This book is dedicated to gardeners everywhere. 5 страница

It is all so silly anyway, all the way through. Ringo's story was funny, you know. We were talking about school once and he said that he had been in hospital so much, that when he went back to school he had to get a note, an official note, to say he had left and come back from hospital and the school said to him: "you never went to this school" and he said: "yes, I did. I've just been in hospital a lot". Then, he said, a couple of years later, they were saying, proudly, "This was Ringo's desk. The great man sat here". Madness. There was always plenty of that. We were always meeting the wrong people, Lord Mayors and

¹ The Boozo Dog Band, a grcaL musical and nonsense group of the 'sixties, full of brains and madness, led by Vivian Stanshall and featuring, among others Neil Innes (later of The Rutles), and 'Legs' Larry Smith.

Police Chiefs, and so on. It would depend on what mood you were in how you behaved. That's why the fab four were good, because if one of us was in a bad mood, the others would cover. "We protected each other.

So now, you have to be more on your guard when you're alone. I miss them at times. We had great love for each other.

George, despite our friendship throughout the Beatlej'Apple years, and since, was never the 'public relations Beatle'. Once, in Canada, in a hotel, tired and oppressed by meeting 'the wrong people' he offered his foot, rather than his hand, to the sister-in-law or some such relative, of the hotel manager. He first removed his shoe.

That was only zany wacky Liverpool humour: not intended to be insulting with the lowest part of the body. Anyway, 1 couldn't handle any of that again, though in its own way, there's as much going on now as ever. One just sees it differently. It's really funny, trips, trips, changing all the time. You know I have to get into a hot bath every day. To thaw me out. My body turns into rigor mortis between going to sleep and waking up, and the day, the first haff, is a constant battle to get in that body and rattle them pots and pans.

Proving things to whoever, used to be worrying, puzzling. Acid ended a lot of that. Who was I trying to prove it to, whatever it is? Probably to everybody, all the time. The first part of my life, certainly, that was what it was. Funny how people say: "You've only one life, Squire". I've given up saying "You've got as many as you like and more, even ones you don't want". But it's true. We have.

Apple. Well I knew at the beginning, in Wigmore Street, before Savile Row and all that madness, I knew after coming back from the Maharishi's in Rishikesh in April, 1968, that though we had all been plugging into the peace, things were splitting and racing off down a blind back alley. Again, other people's trips. If everyone had 'got it' in Rishikesh, they would have been meditating more and not getting into so many of the distractions. Or, if we had to get involved more with outside matters, meditation would have helped handle it. Then Apple might have turned into all the things it could and should have been. Instead we were all crazy.

We all have to meet some difficult people but the famous can rarely meet

anyone casually and the arrival, in most environments, oj one of the Beatles usually made waves. Rishikesh, Rochdale, Washington... the sensation was similar.

I met Kissinger and Ford. Ford was very friendly. Kissinger looked like an Arab, talked like a German and was tanned all over, like Clark Gable. He was a bit like Charlie Chaplin, like a Rude. He fitted into that silly cartoon world we live in as do Edward Hearh and Harold Wilson and the Duke of Edinburgh, whom I also met. Anyway, this is digressing.

The good thing about giving up touring was that it forced the split, or helped to. It was "No thank you very much. Give us a break." But even if you stay at home a lot, there is still a lot to do, juggling, without having to go on stage as well, every night. On the other hand, some people do that to escape. That is the good thing about going on the road; nobody can ever find you. You are always somewhere else and you have a legitimate reason for being somewhere else and ignoring your accountants. You are working. So, ha ha. That is why a lot of people get into that side of life.

When George left Esher and came to Oxfordshire in 1969, it was a removal most dramatic, in the real sense of that word. The house into which he was to invest so much love and from which he would draw so much strength is one of the extraordinary houses of Europe. It cost many hundreds of thousands to establish the building and the grounds from the 1870s onwards. One picture is worth a thousand words. It is a dream on a hill and it came, not by chance, to the right man at the right time. I was with him, the day he moved in, and took it over, this great neglected but not ruined Gothic pile, from a handful oj nuns and a segregated priest with a rude twinkle in his eye and a broken arm. It was February, it was cold, and we had a cup of tea in the library.

The house was going to be knocked down because the Catholics would not pay for the upkeep. What a thing, to knock down a house Hke this. It's hard to credit that they would bring a great iron ball and smash this down and bulldoze it, but they would have done. I came here after the years at Esher, when we went through all the marijuana,

and the psychedelics, plus all we've talked about: childhood, of silly teachers and laws, keep off the grass and all of that.

I remember once going to Claremont Park where Clive of India had lived and they had made it into a school, as they so often do with old houses, and they had sold part of the garden for bungalows, in one of which we lived, but round the other side you could get into this park with rhododendrons and lakes, which was very nice. I'd go there on acid and trip out and sit under the trees with the sun shining.

But I remember once having a deep and emotional upset probably heightened by the drugs as well. It was ten minutes from closing time and there was a nasty old watchman type of guy saying, "get out, get away" (because we looked a bit 'funny' in those days remember?). He was jumping to conclusions that we shouldn't be seen looking like that and T remember being very hurt and saying: "all I want to do is look at the trees...." The result of that was the thought 'OK, I'll buy my own park".

Funny thing, the man who built this one, Sir Frank, had signs saying "Don't Keep Off the Grass". So it was like heaven.

There was a bad domestic year, 1974. All that splitting up around the house. Simply Shady that song is about it. At the same time I was doing a Splinter album and a Ravi Shankar album and my own album and then during rehearsals, I was trying to finish my album and in the end Denis O'Brien¹ carried me out of the studio to my first concert (in Canada) because I was trying to finish the album in time to get it out to coincide with the tour, which is the way the 'business' needs it. By the time I got to Washington and met the President and everybody, well... in fact 1 didn't go on the plane to New York for the gig. I tried to stow away, I tried to phone the airport and book myself a flight to London! I was going to go home and not turn up for the last eight, however many concerts ahead in three days or four days.

Going to the White

House had seemed like the climax and that had seemed to be that. But it wasn't. I had to do the gigs. I was shell-shocked after that and after I got back home.

When I got off the plane, and back home I went into the garden and I was so relieved. That was the nearest I got to a nervous breakdown. J couldn't, even go into the house. I was a bit wound up—then when I came in, I looked in the mirror and decided: "Oh, I'm not that bad after all". Ego. That reflection. All those bits of rubbish everywhere and T was, I realised, getting dragged down into that hole....

The tour in 19/4, across Canada and the United States _y was George's first up-front series of public appearances since the break-up oj the Beatles, tie had made several appearances with Delaney and Bonnie, in 1969 bolstered by Eric Clapton and other friends and protected by Delaney and Bonnie's headlinins. But the 1074 tour will not be forgotten by anyone who saw any of the ¹ George's business manager.

Memories of those nights together are a gift... him playing acoustic guitar or ukulele under a big moon where the nights were warm and we cheated the English winter of the chance to chill our bones. In spite of the human tendency to take one's mate for granted, even then I was well aware that these were precious moments. I was also blissfully ignorant of how short our days together were meant to be. Those memories will resound with love and reverence for the rest of my life and I don't mind saying on this occasion that they are 'Mine'.

Olivia Harrison

concerts, no matter what their opinion and it is George's view that it was a success — in many ways. George recalls much love among the musicians and all helpers, whether Western, Indian {for the finest Indian musicians were among the 'cast of thousands⁷ for whom George took responsibility) or people who had forgotten when they were from. The strain of the tour, the condition of George's throat after singing all day long for weeks of rehearsals and perform­ing on stage, the overlay of a new shining relationship with Olivia Arias from Los Angeles, the Beatlemania never an inch away, the ultimate responsibility for everything, was almost, but not quite, all too much.

If Brian had been alive, probably I would not have ended up in this house because part of getting it meant that I was going beyond my means, completely, and karmjcally the only way 1 could have done this was to have a manager who was going beyond his means, too. It was in his (Allen Klein's) interest to keep us happy, so in a way, he was doing the right thing and that's good enough because if I'd worried about whether or not to do it, well I wouldn't have done it. I'm glad I did it, it was the right thing, it was a cinch really and what this place has done is to enhance my life no end. This was not my first garden. My dad, when we moved to Speke, had a garden about ten feet by ten feet at the front, but then quite a long one at the back, maybe about twenty-four feet, so he grew everything there.

He grew flowerbeds, lawns and behind the shed we had jumping beans, runner beans, cabbages, everything. In the front we had all those other nice things; golden rod, lupins, night-scented stock. Also we had a plot of land at Hale outside Liverpool: it was countryside then, and it was very fertile and I remember digging it and getting my fingers in it. So I really always liked gardens. I planted things when I was young and picked them and had spuds and all that. After Speke I didn't have a garden until Esher where I met my current head gardener, Maurice, who lived there. He was the resident gardener at the school, Claremont.

George remembered a 'log' we had been burning during a conversation in California. It was one of the modern 4og-alik.es' which are not logs at all but

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which are log shaped, compacted shavings and chemicals and all manner of nonsense and they are packed in a cheery 'ioggfpaper and the piece d' Americana is that the manufacturers insert coloured flames, which burn for three hours, yellow, green, orange. Duraflame, that was a major brand-name and we bought them in supermarkets and they were one of the reasons we left Los Angeles and came to live in Suffolk. No Duraflames in Suffolk, but logs. Logs a plenty in Suffolk. Ash, Ash wood wet or ash wood dry, a King may warm his slippers by.

George: Maurice would have liked that log, Duraflame, just the way it is. I dunno, it certainly is proving it is Duraflame, that it will last three hours. I have had coal fires in the bedroom at home, and get 'em going with wood. It's good to do it ourselves. It's good not to be surrounded by slaves, because for every one you have then you are their slave too. I dunno, the less entanglement you have, the better. But Maurice, he's wonderful. He has done all the wonders at the Park. He would have loved that log. It was so 'off the wall'. Gardeners are great people in Britain—not like those guys in LA, just blowing leaves off the road with machines. The British gardeners work, whether it is cold or rain. Americans stand in the kitchen at the Park and ask: "do they go home when it's raining?"

/ have observed that there is much more staff outside the house than inside. Gardeners appear to be everywhere although, in fact, there are only seven, headed by Maurice, but good gardeners in a big busy varied set of gardens get around a lot so that their ubiquity is deceptive. I asked George if he con­centrated more on the garden than the interior.

He said: It started in 1969, trying to assess inside and outside and figuring what to do first. I knew there was no rush anyway and the main thing was to get the house so that it would not drop apart and during the first spring, I was with Terry¹ walking and I remember just spotting this flower growing off a tree, battling its way through the weeds, brambles and undergrowth. So Terry and I set about clearing around the magnolia tree to let it breathe and on that day, as we were

Terry Doran, one of the old Liverpool gang, friend and partner of Brian Epstein, head of Apple publishing, friend of everybody in Bcatle circles and in others far beyond. In the early days of George's residency with Pattie at the Park, Terry served as Estate Manager.

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doing that, our old gardener Maurice came and said: "I was wondering whether I could come and work for you? I'm getting a bit fed up with living there and doing that place at Esher" and so Maurice came to the Park and he has been here nine years, more even. Originally he was found by Bill Corbett, our first chauffeur, Beatles' chauffeur, when we moved into Esher and I said "find me someone to do the grass". It was five feet high. Bill went around and came back with Maurice. He had an old scythe and he looked like someone from the Middle Ages. It was a boiling hot day and he was scything the grass and I went out to him saying: "can I give you a drink, a cold drink or something?" and he wouldn't even look at me for a long while but he's opened up now.

Well, we've got gang-mowers to the Park and he started cut­ting the grass and tried to get other people to help and it went from there, dug the lakes out and all that, and bored down 350 feet for water and the more you get into something the more incredible it is.

Dylan Thomas had a little hut at the end of his garden over­looking an estuary and there he derived a lot of the influences that helped him write. Well, in our lives, other musicians are on the road, looking at other rock 'n' roll bands and listen­ing to the radio and as I have, anyway, cut myself off from all that, my source of inspiration has been right here where the mood is so different from anywhere else because of the peace.

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Chapter VI

^; OTOR RACING? George: I don't really know why I got! into it but it was long ago and half the people who were in. it, i who were racing then are in the background now. You know, older people like Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Rob Walker. Fangio was the champion, Juan Manuel Fangio, five times world champion, and this is as far back as we're going.

It was Geoff Duke who was the big hero at the time on motor bikes. Most of the bikes were big single 500 cc Manx Nortons; 1953/54 and the Italians had just come out with their Gilera motor bike which walked away with everything just as the Japanese did later. I used to go and watch all kinds of races and T saw one Grand Prix (they used to have them at Aintree then) and there was also good sports car racing. Stirling Moss was in the Mercedes team, great, but never world champion. It was Mercedes Benz, before the Le Mans crash when they got out of lacing because a car killed all those people. They were first, second, third and fourth, in almost every race they entered.

I remember the early early days of the BRM; British Racing Motor— a patriotic thing, and it won a lot of races. As a kid, I used to write away and get photographs of all of them. I got the BRM with the sixteen cylinder engine in the front, and the Connaught, Vanwall, Ferrari and Maserati; this was before they had rear engine cars. Then I lost touch with that for a while because I got into guitars, yet during the sixties, all the way through, 1 was aware of who the world champ­ion was, and most particularly when Jackie Stewart was on his way

to being world champion at the end of the sixties, because it was interesting to see who in sport grew long hair. Jackie was the one in racing and the outspoken one. I remember reading interviews with him in the papers where he would nip home to Geneva after the race and buy his latest Beatle album... so there you are.

I saw them all racing over the years since, mainly at Monte Carlo. I had dinner with jack Brabham, one time, and Dennis Hulme in a little bistro outside of Monte Carlo and sat in Brabham's car after dinner as the mechanics were getting it ready for the Grand Prix. So that was it, it was always there, in the background.

I got myself deep into Formula One land in 1977. It had been difficult getting in anywhere without a hassle and never knowing entirely what was going on. I decided in Long Beach, California, to go down there a day early, and got some tickets off somebody to get in and the next day I met Jackie Stewart and hung out with him. Now, it's like anything else, good fortune. Within music I was fortunate enough to meet Bismillah Khan and Ah Akbar Khan and Ravi Shankar and the best musicians in their world, and if you're talking about rock 'n' roll I was fortunate to meet and know Elvis and Little Richard and Fats Domino, and it's always been a case of meeting the people who are the best in their own field—like Shakespeare, Derek Nimmo and Jerzy Kosinski. Now it's Emerson Fittipaldi and Niki Lauda, fody Scheckter, Mario and all those. They are people who happen to be the best at their thing and you might as well, if you are interested in something, if you have the opportunity, you might as well hang out with the best ones, where the experience whatever it is, is maybe the deepest.

Now as to motor racing in relation to me and my other interests. I know that racing is to a lot of people, dopey, maybe from a spiritual point of view. Motor cars—polluters, killers, maimers, noisemakers. Good racing, though, involves heightened awareness for the com­petitors. Those drivers have to be so together in their concentration and the handful of them who arc the best have had some sort of expansion of their consciousness. In relation to musicians and music, the variants motor-racing people work with are difficult. Everything is such a compromise. There are so many different things they are

able to do with the basic chassis of the car that it is quite the hardest job in the world for any one of them to try to have the advantage over somebody else. Yet they can.

There, without subtlety we ended the passage on Formula One motor-racing and there the tapes stopped. There was one lengthy passage, now dis­carded, which had details, excruciating indeed, of every car George has ever owned: make, model, where bought, price paid, dates, re-sale information, reasons for purchase and disposal, marks for performance, mpg, camshaft rake-over, sprocket-wrangling and so on, and the 'and so on' of cars is quite something as those obsessives who have not been murdered by close relatives will know.

Clearly, the section of insane detail on personal cars had to go: the entire affair would have been thrown out of balance. Where, one would quite legiti­mately have been asked, is a section about musical instruments used, owned, borrowed, blown, etc.? And where, one might reasonably expect to have to explain, was the thread by thread detail on clothes and shoes? Favourite actors and actresses? Foods, drink... my God we would have never finished in time for Christmas next year and we are late already. No, the cars had to go; far too much excruciation.

We began all of this arguing that there would be a clear indication within the narrative that while everyone else was 'busy growing up' in the nineteen-sixties, the Beatles too were doing their bit in this respect rather than 'fooling around being rock V roll stars'. Maybe this has become clearer. I hope so. It could also be true that the four of them did have a little fun during, the mad years and certainly, if it is not too long ago by then, there will be a few daft memories to pass to grandchildren to soften a hard 21st century, but mainly, for George as for the other three, it has been a matter of alliterative recovery since the nineteen-sixties: rehabilitation, renewal and rest.

They were busy, dangerous- times, those days and nights spent climbing the summit of the material world and they required such restrictive concentration that George lost the habit of certain skills which we, maybe, underrate: walking around, doing a bit of shopping, catching a train, and now and again, requesting someone to take a running jump at himself without having to see

the whole nothingness of the non-event regurgitated in the popular print sooner or later. This is why fame is a dangerous bird but then is no doubt that it can be dealt with most firmly and, even, tamed and I would guess that there is no combination of weapons more dynamic than a strong childhood within the closeness of Liverpool, a sense of humour and a belief in a power higher than ourselves.

It would be a relief for me to feel I could write about ' The George I Know' without restraint but from the opening of this narrative until right now, I have been fettered by his sharp and unpredictable sense of embarrassment at reading something about himself which is, however slightly, wide of the mark in so far as he understands himself. Since I first met him, nearly seventeen years ago, I have written hundreds of thousands of words about him and sometimes I have got away with some quite elaborate praise, but not often; it was less trouble to call him grumpy than generous, and this book will indicate elements of both in his make-up. In fact, he is a paradox, a state of being which I find immensely reassuring. He is enormously free and easy with his kindnesses in a material and spiritual sense and he is also very quick, sometimes harsh, in defence of his rights which are, one need hardly say, frequently challenged.

During research these past months I have read some curious 'historical' views on the fabulous four. The most surprising^ protagonist I discovered was William Deedes,in 1963, Minister without Portfolio but with Lots of Views. In the then untabloid Daily Express he was quoted as saying: " The Beatles herald a cultural movement which may become part of the history of our time....

"... their aim is to be first class in their work, failure to attain this is spotted and criticised ruthlessly by their many highly discriminating critics. To be top in the beat business demands work, skill, sweat.

"There is no place at all for the la^y, the incompetent, the slipshod.

"Something important and heartening is happening here. The young are rejecting some of the sloppy standards of their elders by ivhich far too much of our output has been governed in recent years."

All that was really a very longtime ago and I believe it to have been accurate, although since then there has been a great deal of to and fro about the influence of the Beatles; but what Mr. Deedes said from a distance remains true, close up, of George Harrison. He is still trying to be first class in his work, still subject to ruthless criticism, and he still rejects the sloppy standards of his

elders, and now whimsically enough, the sloppy standards of those of the young who are not in pursuit of excellence.

I have had to find one word to say what the man is. 'Brave'' comes mar, but it has too close a relationship with suffering and I have therefore concluded that, pirate as he is, he deserves the word 'bold' for he is, in truth, quite the boldest man 1 have ever met.

Lord Krishna to his devotee Arjuna:

"Among thousands of men, perhaps one strives for spiritual

attainment; and, among the blessed true seekers that assiduously

try to reach Me, perhaps one perceives Me as I am."

Bhagavad Gita (Ch. y, Ver. 3)

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