standard view of Sgt. Pepper, from the man who almost single-handedly created the album, and its legend. In this reading. Pepper is the best pop record of all time - the album that customarily wins critics' polls, the masterpiece that first persuaded 'serious' musical critics pop was worth their consideration.

There's a rival view of the whole affair, however, and it was put forward most cogently by McCartney's supposed partner, John Lennon. "Paul said 'come and see the show' on that album," he moaned a few years after its release. "I didn't. I had to knock off a few songs so I knocked off 'A Day In The Life', or my section of it, and 'Mr. Kite'. I was very paranoid in those days. I could hardly move."

More than any other Beatles album bar Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper was a Paul McCartney creation. He it was who dreamed up the concept, the title, the idea behind Peter Blake's remarkable cover, the orchestrations, and the device of pretending that the entire LP was the work of another band entirely - which in turn became one of the major themes of the Yellow Submarine movie, then in its pre-production stages.

Meanwhile, John Lennon was deep in a creative trough. For the first time, Lennon and McCartney appeared - to Lennon, at least - to be in competition rather than on the same side. Since The Beatles had played their final live shows in August, McCartney had been composing - first the musical themes for the film The Family Way, then the songs that would appear on the next Beatles album. Lennon had also been involved in film work, but as an actor, in Dick Lester's How I Won The War. Required for the part to shed his Beatle locks, he adopted the granny specs that soon became his trademark, stared into the mirror, and wondered what the future might bring for an unemployed Beatle. Back in England at the end of the filming, Lennon regarded McCartney's enthusiasm to get into the studio as a threat. Aware that he was likely to be outnumbered in the songwriting stakes, he raised the emotional barriers and took against the Pepper album from the start.

In the end, Lennon came up with the requisite number of songs for the album, but he never warmed to the concept. On Revolver, and again on the majestic 'Strawberry Fields Forever', cut early in the sessions, he'd experienced the relief and satisfaction of writing from the heart. For Pepper, he was back where he'd been in 1964, writing songs to order. Hence the sarcastic, dismissive comments he reserved for this album throughout the rest of his life.

Whatever else Sgt. Pepper may or may not have been, it was certainly an event. It unified British pop culture in a way no other occasion could match. Maybe in hindsight it wasn't The Beatles' strongest album, but it had an impact unlike any record before or since. It literally revolutionised the direction of pop, helping to divide it between those who were prepared to follow the group along the path of experimentation (thus creating 'rock') and those who mourned the loss of the less significant Beatles of yore (the champions of 'pop'). After Pepper, nothing was ever the same again - within or without The Beatles.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND

Complete with the appropriate sound effects, the album's up-tempo title track introduced the record, the concept and the Club Band. It performed the function of an overture in an opera, preparing the audience for what was to follow, and introducing the themes that supposedly unified the piece.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS

Beatles official biographer Hunter Dames watched Lennon, McCartney and their associates completing work on Paul McCartney's original idea, aware from the start that this would be a vehicle for Ringo Starr - or 'Billy Shears', as he was billed in the opening seconds of the song. Though the song's theme was tailored towards Ringo's warm public image (right down to the line "what would you say if I sang out of tune", a real possibility), at least one observer saw a hidden meaning. Speaking in 1970, US Vice-President Spiro Agnew told an audience that he had recently been informed that the song was a tribute to the power of illegal drugs - news to its composers, perhaps.

Not often did other performers outclass The Beatles with cover versions of their songs, but Joe Cocker's gut-wrenching version of 'Friends' in 1968 left Ringo floundering.

LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS

The minor furore over the meaning of 'Friends' had nothing on the frenzied response to this piece of whimsy from the pen of John Lennon. "I was consciously writing poetry," he admitted, shifting blame for the line about "newspaper taxis" to his nominal co-writer. But the Alice In Wonderland style imagery, supposedly inspired by a drawing John's son Julian had brought home from nursery school, was widely believed to be a description of an acid trip. As soon as someone noticed the initials of the song's title (LSD), that seemed to clinch the story - except that Lennon continued to deny it until his dying day. Having owned up to so much else down the years, there was no reason for him to lie - especially over a song which he always felt was "so badly recorded".

GETTING BETTER

Based on a favourite saying of Beatles stand-in drummer Jimmy Nicol, 'Getting Better' was a McCartney song augmented by Lennon, who contributed the self-accusing verse that began "I used to be cruel to my woman". Ever since Lennon's death, McCartney has bemoaned his inability to find a co-writer who, like John, would answer a line like "it's getting better all the time" with "can't get much worse". Even in the midst of what was intended to be a concept album, McCartney could turn out a song that was clever, melodic, memorable and universal in its application.

FIXING A HOLE

For the first time in England, The Beatles left Abbey Road studios for the session that Provided the basic track for this fine McCartney song, often overlooked by critics and fans alike. EMI's studio was fully booked for the night, so the group moved to Regent Sound in the West End, where The Rolling Stones' early hits had been taped.

While John Lennon's writing veered between fantasy and obvious self-revelation, McCartney's skirted from the romantic to the delightfully oblique. This song definitely fell into the latter category, with lyrics that unveiled as many mysteries as they solved. Instrumentally, too, 'Fixing A Hole' was a minor classic, from McCartney's opening trills on the harpsichord to Harrison's lyrical guitar solo.

SHE'S LEAVING HOME

"Paul had the basic theme for this song," said John Lennon, "but all those lines like 'We sacrificed most of our life . . . We gave her everything that money could buy', those were the things Mimi used to say to me. It was easy to write." Paul's rather precious piece of fictional writing wasn't helped by Mike Leander's ornate score for the song, one of the few occasions when The Beatles were left sounding pretentious. It took the realism of Lennon's answer-lines to cut through the sweetness of the piece.

BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR. KITE

A masterpiece of ingenuity rather than inspiration, 'Mr. Kite' was written when John transcribed the wording from a vintage circus poster into verse form, and recorded with the help of scores of small segments of fairground organ tape, tossed into the air and then stuck hack together to produce the eerie noise that dominates the instrumental sections. Lennon dismissed it as a throwaway - which, when you remember how it was made, is pretty apt.

WITHIN YOU WITHOUT YOU

Though it was John Lennon who resented Paul McCartney's domination of the Pepper sessions, George Harrison probably had more cause to be aggrieved. He was restricted to just one number on the LP, his other contribution ('Only A Northern Song') being rejected.

Like 'Love You To', 'Within You Without You' blatantly displayed George's infatuation with Indian culture. Recorded with the assistance of several Indian musicians, plus Beatles aide Neil Aspinall on tamboura, the song required no help from any other member of the group. "It was written at Klaus Voorman's house in Hampstead, one night after dinner," George explained a decade later. "I was playing a pedal harmonium when it came, the tune first, then the first sentence." Some thought it a masterpiece, some a prime example of mock-philosophical babble. Either way, it was pure Harrison.

WHEN I'M SIXTY-FOUR

Paul began writing this song when he was a teenager, needing only to add the middle sections for this revival of a ten-year-old melody. Within the concept of the album, it fitted the image of the Edwardian Pepper band, whereas it would have seemed mawkish on any of the group's earlier LPs. The addition of clarinets to the mix heightened the pre-First World War feel.

LOVELY RITA

The anthem for traffic wardens ("meter maids") everywhere, 'Lovely Rita' was a glorious throwaway, full of musical jokes and brimming with self-confidence. Nothing on the record expressed that as fully as the piano solo, ironically played by keyboard maestro George Martin.

GOOD MORNING, GOOD MORNING

Using a TV commercial for Kellogg's cereal as his starting point, John Lennon concocted a wonderfully dry satire on contemporary urban life. Several points to watch out for here: the reference to the popular BBC TV sitcom, Meet The Wife; the ultra-compressed brass sound provided by members of Sounds Incorporated; a stinging Harrison guitar solo; and the cavalcade of animals, in ascending order of ferocity, which segues into the next track.

SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (REPRISE)

For the first but definitely not the last time, Paul McCartney topped and tailed a set of songs by reprising the opening melody, in true Hollywood musical fashion.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Delete 'A Day In The Life' from Sgt. Pepper and you'd have an elegant, playful album of pop songs. With it, the LP assumes some kind of greatness. Some might vote for 'Hey Jude' or 'Strawberry Fields Forever' as the finest ever Beatles recording, but 'A Day In The Life' would run anything close - and it's certainly the best ever collaborative effort between Lennon and McCartney.

Lennon wrote the basic song, its verses a snapshot from his own life and the world around him - the death of a friend in a car crash, a newspaper cutting about the state of the roads in Blackburn, Lancashire. The tag line "I'd love to turn you on" brought a broadcasting ban in Britain: more importantly, it led twice into an overwhelming orchestral assault, with 40 musicians headed helter-skelter up the scales towards a crescendo of silence. First time around, the barrage leads into McCartney's stoned middle-eight, another day in another life; second time, there's a pause, and then a piano chord that resounds for almost a minute. Then bathos: a whistle only dogs could hear, followed by the locked-groove gibberish that brought the side to a close, and is sampled briefly at the end of the CD. Stunning, magnificent, awesome: there's nothing in rock to match it.

June 2

Work on 'It's All Too Much' at De Lane Lea.

Yellow Submarine film producer Al Brodax: "The numbers they have been recording this month for the movie are brilliant - incredible! They are using sounds I have never heard, nor could ever have imagined before."

The album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the US as Capitol MAS 2653 (mono) and SMAS 2653 (stereo) with the same track list as the UK release.

After the jailing the previous day of International Times founder John 'Hoppy' Hopkins on a charge of possessing cannabis, luminaries from the British underground met to discuss registering a protest. Barry Miles rang Paul to solicit his support, and Paul promised that the Beatles would finance an advertisement in The Times deploring the laws on 'soft' drugs.

June 3

Barry Miles and drug researcher Steve Abrams visited Paul in St. John's Wood to discuss the campaign against the drug laws.

June 4

Paul and Jane, George and Patti were in the audience at Brian Epstein's Saville Theatre to see The Jimi Hendrix Experience headline a bill which included Denny Laine & His Electric String Band, The Chiffons and Procol Harum. Jimi Hendrix opened his set with the title track from Sgt. Pepper. Paul described it as among the greatest honours he ever had bestowed upon him, particularly as Jimi had only three days to rehearse the piece.

June 7

Abbey Road. Another take of 'You Know My Name, Look Up The Number' was made.

The animated Yellow Submarine film was announced.

June 8

Abbey Road. Paul invited Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones to attend the recording session, thinking he might bring along a guitar and play some rhythm. Brian arrived with an alto saxophone, which used to be his instrument in the pre-Rolling Stones Ramrods. He played a sax solo for them on 'You Know My Name, Look Up The Number' which remains one of Paul McCartney's favourite Beatles' numbers.

June 9

Abbey Road. 'You Know My Name, Look Up The Number' was mixed.

June 12

The album The Family Way (Original Soundtrack Album) by The George Martin Orchestra and written by Paul McCartney was released in the USA as London MS 82007 with the same tracks as the UK release.

June 14

The backing track for 'All You Need Is Love' was recorded at Olympic Studios, Barnes, for use on the first live worldwide satellite link-up which was expected to be seen by 200 million people. George Martin pleaded with them, 'You can't just go off the cuff. We've got to prepare something." John came back with 'All You Need Is Love' and Martin orchestrated it. George Martin: "When it came to the end of their fade-away as the song closed, I asked them: 'How do you want to get out of it?' 'Write absolutely anything you like, George,' they said. 'Put together any tunes you fancy, and just play it out like that.' " Martin came up with the 'Marseillaise', a Bach two-part invention, 'Greensleeves' and a short quote from 'In The Mood' (which EMI ultimately had to pay copyright on).

June 16

The Monterey International Pop Festival began at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in California. Despite constant speculation throughout the weekend, none of The Beatles was in attendance. But the group did provide festival co-ordinator Derek Taylor with an original piece of artwork, which was printed in the festival programme.

June 17

Life magazine ran an interview with Paul McCartney in which he revealed that he had taken acid.

June 19

Abbey Road. Further work done on 'All You Need Is Love'.

PAUL AND LSD

After Paul's admission in Life Magazine, the British press besieged him to make a statement. Paul gave an interview to Independent Television News for broadcast on the 9pm news that evening.

Reporter: 'How often have you taken LSD?"

Paul: "Um, four times."

Reporter: "And where did you get it from?"

Paul: "Well, you know, I mean, if I was to say where I got it from, you know, it's illegal and everything, it's silly to say that so I'd rather not say it."

Reporter: "Don't you believe that this was a matter which you should have kept private?"

Paul: "Well the thing is, you know, that I was asked a question by a newspaper and the decision was whether to tell a lie or to tell the truth, you know. I decided to tell him the truth but I really didn't want to say anything because if I'd had my way I wouldn't have told anyone because I'm not trying to spread the word about this but the man from the newspaper is the man from the mass medium. I'll keep it a personal thing if he does too, you know, if he keeps it quiet. But he wanted to spread it so it's his responsibility for spreading it. Not mine."

Reporter: "But you're a public figure and you said it in the first place. You must have known that it would make the newspapers."

Paul: "Yes, but to say it, you know, is only to tell the truth. I'm telling the truth. I don't know what everyone is so angry about."

Reporter: "Well, do you think you have encouraged your fans to take drugs?"

Paul: "I don't think it will make any difference. You know, I don't think my fans are going to take drugs just because I did. But the thing is, that's not the point anyway. I was asked whether I had or not and from then on the whole bit about how far its going to go and how many people it's going to encourage is up to the newspapers and up to you, you know, on television. I mean, you're spreading this now, at this moment. This is going into all the homes in Britain and I'd rather it didn't, you know. But you're asking me the question and if you want me to be honest I'll be honest."

Reporter: "But as a public figure, surely you've got a responsibility to not say any . . ."

Paul: "No, it's you who've got the responsibility. You've got the responsibility not to spread this now. You know, I'm quite prepared to keep it as a very personal thing if you will too. If you'll shut up about it, I will!"

June 21

Abbey Road. 'All You Need Is Love' was mixed.

June 23

Abbey Road. The orchestral track was added to 'All You Need Is Love'.

June 24

Abbey Road, preparing for the satellite link-up. The Beatles, the 13-man orchestra and their conductor did a full run-through for the BBC cameramen. More than 100 journalists and photographers were allowed into the studio for a late-morning photocall.

June 25

The Beatles performed 'All You Need Is Love' on the BBC Our World live worldwide TV link-up live from EMI's massive studio one.

The studio was filled with potted flowers and The Beatles wore uniforms of green, pink and orange, similar to the Sgt. Pepper cover. Waist long flowing scarves wafted from their necks but the medieval look was marred slightly by the headphones they all wore, as well as the usual studio clutter of microphones, headphone leads, instruments and music stands. Among the guests were Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash and Gary Leeds. Keith Moon fooled around on the drums with Ringo during the long wait before transmission. Simon, Marijka and Joshi, from The Fool, wore the flowing patchwork patterns and headscarves they would shortly market through the Apple boutique. The Small Faces sat close to each other in new Granny Takes A Trip clothes. Mick Jagger sat on the floor with Marianne Faithfull, close by Paul's high stool, wearing a silk jacket with a pair of psychedelic eyes painted on it, smoking a very fat joint in front of the 200 million viewers, the day before he was to be busted for drugs. "All You Need Is Love!" streamers and balloons floated down from the ceiling and the audience all sang along. Placards with the message ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE written large in many languages were paraded before the cameras. The vocals, Paul's bass, Ringo's drums, George's solo and the orchestra were all mixed live on the air. In the control room afterwards George Martin played back the tape. "Another big hit!" said Paul.

Paul: "We had one message for the whole world - love. We need more love in the world. It's a period in history that needs love."

June 26

Abbey Road. Ringo added the opening drum roll to 'All You Need Is Love' and the record was mixed, ready for instant release.

June 28

George was fined £6 at South Western Court, London, for speeding in Roehampton Lane, Putney in his black Mini Cooper.

The Family Way, the film for which Paul had composed the soundtrack, was premiered in New York.

June 29

The Beatles' Book Monthly photographer, Leslie Bryce, photographed John at Kenwood, his mock-Tudor mansion in Weybridge, for an "at home" session.

July 1

The BBC Light Programme show, Where It's At broadcast a pre-recorded interview with Paul talking about 'All You Need Is Love'.

July 3

Vic Lewis gave a private party for The Monkees at the Speakeasy. The guests included John and Cynthia, George and Patti, Paul and Jane, The Who, Eric Clapton, the Manfred Mann group, Lulu, Procol Harum, The Fool, Micky Most, Vicki Wickham, Dusty Springfield, and Monkees Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz (Davy Jones and Ringo were both away).

The Fool were commissioned by Brian Epstein to redesign the interior of his Saville Theatre, in a similar style to their recent psychedelic transformation of John's Rolls Royce.

July 4

George and Patti travelled to Liverpool to spend several days with his family.

July 5

John and Cynthia saw Marmalade at the Speakeasy.

July 7

The single 'All You Need Is Love'/'Baby You're A Rich Man' was released in the UK as Parlophone R 5620. It was only decided 24 hours before the TV show that 'All You Need Is Love' should be their next single, based on the demand that the worldwide viewing would cause.

Paul: "It does sound like we used to sound. But it's really next time round on the spiral. I'd sum it up as taking a look back with a new feeling."

'Baby You're A Rich Man' was originally intended for the soundtrack of the full-length Beatles cartoon, Yellow Submarine. It was originally called One Of The Beautiful People.

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

With both the Our World programme on June 25 and universal appeal in mind, John Lennon wrote 'All You Need Is Love', one of the anthems of the Sixties. The decision was made to broadcast the actual recording of the song live - or so the public were informed, though Lennon and the other Beatles sang and played along to a pre-recorded backing track, and John actually re-cut his lead vocal a few hours later. The broadcast passed without incident, and remains one of the strongest visual impressions of the summer of love, as a mini-orchestra and many of the group's friends from the pop aristocracy congregated in the cavernous Studio One at Abbey Road.

BABY YOU'RE A RICH MAN

'We just stuck two songs together for this one," admitted John Lennon, "the same as 'A Day In The Life'." The final effect wasn't quite as grandiose, but 'Baby You're A Rich Man' certainly took less time to record - being started and finished in a single six-hour session. Rumours that the song's final choruses contain a hidden 'tribute' to Brian Epstein - "baby you're a rich fag Jew" - appear to be groundless. But it is true that the number was originally intended for the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, though it ended up being released a year before the film on theflipside of'All You Need Is Love'. The instrument punctuating the song that sounds like a manic trumpet is a primitive synthesiser called a Clavioline, incidentally.

July 9

London painter John McDonnell exhibited 'The Musicians', a reworking of a work by Caravaggio, with the faces of The Beatles replacing the original subjects of the painting. The work was later sold to an American tourist for 100 guineas (£105).

July 12

George and Patti returned to London from Liverpool.

July 17

The single 'All You Need Is Love'/'Baby You're A Rich Man' was released in the USA as Capitol 5964.

July 19

The four Beatles met in London to discuss their next film project, and also their plans to purchase an island hideaway in Greece.

July 20

Paul and Jane attended a Chris Barber recording session at the Chappell Recording Studios to see him record Paul's instrumental 'Catcall'. Paul played piano, along with Brian Auger, and can be heard yelling in the chorus at the end.

John had long had the idea that The Beatles should all live together on an island with a recording studio/entertainment complex in the middle, surrounded by four separate villas. Beyond that would be housing for their friends and the staff. Alex Mardas, a TV repairman whom John had dubbed "Magic Alex", had friends in the Greek Military Junta, and arranged for The Beatles to island-seek there. Though the authorities had already banned both long hair and rock'n'roll, they felt that The Beatles visiting Greece might help prop up their tourist industry and undermine some of the bad press they had been getting for torturing dissidents. Alex flew to Greece and came up with the island of John's dreams: the island of Leslo, about 80 acres surrounded by four habitable islands, one for each Beatle. The island was for sale for £90,000, including a small fishing village, four ideal beaches and 16 acres of olive groves.

George and Patti, Ringo and Neil Aspinall flew to Athens where they were met by Alex and his father, who was in the military police. They stayed at the Mardas house in suburban Athens until the remaining members of the party arrived.

July 22

John and Cynthia with Julian, Paul and Jane, Patti's 16-year-old sister Paula, Mal Evans and Alistair Taylor from the NEMS office, who was in charge of buying the island, set off for Greece. Their hired yacht, the MV Arvi, was stuck near Crete in high winds and did not get to Athens until the 25th, so they all stayed in Athens.

July 23

In a convoy of a Mercedes and two huge American taxis, the party went out into the country. Paul, Jane and Neil's taxi caught fire in the extreme heat and when the others turned back to look for them they were found walking along the road, back towards the village where the party had eaten lunch.

Alex arranged a few sightseeing trips to prevent them from getting bored, but he also kept the Greek tourist authorities informed of their timetable so wherever they went there were crowds of people following. Alistair Taylor wrote, "Once on a trip to a hill village, we came round a corner of the peaceful road only to find hundreds of photographers clicking away at us."

July 24

The Oxford University drama company invited The Beatles to attend a performance of Agamemnon by Aeschylus, at the theatre at Delphi, but Alex had informed the tourist authorities who broadcast the fact they would be there on Athens Radio. They arrived in Delphi to an enormous crowd of fans and pushy journalists. They climbed back into their Mercedes and headed straight back to Athens.

THE 'POT' AD

The Times ran a full-page advertisement on July 24 headed, "The law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice" which was signed by, among others, all four Beatles and Brian Epstein. The petition's arguments included the following: that the smoking of cannabis on private premises should no longer constitute an offence; cannabis should be taken off the dangerous drugs list and controlled, rather than prohibited; possession of cannabis should either be legally permitted or at most be considered a misdemeanour and that all persons now imprisoned for possession of cannabis or for allowing cannabis to be smoked on private premises should have their sentences commuted.

It was signed by 65 eminent names including Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the DNA molecule and a Nobel laureate, novelist Graham Greene, and MPs Brian Walden and Tom Driberg, as well as future MP Jonathan Aitken, but the four MBEs caused the most press concern. Questions were asked in the House, and a chain of events set off, which did actually result in the liberalisation of the laws against pot in Britain. The £1,800 advertisement was paid for by The Beatles at Paul McCartney's instigation.

July 25

George and Paul stayed in, playing guitars and relaxing while John, Ringo and the others went shopping for instruments, attracting a large crowd of sightseers and fans.

The yacht finally arrived. It had 24 berths and a crew of eight including the captain, a chef and two stewards.

July 26

Ringo and Neil Aspinall flew back to London from Athens. Maureen was pregnant and with the baby nearly due Ringo did not want to be away too long.

The others boarded the yacht. The first few days were spent swimming, sunbathing, and taking LSD. Then they set off to inspect Leslo, where they were to build their commune. After a full day of exploring the island, planning where the recording studio would be located and who would live on which island, Alistair Taylor was instructed to fly straight back to London and make the arrangements to buy it.

Export controls meant that The Beatles had to buy special export dollars and then apply to the government for permission to spend them. Taylor eventually got the clearance but by then no one was interested in the idea any more and he was told to sell the property dollars back to the government. In the meantime, their value had increased so The Beatles made £11,400 profit on the deal.

July 27

Music publishers KPM Music approached Northern Songs, claiming that copyright in the tune 'In The Mood' had been infringed by the incorporation of a few bars from the song in the fade-out of The Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love'.

July 29

George, Patti and Mal Evans returned from Greece to prepare for a trip to Los Angeles.

July 31

Paul, Jane, John, Cynthia, Julian, Paula and Alex flew back to London from Athens.

Ringo recorded a farewell message at pirate station Radio London, broadcast on their last day on the air before the government stamped them out and replaced them with their own anodyne version of pop radio.

August 1

George, Patti, "Magic" Alex Mardas and Neil Aspinall flew from London to Los Angeles where they had rented a house on Blue Jay Way. George and Patti flew as Mr and Mrs Weiss, taken from Nat Weiss, the director of Nemporer Artists in New York, who was to meet them at the airport and look after them.

That evening George called Derek Taylor and gave him directions to get there but Derek got lost in the LA fog trying to find their house. While he was waiting, George wrote a song with the street name as the title.

August 2

George, Patti, Neil and Alex visited Ravi Shankar's Music School and watched him teach. Afterwards they had a meal with Shankar on Sunset Strip.

August 3

George, Alex and Neil went to Ravi Shankar's Music School where George and Ravi Shankar held a press conference to promote Shankar's Hollywood Bowl concert set for the following day. Patti and her sister Jenny, who flew down from San Francisco to join them, went sightseeing.

That evening they attended a Mamas And Papas recording session with Derek Taylor.

August 4

George and his party attended Ravi Shankar's concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

Polydor reissued their album of 1961 Hamburg recordings. The Beatles' First.

August 5

George and company attended a recording session by Alla Rahka, after which they went for a meal in Alvira Street with Derek Taylor and his entire family.

August 6

George visited Ashish, Alt Akbar Khan's son, the sarod player, while the others visited Disneyland. That evening they dined at Ravi Shankar's house.

August 7

After flying along the coast from Los Angeles, George, Patti, Jenny, Derek Taylor and Neil Aspinall walked around the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, attracting a huge crowd of hippies and beggars.

August 9

Neil, Alex, George and Patti flew back to London, via New York.

August 11

The Beatles were photographed by Richard Avedon at the penthouse photographic studio in Thompson House. Avedon used the images for a series of four psychedelic posters which appeared first in Look magazine before being published separately and adorning thousands of student bedrooms around the world.

August 13

EMI announced that the Sgt. Pepper album had now sold more than 500,000 copies in the UK alone.

August 16

The first press screening of How I Won The War, the film starring John, was held in London.

August 18

The single 'We Love You' by The Rolling Stones, with backing vocals by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, was released in the UK as Decca F 12654.

August 19

Maureen Starkey gave birth to a second son, Jason, at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, London.

August 20

John and Paul visited Maureen Starkey in hospital. Later they returned to Paul's home in St. John's Wood to discuss The Beatles' future plans.

August 22

The Beatles began work on 'Your Mother Should Know' at Chappell Recording Studios, London.

August 23

The Beatles finished work on 'Your Mother Should Know' at Chappell. Brian Epstein was on hand to watch part of the session, the last time he visited the group in the recording studio.

August 24

John and Cynthia, Paul and Jane, George and Patti attended a lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton on Park Lane. After the lecture they had a private audience with the Maharishi and arranged to attend his seminar which was to be held in Bangor that weekend.

August 25

THE MAHARISHI

The Beatles, their wives and girlfriends, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull took the train from Euston Station to Bangor to attend the Maharishi's teaching seminar. Cynthia Lennon got caught in the crush and a policeman refused to let her through the barrier onto the platform until it was too late and the train pulled away without her. Neil Aspinall drove her there.

For the four Beatles, it was the first time in five years that they had ever travelled anywhere without the protective cordon supplied by Brian, Neil or Mal.

John: "Bangor was incredible, you know. Maharishi reckons the message will get through if we can put it across. What he says about life and the universe is the same message that Jesus, Buddha and Krishna and all the big boys were putting over. Mick came up there and he got a sniff and he was on the phone saying: 'Keith, send Brian, send them all down.' You just get a sniff and you're hooked.

"There's none of this sitting in the lotus position or standing on your head. You just do it as long as you like. (In a heavy accent) Tventy minutes a day is prescribed for ze workers. Tventy minutes a morning and tventy minutes after verk. Makes you happy, intelligent and more energy. I mean look how it all started. I believe he just landed in Hawaii in his nightshirt, all on his own, nobody with him, in 1958.

"The main thing is not to think about the future or the past, the main thing is to just get on with now. We want to help people to do that with these academies. We'll make a donation and we'll ask for money from anyone we know with money, anyone that's interested, anyone in the so-called establishment who's worried about kids going wild and drugs and all that. Another groovy thing: everybody gives one week's wages when they join. I think ifs the fairest thing I've heard of. And thafs all you ever pay, just the once.

"Even if you go into the meditation bit just curious or cynical, once you go into it, you see. We weren't so much sceptical because we'd been through that phase in the middle of all the Beatlemania like, so we came out of being sceptics a bit. But you've still got to have a questioning attitude to all that goes on. The only thing you can do is judge on your own experience and that's what this is about." August 26

The Beatles informed the national press, who were besieging the Maharishi's meditation centre in Bangor, that they had renounced the use of hallucinogenic drugs.

2,000 fans gathered at Shea Stadium in New York, to protest that The Beatles had not played any concerts in the US during the summer of 1967.

August 27

Brian Epstein was found dead in his London house.

Jane Asher received the telephone call which brought The Beatles the news in Wales, and gave the receiver to Paul. Saddened, worried and confused, the group gave a brief press conference then departed for London.

John: "I can't find words to pay tribute to him. It is just that he was lovable, and it is those lovable things we think about now."

Paul: "This is a great shock. I am deeply upset."

George: "He dedicated so much of his life to The Beatles. We liked and loved him. He was one of us."

Ringo: "We loved Brian. He was a generous man. We owe so much to him. We have come a long way with Brian along the same road."

Jimi Hendrix cancelled his evening show at Brian's Saville Theatre in honour of his memory.

BRIAN'S DEATH

In the afternoon of August 25 Brian had driven down to his Sussex country home, dined with two companions then driven back to London late, evidently disappointed that expected houseguests had failed to arrive. He remained in his room throughout the following day and, on the Sunday morning, his housekeepers became concerned at his non-appearance. Eventually the door to Brian's bedroom was forced open by a doctor and Brian's assistant. His lifeless body was on the bed. At an inquest the cause of death was found to be accidental, resulting from 'incautious self-overdoses', with the drug Carbitol, taken to assist sleep, mentioned specifically.

John: "We were in Wales with the Maharishi. We had just gone down after seeing his lecture first night. We heard it then. I was stunned, we all were, I suppose, and the Maharishi, we went in to him. 'What, he's dead' and all that, and he was sort of saying oh, forget it, be happy, like an idiot, like parents, smile, that's what the Maharishi said. And we did.

"I had that feeling that anybody has when somebody close to them dies: there is a sort of little hysterical, sort of hee, hee, I'm glad it's not me or something in it, the funny feeling when somebody close to you dies. I don't know whether you've had it, but I've had a lot of people die around me and the other feeling is, 'What the fuck? What can I do?'

"I knew we were in trouble then. I didn't really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music and I was scared. I thought, 'We've fuckin' had it.'

"I liked Brian and I had a very close relationship with him for years, because I'm not gonna have some stranger runnin' things, that's all. I like to work with friends. I was the closest with Brian, as close as you can get to somebody who lives a sort of 'fag' life, and you don't really know what they're doin' on the side. But in the group I was closest to him and I did like him.

"We had complete faith in him when he was runnin' us. To us, he was the expert. I mean originally he had a shop. Anybody who's got a shop must be all right. He went round smarmin' and charmin' everybody. He had hellish tempers and fits and lock-outs and y'know he'd vanish for days. He'd come to a crisis every now and then and the whole business would fuckin' stop cause he'd go on sleepin' pills for days on end and wouldn't wake up. Or he'd be missin', y'know, beaten up by some old docker down the Old Kent Road. But we weren't too aware of it. It was later on we started findin' out about those things.

"We'd never have made it without him and vice versa. Brian contributed as much as us in the early days, although we were the talent and he was the hustler. He wasn't strong enough to overbear us. Brian could never make us do what we didn't really want to do."

Derek Taylor: "It was like two movies: The Beatles in full colour, meditating in Bangor with The Rolling Stones; Brian in stark black and white, sprawled dead on his bed. Then the two films merged, but I still couldn't pick up the plot. The news was too much, the first crack in the marble of our wonderful temple of the mind wherein we would all dwell in perfect harmony."

August 28

Brian's sudden death dominates the newspaper headlines in the UK and US. The Beatles confirmed that they intended to continue their study of meditation with the Maharishi.

The single 'We Love You' by The Rolling Stones (John Lennon and Paul McCartney on backing vocals) was released in the US as London 905.

August 29

The inquest into Brian Epstein's death was adjourned, although the coroner gave permission for the burial to go ahead at a Jewish cemetery in Liverpool.

Brian Epstein's funeral was a strictly family affair with none of his groups, not even The Beatles, in attendance.

August 30

Brian Epstein's brother Clive was elected as the new chairman of the family company, NEMS Enterprises, with Robert Stigwood as managing director.

August 31

The Beatles announced that they would continue to be managed by NEMS Enterprises until further notice, but that Clive Epstein would not be taking over his brother's role as their personal manager. "No one could possibly replace Brian," Paul commented. An official statement issued to the press added: "The Beatles would be willing to put money into NEMS if there was any question of a takeover from an outsider. The Beatles will not withdraw their shares from NEMS. Things will go on as before."

EMI announced that worldwide sales of 'All You Need Is Love' had now topped three million.

September 1

The Beatles met at Paul's house on Cavendish Avenue to discuss their future. They decided to continue with the Magical Mystery Tour project and put everything else on hold.

Before the other Beatles arrived, Paul held a separate meeting with publicist Tony Barrow, to discuss the special storybook which he wanted to accompany the Magical Mystery Tour album.

Tony Barrow: "Paul wanted me to surround the making of Magical Mystery Tour with a massive new publicity campaign, designed to keep The Beatles in the newspapers at home and abroad all through September. Without that, he thought, Epstein's death would look like the end of an era. In Paul's eyes, Magical Mystery Tour could be sold to the world as the beginning of a bright new era in The Beatles' history."

September 2

The Beatles dispatched their aide Alistair Taylor to the seaside, to check, before they began work in earnest on the Magical Mystery Tour project, that coach companies still operated mystery tours. They did.

September 4

NEMS announced that The Beatles would be travelling to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's camp in Rishikesh, India, in early October to study transcendental meditation.

September 5

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Work began on John's 'I Am The Walrus'.

September 6

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Further work done on 'I Am The Walrus', including John's vocal. Paul recorded a demo version of 'The Fool On The Hill' and the basic tracks were recorded for George's 'Blue Jay Way'.

September 7

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Work on 'Blue Jay Way'.

September 8

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. The instrumental 'Flying' was recorded. At this time the track was called 'Aerial Tour Instrumental' and was meant for a flying sequence in which The Beatles intended to have the coach actually fly, using special effects.

Westminster coroner Gavin Thurston recorded a verdict of "accidental death" on Brian Epstein, ruling that The Beatles' manager had become confused about the quantity of sleeping tablets that he had taken in his final hours.

September 11

The coach for the Magical Mystery Tour was still being painted with its psychedelic livery and was delayed for two hours in leaving Allsop Place, where rock'n'roll package tours always started. Paul went in search of a cup of tea in the nearby London Transport canteen above Baker Street station. There he signed a few autographs and chatted until the bus arrived. Discovering that there were no uniforms for the bus driver and courier to wear, Paul walked down to Soho with Mal Evans to buy some appropriate clothing.

The other three Beatles were picked up in Virginia Water, Surrey, near their homes. All 43 seats in the coach were filled with technicians, Beatles, Mal, Neil and even a few fan club secretaries. They drove to Teignmouth, Devon, stopping for lunch at the Pied Piper restaurant in Winchester en route. In Teignmouth the entire party stayed at The Royal Hotel where 400 local fans were waiting for them in the pouring rain. Paul gave a short press conference about the film.

John: "Paul made an attempt to carry on as if Brian hadn't died by saying, 'Now, now, boys, we're going to make a record.' Being the kind of person I am, I thought well, we're going to make a record all right, so I'll go along, so we went and made a record. And that's when we made Magical Mystery Tour.

"Paul said, 'Well, here's the segment, you write a little piece for that,' and I thought, 'Bloody hell,' so I ran off and I wrote the dream sequence for the fat woman and all the things with the spaghetti. Then George and I were sort of grumbling about the fuckin' movie and we thought we'd better do it and we had the feeling that we owed it to the public to do these things."

September 12

The coach got stuck on a bridge on its way to Widecombe Fair, blocking the road, and had to back half a mile up the road to turn around. The AA redirected traffic. John was filmed losing his temper but the footage was not used. They abandoned plans to visit the fair and stopped at the Grand Hotel in Plymouth for lunch.

John and Paul gave an interview to Hugh Scully for the local BBC1 news magazine programme Spotlight South West and posed for a photo call.

The coach continued to Newquay, Cornwall, with several stops to film en route. In Newquay they stayed at the Atlantic Hotel, where they held a meeting with the film crew to discuss how they could bring the shooting back on schedule.

September 13

John directed a film sequence in which Scottish "funny walks" specialist Nat Jackley chased bikini-clad girls around the Atlantic Hotel swimming pool. Simultaneously, Paul and Ringo directed a scene filmed on the beach at Newquay.

Spencer Davis was staying in Cornwall and saw a news item showing the AA and local police trying to push The Beatles' bus round the narrow bend and off the bridge. He phoned the Atlantic Hotel and spoke with Mal Evans who invited him over.

George was interviewed by Miranda Ward for the BBC's new Radio One programme Scene and Heard.

BBC TV's Spotlight South West aired their interview with John and Paul.

Paul: "We're not going to turn out records or films just for the sake of it. We don't want to have to talk unless we have something to say. We enjoy recording, but we want to go even further. I would like to come up with a completely new form of music, invent new sounds. But at the moment I'm thinking things out. There seems to be a pause in my life right now - a time for re-assessment."

September 14

Filming in various locations.

Miranda Ward joined The Beatles' party and interviewed Ringo for Scene And Heard. Spencer Davis returned The Beatles' hospitality of the previous evening and invited them over to Perranporth where he and his family were on holiday. Ringo, Paul, Neil and Miranda Ward went with several other coach passengers. Spencer Davis: "I invited some of them back to the pub in the evening and Ringo and Paul came, but George and John were doing something else. There was a piano in the corner and Paul stuck a pint of beer on the top and started playing and people hadn't even noticed that he was in there. There was one girl who looked and said, 'The piano player, look who it is!' It was so funny to see the reaction on their faces." Paul led the sing-song around the pub piano until 2am but refused to play the pub standard, 'Yellow Submarine'.

September 15

Filming in front of the hotel and various locations en route to London. They stopped for lunch at a small fish and chip shop in Taunton (in Somerset) and filmed there.

September 16

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. More work done on 'Your Mother Should Know'.

The Beatles decided to postpone their upcoming visit to India until all work on Magical Mystery Tour was completed.

September 18

The Beatles filmed at the Raymond Revue Bar in Soho with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and stripper Jan Carson whose bare breasts were covered in the film with a superimposed CENSORED sign.

September 19

The Beatles filmed at West Malling Air Station, Maidstone, Kent, when they found that you needed to book film studios ahead of time.

Steve Winwood's group Traffic were approached by Paul to film a special clip of them performing 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush' for inclusion in Magical Mystery Tour.

September 20

Filming at West Malling Air Station, Maidstone, Kent.

September 21

Filming at West Malling Air Station, Maidstone, Kent.

September 22

Filming at West Malling Air Station, Maidstone, Kent.

The Beatles were granted the honour of a cover story in the American news magazine, Time.

September 23

Filming at West Malling Air Station, Maidstone, Kent.

September 24

Filming at West Malling Air Station, Maidstone, Kent. The grand finale, with The Beatles trooping down the staircase singing 'Your Mother Should Know', was filmed with the aid of the 160 members of The Peggy Spencer Formation Dancing Team and two dozen Women's Royal Air Force cadets. Paul: "That was the shot that used most of the budget."

September 25

The Beatles had allowed two weeks for editing, but in the end it took 11. Editing began immediately and was done by Roy Benson in a rented Soho editing suite: Norman's Film Productions at the corner of Old Compton Street and Wardour Street. Paul was present throughout all 11 weeks, unless he was recording, and the others appeared to a lesser degree.

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Work began on Paul's 'The Fool On The Hill'.

September 26

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. More work on 'The Fool On The Hill'.

September 27

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. The orchestra and the Mike Sammes Singers' parts were added to 'I Am The Walrus'. Paul added a new vocal to 'The Fool On The Hill'.

John was one of the subscribers to a postal art event staged by Yoko Ono. The "13 Days Do It Yourself Dance Festival" cost £1 to join, in return for which subscribers received an instructional postcard from Yoko every morning. Her first missive tells her followers to "Breathe at midnight".

September 28

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Work done on 'I Am The Walrus' and 'Flying'. Yoko Ono has already told John and his fellow subscribers to "Breathe at dawn".

September 29

John and George appeared on Rediffusion Television's The Frost Programme, discussing transcendental meditation with David Frost.

John: "Buddha was a groove, Jesus was all right."

George: "I believe in reincarnation. Life and death are still only relative to thought. I believe in rebirth. You keep coming back until you have got it straight. The ultimate thing is to manifest divinity, and become one with The Creator."

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. The sound effects were added to 'I Am The Walrus' including the fragment of Shakespeare's King Lear. Paul's 'Your Mother Should Know' was also finished.

September 30

The first edition of BBC Radio 1's Scene And Heard broadcast its interview with George.

October 1

A further one-day shoot at West Mailing.

October 2

Abbey Road. Work began on The Beatles' next single, Paul's 'Hello Goodbye'.

October 4

John and George made a follow-up appearance on The Frost Programme continuing their discussion of transcendental meditation.

October 6

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. 'Blue Jay Way' completed.

October 7

The Beatles turned down New York promoter Sid Bernstein's offer of $1 million for two concerts in the US.

October 9

Yoko Ono's "13 Days Do It Yourself Dance Festival" ended on John's 27th birthday, when he was instructed to: "Colour yourself. Wait for the spring to come. Let us know when it comes."

October 11

Yoko's one-woman show, Yoko Plus Me, opened at the Lisson Gallery in London. Me was the anonymous John Lennon, who also underwrote the cost of the exhibition, which was subtitled "Half A Wind" and featured objects which had been painted white and then chopped in half.

John: "She gave me her Grapefruit book and I used to read it and sometimes I'd get very annoyed by it; it would say things like 'Paint until you drop' or 'bleed' and then sometimes I'd be very enlightened by it and I went through all the changes that people go through with her work - sometimes I'd have it by the bed and I'd open it and it would say something nice and it would be alright and then it would say something heavy and I wouldn't like it.

"There was all that and then she came to me to get some backing for a show and it was half a wind show. I gave her the money to back it and the show was, this was a place called Lisson Gallery, another one of those underground places. For this whole show everything was in half; there was half a bed, half a room, half of everything, all beautifully cut in half and painted white. And I said to her, 'Why don't you sell the other half in bottles?' having caught on by then what the game was and she did that - this was still before we had the nuptials - and we still have the bottles from the show, it's my first. It was presented as Yoko Plus Me - that was our first public appearance. I didn't even go to see the show, I was too uptight."

October 12

George's 'It's All Too Much' was mixed at De Lane Lea Studios, where it was recorded.

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Mixing 'Blue Jay Way' followed by John producing a recording of 'Shirley's Wild Accordion', a Lennon and McCartney composition played by Shirley Evans (accordion) and Reg Wale (percussion), for use in the film. (Not in fact used.)

October 13

The single 'How I Won The War', by Musketeer Gripweed (John Lennon) and The Third Troop (Ken Thorne) was released in the UK as United Artists UP 1196. John's only contribution to the single was a few words of dialogue from the soundtrack of How I Won The War.

October 14

Miranda Ward's interview with Ringo was broadcast on Radiol's Scene And Heard.

October 17

The Beatles, plus other NEMS artists like Cilla Black, Gerry Marsden, The Fourmost and Billy J. Kramer, attended a memorial service for Brian Epstein held at 6pm at the New London Synagogue, 33 Abbey Road, London.

Mick Jagger revealed that he and Paul had had talks about The Rolling Stones and The Beatles setting up a jointly owned recording studio. But he dismissed any idea of a permanent business collaboration with The Beatles as "premature".

October 18

John and Cynthia attended the Motor Show, held at the Earl's Court Exhibition Hall.

That evening all four Beatles, their wives and girlfriends attended the premiere of Richard Lester's film How I Won The War, starring John Lennon, held at the London Pavilion. John and George both sported psychedelic jackets, while Paul and Ringo opted for normal evening suits. Also in attendance were celebrities like Jimi Hendrix, David Hemmings and his actress wife Gayle Hunnicut, and singers Anita Harris, Cilia Black and Cass Elliot.

Afterwards they went to Cilia Black's flat at 9b Portland Place for a celebration party.

October 19

George and Ringo flew to Sweden, via Copenhagen, to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at his Transcendental Meditation Academy in the coastal resort of Falsterbohus. They flew back to London the same day.

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. Further work on 'Hello Goodbye'.

October 20

Abbey Road. Magical Mystery Tour sessions. The flute passage was added to 'The Fool On The Hill' and the viola to 'Hello, Goodbye'.

The single 'Catcall' by The Chris Barber Band, written by Paul McCartney, was released in the UK as Marmalade 598005.

October 21

Ravi Shankar told reporters at a US press conference that George was making encouraging progress with his sitar playing.

Ravi Shankar: "George is still just a beginner, but he is an enthusiastic and ambitious student, because he realises that the sitar itself is an evolution from Indian culture. It might take a lifetime of learning before he is a great master of the instrument. But if he progresses in the same way that he has been doing, his understanding will lead him to a medium of greatness on the sitar. But it takes a lifetime to learn. I have been studying since I was a very little boy in India, and I am still learning."

October 24

A Hard Day's Night received its world television premiere, broadcast across the US by NBC-TV.

October 29

Paul and Mal Evans flew to Nice with cameraman Aubrey Dewar and engaged a taxi driver to wake them and take them to the mountains overlooking Nice before the break of dawn. Paul left home without his passport, but persuaded immigration authorities that as they knew who he was, he could travel without it.

Ringo filmed the getting-on-the-bus sequence for Magical Mystery Tour in Lavender Hill, London.

October 30

Paul and Aubrey Dewar filmed the sunrise in the mountains behind Nice, and Paul mimed 'Fool On The Hill' for the Magical Mystery Tour film. They stayed on the mountain for most of the day, though only the dawn footage was eventually used.

Music publisher Dick James announced that Northern Songs had made £842,000 profit in the previous year.

November 1

Paul flew back to London from Nice.

George and John attended a reception for the group Family at Sybilla's.

November 2

Abbey Road. Paul added an extra bass line to 'Hello Goodbye'.

November 3

George's 'Blue Jay Way' sequence was filmed at Ringo's house, "Sunny Heights", in Weybridge, Surrey.

November 6

Abbey Road. Mixing session which The Beatles probably attended.

The group held a photo session in London, posing with a cut-out submarine as advance publicity for the Yellow Submarine film.

November 7

Abbey Road. Paul added a new vocal to 'Magical Mystery Tour'.

November 8

How I Won The War received its US premiere in New York.

November 10

Paul directed three separate versions of the promotional film for 'Hello Goodbye' on stage at the Saville Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, one of them complete with dancing girls in grass skirts, another featuring The Beatles wearing their 1963 collarless suits.

November 12

The 'Hello Goodbye' promotional films were edited, with Paul supervising operations.

November 17

The Beatles Limited changed its name to Apple Music Limited, and Apple Music Limited became The Beatles Limited.

Neil Aspinall flew to New York to personally deliver copies of the 'Hello Goodbye' promotional film to the producers of such television programmes as The Ed Sullivan Show and Hollywood Palace.

November 19

Paul and Jane went to see The Bee Gees, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Flowerpot Men and Tony Rivers & The Castaways at the Saville Theatre.

November 20

'I Am The Walrus' was banned by both BBC Television and BBC Radio, although no announcement was made. The BBC clearly felt that there must be a drug reference there somewhere, and anyway the reference to knickers was obscene.

November 21

The Musicians' Union closed shop prohibited miming, so The Beatles' promotional films for 'Hello Goodbye' were not shown in Britain. An attempt was made to include the promo clip as a piece of footage being edited by The Beatles in the Soho cutting room, but it didn't work and was scrapped.

November 22

George worked on his solo Wonderwall film project at Abbey Road, with two flautists and a tabia player.

The film company Peacock Productions applied to the High Court for an injunction to prevent release of the Yellow Submarine movie, alleging that they had not been paid for their work on the project. The injunction was somewhat premature, as the film was still some months from completion.

November 23

George continued work on the Wonderwall soundtrack at Abbey Road.

ITV also banned The Beatles' film and a plan to screen one of the three films in colour on BBC2's Late Night Line Up, was also abandoned. Instead, Top Of The Pops played 'Hello Goodbye' over a clip from A Hard Day's Night, much to The Beatles' annoyance.

November 24

The single 'Hello Goodbye'/'I Am The Walrus' was released in the UK as Parlophone R 5655.

John and Paul attended the first recording session by Apple's new signing, Grapefruit, held at theIIBC Recording Studio on Portland Place.

John worked on a compilation of his home tapes at Abbey Road.

HELLO GOODBYE

To John Lennon's disgust, his epic 'I Am The Walrus' was issued on the flipside of this commercial but rather inconsequential McCartney composition - three minutes of contradictions and meaningless juxtapositions, with a tune that was impossible to forget More interesting than the song were The Beatles' four promotional films, shot at London's Saville Theatre, none of which was able to be shown on British TV at the time because of union rules about miming.

I AM THE WALRUS

"I was the Walrus, whatever that means. The Walrus was a big capitalist that are all the fucking oysters, ifyou must know. I always had this image of the Walrus in the garden and I loved it, so I didn't ever check out what the Walrus was. But he's a fucking bastard, that's what he turns out to be. Everybody presumes that means something, that just because I said I am the Walrus, it must mean I am God or something, but it's just poetry."

That's John Lennon in 1970, attempting to debunk all the theories that had been inspired by the oblique lyrical stance of his sole contribution to the Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack. He revealed many years later that "Walrus' had been a deliberate effort to mystify his critics and followers alike, by stringing together violently dissimilar images without a shred of continuity. Lennon enjoyed watching the outside world interpreting his nonsense verse, and relished the recording of the song, which - like 'Blue Jay Way' - became the vehicle for another bout of studio experimentation. (As was often the case with The Beatles' most unusual recordings, several slightly different mixes of 'Walrus' were issued around the world.)

Among the delights on offer were a mellotron, heavily used by Lennon at home and in the studio in 1967; a 12-piece string section; 16 members of the Mike Sammes Singers, chanting "Oompah, oompah, stick it up your number"; and several lines of Shakespeare's King Lear, lifted from a BBC radio drama production being broadcast during the mixing session.

November 25

Radio 1's Where It's At programme transmitted an interview done with John Lennon by Kenny Everett and Chris Denning. The whole of the Magical Mystery Tour double EP was played, the only time 'I Am The Walrus' was broadcast by the BBC, which had unofficially banned it because the lyrics included the word "knickers". The song was also banned from the airwaves in the US.

John: "It always seems to happen now that people misinterpret what we write or say. We're happy with the words and I don't see how they can offend anyone. Do you think they're obscene?"

November 26

The 'Hello Goodbye' promotional film was screened on The Ed Sullivan Show in the US, where there were no Musicians' Union restrictions on mimed performances.

November 27

The single 'Hello Goodbye'/'I Am The Walrus' was released in the USA as Capitol 2056.

The album Magical Mystery Tour was released in the US as Capitol MAL 2835 (mono) and SMAL 2835 (stereo). Side A: 'Magical Mystery Tour', 'The Fool On The Hill', 'Flying', 'Blue Jay Way, 'Your Mother Should Know', 'I Am The Walrus'; Side B: 'Hello Goodbye', 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'Penny Lane', 'Baby You're A Rich Man', 'All You Need Is Love'.

November 28

Abbey Road. The Beatles recorded Christmas Time (Is Here Again), their fifth Christmas record to be sent out to members of their fan club.

Afterwards John worked on sound effects tapes for his upcoming stage version of The Lennon Play: In His Own Write.

December 3

Ringo flew to Rome to begin work on his cameo role in the movie, Candy, directed by Christian Marquand and based on the Olympia Press novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. Ringo played the Mexican gardener.

Paul and Jane drove to Paul's farm in Campbeltown, Scotland, for a break.

December 5

John and George represented The Beatles at a party to celebrate the impending opening of the Apple Boutique at 94 Baker Street, London.

December 7

Ringo's first day before the cameras in Rome filming Candy.

The Apple Boutique opened its doors to the public.

December 8

The EP Magical Mystery Tour was released in the UK as Parlophone MMT I (mono) and SMMT1 (stereo). Side A: 'Magical Mystery Tour', 'Your Mother Should Know'; Side B: 'I Am The Walrus'; Side C: 'The Fool On The Hill', 'Flying'; Side D: 'Blue Jay Way'.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Early in April 1967, with Sgt. Pepper not yet complete, Paul McCartney flew to America for a week's holiday. On his return flight, he drafted out his idea for a TV special which would involve a mystery tour on a coach - not the usual British seaside trip to a less than exotic location twenty miles down the coast, but a voyage into the imagination.

By mid-April, McCartney had written the title tune for the project, and the four Beatles had agreed a tentative format for the programme. What with the intervention of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the unexpected death of Brian Epstein, the project wasn't completed until almost the end of the year. When it was ready for public screening, it was scheduled for prime-time viewing on BBC TV, as part of the programming for Boxing Day 1967. Used to a stodgy diet of sitcoms and variety shows, the great British public responded to the frequently bizarre and often amateurish Magical Mystery Tour with bewilderment bordering on anger. The professional reviewers were equally damning, and the film passed into history as The Beatles' first major flirtation with public disapproval.

The reasons for the failure were varied. The film was originally shown in black-and-white, thereby losing the visual impact of many of the sequences. The public hadn't known what to expect, and many viewers were assuming that the show would be the kind of song-and-dance spectacular that the closing "Your Mother Should Know" sequence satirised. Mostly, though, the criticisms were justified. For all its brilliant set pieces. Magical Mystery Tour desperately required professional editing and direction. Self-indulgent and unrestrained, it showed The Beatles that they didn't have an automatic lock on the public's taste.

As usual with a McCartney idea post-1966, John Lennon felt resentful about the entire project. "Paul had a tendency to come along and say, well, he's written his ten songs, let's record now," he moaned in 1970. "And I said, well, give us a few days and I'll knock a few off. He set Magical Mystery Tour up and had worked it out with (Beatles roadie) Mal Evans, and then he came and showed me what his idea was, the story and how he had it all, the production and everything, George and I were sort of grumbling, you know, 'Fuckin' movie, oh well, we better do if."

Six new songs were written and recorded for the film. The Beatles finally elected to release them as a double-EP package, at twice the normal single price, complete with a cartoon book vaguely telling the story of the film. The American market wasn't geared up for EPs, however, so Capitol turned the two EPs into an LP, adding in the earlier Beatles singles from 1967. In that format, the album was heavily imported into Britain, and eventually won a full release here in the late Seventies. When EMI prepared The Beatles' albums for CD, Magical Mystery Tour automatically took its place in the line-up, between Pepper and The White Album.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Aside from some vocal additions in November, the title track from the Magical Mystery Tour film was completed before Sgt. Pepper was released. It was a McCartney effort from start to finish, embellished by the use of session brass players, and with Paul himself acting as a carnival barker at the start to drag the punters in.

No fewer than three different versions of the track were made available to the public at the end of 1967. The film mix remains unavailable on record, but both the mono and stereo versions were included when EMI issued a boxed set of The Beatles' EPs on compact disc. The CD album, meanwhile, has the stereo version.

YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW

Simple and nostalgic alongside the calculated experimentation of the other film soundtrack songs, 'Your Mother Should Know' inspired one of the great Magical Mystery Tour set pieces, as The Beatles waltzed down a huge staircase in white suits, like refugees from a Thirties Hollywood musical.

I AM THE WALRUS

See November 24.

THE FOOL ON THE HILL

Maintaining his record of writing an instant standard on every mid-Sixties Beatles album, Paul McCartney composed this touching, beautiful ballad late in the proceedings, cutting a solo demo at the piano, and then concocting a deliciously light and airy arrangement for the final version. Three flute players added to the atmosphere (once again the mono and stereo mixes differ, most notably in their placement of the flute interjections).

FLYING

No other Beatles recording underwent such drastic editing as this instrumental with vocal hacking. Intended to support a psychedelic section of the film, rich in shifts of colour and texture, it was suitably eerie - and bizarre, apparently ending with a jazz section borrowed from elsewhere in The Beatles' collective record library. All that was removed as the track was sliced from ten minutes to little more than two, leaving 'Flying' as an off-the-wall EP-filler - the only instrumental The Beatles issued on EMI, and also their first four-man composition.

BLUE JAY WAY

George Harrison was at his rented home on Blue Jay Way in Los Angeles, waiting for former Beatle aide Derek Taylor to arrive for dinner. Taylor, fortuitously, was late, and Harrison turned his mild concern and irritation into this song. What could have been a simple, maudlin ditty was transformed by The Beatles' studio prowess into an exotic, almost mystical journey. Harrison's vocal was treated until it sounded as if it was coming from beyond the grave, though with none of the ghostly threat of Lennon's similarly altered voice on 'Tomorrow Never Knows'. Backwards tapes, droning organs, and a cello combined to heighten the Eastern atmosphere - without a single Indian instrument being employed.

December 9

Ringo filmed with Ewa Aulin, the former Miss Teen Sweden, who was playing Candy.

As usual, The Beatles were voted 'Top World Group" and 'Top British Vocal Group" in the readers' poll held by the New Musical Express.

December 11

Ringo filmed with Ewa Aulin.

Paul and Jane Asher travelled to Paul's farm in Scotland for a brief holiday.

Apple Music signed its first group. John named them Grapefruit, coincidentally the name of Yoko's book. Most of the group were former members of Tony Rivers & The Castaways, one of Brian Epstein's groups.

December 12

Ringo filmed with Ewa Aulin.

December 13

Ringo filmed his sex scene with Ewa.

Speaking on behalf of The Beatles, a NEMS Enterprises spokesman dismissed as "guesswork" the idea that The Beatles would form their own record label in 1968 under the aegis of their new Apple organisation.

December 14

Ringo filmed more of his sex scene with Ewa.

December 15

The Beatles' fan club flexi-disc Christmas Time (Is Here Again) was released.

Ringo filmed at a "love-in".

December 16

John and George flew to Paris to attend a UNICEF gala at the Palais de Chailloy with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Ringo's last day of filming.

December 17

Ringo flew back to London from Rome, his role in the film Candy completed.

John and George flew back to London where they acted as hosts at the Magical Mystery Tour party for the area secretaries of the Official Beatles Fan Club, at the Hanover Grand Film and Art Theatre, London. An advance copy of Magical Mystery Tour was shown as well as The Beatles At Shea Stadium.

Paul: "Film-making isn't as difficult as many people imagine. It's a matter of common sense more than anything. We'd never directed anything before and we didn't know about editing, but we're learning. Magical Mystery Tour was an experiment, and so far it's been successful."

December 19

Seven investment companies were registered and formed in London on behalf of The Beatles: Apricot Investments Ltd., Blackberry Investments Ltd., Cornflower Investments Ltd., Daffodil Investments Ltd., Edelweiss Investments Ltd., Foxglove Investments Ltd. and Greengage Investments Ltd.

December 20

Paul and Jane returned to London from Campbeltown.

December 21

A fancy dress party was held for the complete crew of Magical Mystery Tour including all the technical staff, plus relatives and a few friends. Robert Morley was Father Christmas. The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band played. Paul and Jane arrived as a cockney pearly king and queen, Ringo as a Regency dandy, George as a cavalier and John dressed as a teddy boy. John paid close personal attention to Patti during the party, until being reminded by fellow guest Lulu that he was supposed to be escorting his own wife for the evening.

December 25

Paul and Jane announced that they were engaged to be married.

December 26 ,

Magical Mystery Tour was given its world premiere in monochrome on BBC Television at 8.35pm.

December 27

In order to answer and counter the adverse press criticism of Magical Mystery Tour Paul appeared live on Rediffusion's The Frost Programme where he discussed the film and wider issues with David Frost.

December 29

John and his friend, the actor Victor Spinetti, were talking about Morocco. John suggested that they go there immediately and they collected their passports and took the next flight from London Airport that day.

December 31

The Beatles (except for John, who was still in Morocco) saw in the New Year at Cilia Black's flat on Portland Place.