"I'm not a businesswoman, I'm not organized. I've never been commercial. I never looked after my negatives, and you need that to prove you took the photos. There have been 200 books on the Beatles...and almost all have used my photographs. It wasn't just with the Beatles. If other friends wanted, say a passport photo, I'd shoot one off and give it to them, often with the negative.

"At the time (my marriage ended in 1985), yes (I regretted I had no children). I just couldn't see have any. but now I am pleased when I see the situation the world is in. I live alone and am very happy."

"(In 1962, The Beatles) asked me if I'd do a proper photograph, in a studio, in suits, looking clean, which was what Brian (Epstein) wanted. I took them to the studio where I was working as an assistant, sat them all on chairs. I did what they wanted, but I was never very happy with those photos. Some of them I won't allow to be published."

"I don't know where (letters sent by the Beatles to me) are. I have only a couple from George, which I'll never show anyone, but he wrote so many. So did the others. I probably threw them away. You do that when you're young-you don't think of the future.

"I had a scrapbook which John took and filled with his drawings and doodles, poems and jokes, the sort of stuff he later put in In His Own Write. I think I must have thrown that out as well. I had a white table painted black, and got them all to scratch their names on with a knife, so the white was revealed. That's gone. I had a leather coat George gave me. That got stolen"

"(George) was a little boy (when The Beatles were in Hamburg). They were all so young and I was so different. I was a few years older, I had my own flat, my own car, my own career. They hadn't met anyone like me before. I was quite nice to look at, so they thought wow, yeah, and jumped at the chance when I invited them back to my flat. In some ways I was more like a mother figure. When George was being deported for being underage and not having a work permit, I looked after him, drove him to the airport. When the others spent a night in jail, for setting fire to some place, I took them bread and cared for them. They were my friends."

"Of course (Stuart Sutcliffe) couldn't play (the guitar). Everyone knew that, but he looked great. John loved his cool James Dean look. He was also very funny and clever and a brilliant artist. John desired to be Stu. But no, he wasn't a musician. Now Paul is a musician. He wanted to have a perfect band, so naturally hew as upset by Stu's playing-but there wasn't a bad relationship between them. I'm so proud of what they later did, my little George, my little Paul."

"Stu could be a jealous little man, but he would have given me my individuality, to think and be myself. We might have ended up like John and Yoko, though I'm completely different from her. I need pushing. Who knows what might have happened? We all guess about life, whether about people still living or those dead."

"...When someone dies when you are young, you are naturally selfish, you over-cover it, you want to get over it quickly, get out and live. Talking about (Stuart) intensively has helped me. I felt relieved, after all these years. I had a big conscience for not mourning enough at the time."

back