"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