‘I’m not worried about the political situation in Greece, as long as it doesn’t affect us. I don’t care if the government is all fascist, or communist. I don’t care. They’re all as bad as here, worse most of them. I’ve seen England and the USA, and I don’t care for either of their governments. They’re all the same. Look what they do here. They stopped Radio Caroline and tried to put the Stones away, while they’re spending billions on nuclear armaments and the place is full of US bases that no one knows about. They’re all over North Wales.’
But the Greek idea came to nothing, as did other mad ideas John’s had from time to time in the last two years. One day he was all set to go to India in his caravan, though the caravan doesn’t look strong enough to take him into Weybridge. He and Cyn and Julian were going to live inside it, so he said, while Anthony, his chauffeur, pulled them in the Rolls. Another idea was to go off and live on an island off the coast of Ireland. He did buy the island. ‘No, I can’t remember where. Just somewhere off Ireland.’
But the Greek idea was discussed for many weeks. It even got to the stage of trying to work out what to do about Julian and his schooling.
John has some strong theories about the sort of schooling he wants Julian to have, but he usually forgets about them when he’s contemplating six months on a deserted Greek island.
‘He could go to a school in Greece,’ he told Cyn, who was obviously much more realistic about the problem than John. ‘What’s wrong with that? He’d just spend six months of the year there and the rest here at his English school. These little Greek village schools are very good, you know. Why can’t Julian go along with them? He’ll soon pick up the language.’
Cynthia said the chopping and changing around wouldn’t do him any good. John then thought of sending him to the English school in Athens, where all the British diplomats and others send their kids. Cyn pointed out that would mean him boarding in Athens. They were both against that. Neither wants him to go away to boarding school.
John would prefer a council school, if possible. He’d just found out that the local nursery school Julian was going to wasn’t a council one, as he’d thought. Cynthia explained to him that there wasn’t a council nursery school she could get him into, that was why she’d done it.
‘I don’t know,’ said John. ‘I suppose the fee-paying schools are no worse than the others. As long as he’s happy. What does it matter if you have to pay? But I definitely won’t send him to a boarding school. I wouldn’t send him to Eton. They’d teach him to believe all that shit if he went to Eton. Perhaps a Buddhist school, if there is one. Or a day school, a progressive one, not far from Weybridge, that’s all we want.
‘We’ve been thinking of Julian’s schooling for some time. I even got a book out about all the schools in England. All they went on about was that they could offer football and tennis. Ridiculous, isn’t it? They’ve got all their priorities wrong. He’s got to be taught to be aware of other people, that’s all. He doesn’t want to know how Sir Francis Drake killed all the Spaniards and that Britain invented television and all that shit fool nationalistic stuff. He wants to know how to live in this world.
‘If we do go abroad, then I suppose it’ll have to be a tutor, but we’ll have to make sure there are other kids for him to play with. I had a happy childhood. I liked being at school. It was just that the teachers hated me and I hated teachers. But I liked school. When we’re all talking about our memories, it’s sometimes us as the Beatles, but more often it’s remembering about our school days.
‘I don’t think Julian could go to the sort of school I went to. I have to admit a council school might be tough for him now, thanks to me. He’d be laughed at. Millionaire pop singer’s son. They’d all point at him. At least that wouldn’t matter so much in a fee-paying school, where all they think about is money.’
Cyn is stronger than she looks. She’s been through it all before and knows where she is. She understands John’s often apparent lack of consideration. He can be selfish, but not deliberately, just without thinking.
All the rows they had in their early Liverpool days are long since over. They are very happy, though she still says that but for her becoming pregnant, they would probably never have married. John agrees.
‘John never thought of settling down in any way, just as he never thought of taking a proper job. If I hadn’t got pregnant and then married, we would just have drifted apart as he started touring round the world. I would have stuck in at the Art College and probably become a teacher. But for Julian, it would never have happened. It kept us tied together.’
She doesn’t think any such thing as love would have kept them going if they’d been so far apart. ‘His love was for the Beatles. Without the baby he would just have gone off with the Beatles for ever.’
They both say they are glad the baby did happen, keeping them together. They also think it was meant to happen. It was fate. John, particularly, believes in fate.
Cyn now and again would like to try something new, to have a job, perhaps use her art college training in some way. She and Pattie, George’s wife, discussed the idea once of opening a boutique together in Esher, but it never came to anything.
‘I am becoming a bit frustrated. I don’t really want to have another child at the moment, now that we can get around so much. I know that might mean leaving it too late and I would never want another.
‘But I’m frustrated really, because I’d like something to do. I do a bit of painting and dressmaking, but I often think I’d like a job. Not now, but later on. I’ve never had a job. I might do some designing, or perhaps teaching.’
She teases him about his dependence on the Beatles, and is obviously hurt by it sometimes.
‘I do find I suggest something and he just ignores it at the time, or says it’s wrong. Then a few weeks later Ringo suggests the same thing and he’s all for it. But I don’t worry. I can’t put it into words, but I feel strong. It’s a sense. I understand things.
‘What I would like is a holiday on our own, without the Beatles. Just John, Julian and me.’
‘You what?’ said John, smiling. ‘Not even with our Beatle buddies?’
‘Yes, John. Don’t you remember we were talking about it last week?’
‘What did we say?’
‘We said the three of us could just go off somewhere, not with your buddies.’
‘But it’s nice to have your mates around.’
‘That really offends me. He does think it’s not enough just to go with his family.’
He smiled at her. She shook her head at him.
‘They seem to need you less than you need them,’ she said.
Before he could reply to this one she got in with an example she’d obviously had all ready.
‘George went off to Los Angeles, just with Pattie, didn’t he? He didn’t need to get everyone to go with him.’
John smiled. He agreed it did seem to be true. ‘I did try to go my own way after we stopped touring. I had a few good laughs and games of monopoly on my film, but it didn’t work. I was never so glad to see the others. Seeing them made me feel normal again.’ Cyn looked soulfully at him.
‘OK, I know, we’ll all retire to a little cottage on a cliff in Cornwall, all right?’
‘No, but I can’t retire. I’ve got these bloody songs to write. I have to work, to justify living.’
32 paul
While the other three moved out into stockbroker Surrey, Paul remained the only London Beatle. He took a large, detached, three-storey house in St John’s Wood, near Lord’s cricket ground and just round the corner from EMI’s recording studios. He bought it at the end of 1966 for £40,000. He didn’t do much knocking about, compared with John and Ringo. The garden became a jungle, completely overgrown, inhabited only by the prowling Martha. When he’d moved in, it had been very pretty. Everybody kept on at him, especially his dad, to do something about it. He seemed to delight in its wildness and the way it annoyed some people. But at the end of 1967 he decided to start having it tarted up. He got the idea of building a magical house in it, a sort of pagoda on a raised platform with an open glass roof onto the skies. When he got that finished, he and Jane started thinking about moving to a smaller house in the country.