With the Beatles

by Alistair Taylor

  I poured myself a large brandy and tried to think things through. Suddenly, I realised we must have the news broken to Queenie as gently as possible before the whole thing reached the news media. It became the most important thing in my life to let Clive and the family know what had happened before some half-baked news bulletin or pushy reporter arrived to smash Queenie’s life to bits. The Beatles were all in Bangor, north Wales, with the Maharishi at his transcendental meditation conference. They had to be contacted, of course, but it became more important to first get the news through to Queenie. Brian was her favourite son, and she was still reeling from the death of Harry.

  We rang Clive and there was no reply. I rang Brian’s house at Kingsley Hill, hoping to catch either Peter Browne or Geoffrey Ellis, two of the senior figures in NEMS Enterprises, but they were out, too. It was a terrible position to be in. And then, suddenly, it got worse.

  The doorbell rang, I opened the door and there stood a reporter. ‘Hello,’ I said as calmly as I could manage, while inwardly cursing whichever miserable paid informant had sent this unwanted visitor round at such a terrible time. ‘I hear Brian’s ill,’ said the reporter cheerfully.

  ‘Not at all,’ I replied with as much confidence as I could muster.

  ‘What are you doing here on a Sunday morning, then?’ he responded with more directness than charm.

  ‘Oh, he called me over to go over some papers,’ I heard my voice saying. ‘But he’s gone out for a drive.’ I was determined to keep Brian’s death quiet just long enough for the news to be broken gently to Queenie. As I said it, I prayed that the doors of the garage were shut and that no one would think to look in to see if Brian’s Bentley was there.

  ‘All right,’ he said, with a disbelieving look, and off he went, no doubt to try to find a way of checking my flimsy story. I rang Lesley and she completely broke down when she heard the news. She had great respect and affection for Brian even though he had a habit of disrupting our lives.

  ‘I’m going to be a long time,’ I told her.

  About half-an hour-later, a messenger arrived with a parcel containing my dark suit, white shirt and tie and a pair of black shoes and socks. Lesley had realised that I was still wearing the denims and sandals I’d flown back in from Los Angeles. Bless her.

  Still the only people who knew about Brian’s death were myself, the doctor, John Galway, Joanne, the police, and the people at the coroner’s office. Joanne had whisked Antonio and Maria out of the Press’s way in anticipation of the storm which was about to erupt. More reporters were tipped off by goodness knows who that something was very wrong at Chapel Street and they arrived to ask the same questions. By then my explanation that Brian had simply gone out for a drive was beginning to sound a bit thin. Even worse, members of the public heard the jungle drums and a crowd began to gather outside. I remember a young woman with a baby in a pram, just standing looking across the road at the house. There was still no answer at Clive’s home and my fears that a reporter would bang on Queenie’s door grew by the minute. I just kept dialling Clive’s number over and over again. At last he answered.

  ‘Hello, Clive, it’s Alistair …’

  ‘Alistair! How was San Francisco? Did you have a wonderful time? Have you seen the Four Tops?’

  I cut in as quickly as I could. I’d had an age to rehearse how I would deliver the dreadful news but the words still came out as a burble.

  ‘Clive, there has been an accident.’

  ‘Oh, what? Not Brian?’

  ‘Yes, it’s Brian.’

  ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘Clive, he’s dead.’ It sounded terrible but what else could I say?

  Clive let out a long and terrible scream and dropped the phone. Barbara, his wife, picked it up. ‘Alistair, what on earth’s wrong?’

  I told her and asked her to contact Queenie before the reporters did.

  ‘Don’t you worry about us,’ she said and put the phone down.

  By the afternoon, the news broke and my little charade was forgotten. At least I had bought enough time for Brian’s elderly mother to hear about the tragedy in as kind a way as possible. The crowds of Press and public outside the house now numbered thousands of people. Reporters were clamouring for a story and nothing I could say sounded right. It was only then I truly realised how close I had become to Brian. I loved him as much as any man can love another without a homosexual link. He had lit up my whole life from the moment I had walked into his office for an interview in Whitechapel, in Liverpool, all those years before. He could be maddening and unfair but mostly he was just a great positive presence who had the drive and the vision to change the world of pop music.

  There was a hideous moment when the hearse arrived with a black coffin to take Brian away to the mortuary. The coffin seemed so functional and impersonal, lined with black baize, a mere vessel for the transport of the dead. I had to supervise Brian’s last journey from Chapel Street.

  At long last I left it to the Press office people to deal with the reporters. By now they were interviewing everyone they could find and the photographers were flashing away at the house. I went home to Lesley and we spent the night remembering all the good times Brian had given us.

  ‘The thing I’ll miss is his parties,’ said Lesley. ‘Everything was always just right. Always.’

  The one comical moment in a black day in my life came after I’d been asleep that night for about an hour. Lesley was tidying up and putting some washing in before coming to bed and she suddenly burst into our bedroom screaming my name. I woke up and struggled to gather my senses. I wondered what other nightmares could happen now and then I realised Lesley was holding the huge joint which I had smuggled out of Brian’s room. ‘You promised me faithfully that you would never ever take any drugs,’ she shouted, waving the offending article. ‘How could you?’

  I don’t know if it was the pressures of the day or the hilarity of the moment but I burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Lesley looked even more angry as she witnessed my mirth. But eventually my tears of laughter turned into tears of grief as I cried for my lost friend. Lesley became concerned and came over to the bed to say she was annoyed, but not that annoyed. I explained the origin of the joint and then we laughed and cried some more.

  The next day, I went back to Chapel Street and there were rows of flowers that people had left. I gathered some of them to take them inside. On the top step somebody had left five red carnations beautifully placed in a row, with a piece of paper torn from a notebook saying simply, ‘We loved you, too.’ That finished me. I took them indoors, dashed into the bathroom and cried my eyes out like a young child. After a few minutes I felt better and I put the flowers in water and placed them on a table with the note beside them. I sat and thought for a while. My friend and my boss is dead. I knew that no one could replace him, either as a friend or as manager of the Beatles.

  The Beatles had all gone to Bangor on the train on the Friday. They were recent converts to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Patti had encouraged first George and then the other Beatles to try transcendental meditation. It was a way of reaching a state of eternal happiness and peace, some kind of nirvana without drugs. The Beatles had tried most other things in their search for an inner tranquillity, which might make superstardom easier to live with. And this brand of instant relief had them hooked at this stage. They had seen him lecture and go into his own trance at the Hilton hotel a few days before. The Maharishi, who was wide awake enough to recognise the publicity potential of recruiting the Beatles as his new disciples had invited the famous four up to his hotel suite for a private audience afterwards. There was such a crush at Euston Station on the Friday of their departure that Cynthia had missed the train. A policeman thought she was just another crazed fan and stopped her getting on. But with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull in tow as well, the train was followed by TV newsmen and newspaper reporters and photographers. They dubbed the train ‘The Mystical Express’ as the whole thing began to turn in
to a circus.

  It was Jane Asher who answered the call. The boys had to be told about Brian’s death as soon as possible and Jane rushed to get Paul to come to the phone. He seemed shocked but strangely sedate as were the other Beatles. In their surreal setting they seemed to be turning for advice on how to react from the Maharishi who was again swift to make capital. He told them Brian’s passing was a good thing and was not to be mourned. He brought them up to date on his views about the material world being in permanent conflict with the spiritual world and then made them crush a flower to demonstrate that all good things could be destroyed. Marianne Faithfull said she felt that the Maharishi instantly exploited Brian’s death. She said, ‘The Beatles were shattered. I can hardly bear to remember it. I think he actually said, “Brian Epstein is dead. He was taking care of you. He was like your father. I will be your father now.”’ These poor bastards just didn’t know. It was the most terrible thing.’

  George told the reporters who were congratulating themselves on falling over the showbiz story of the year that ‘There is no such thing as death, only in the physical sense. We know Brian is OK now. He will return because he was striving for happiness and desired bliss so much.’

  Paul was uncharacteristically wooden: ‘It is a great shock and I am very upset.’

  John said even more coolly, ‘Our meditation has given us the confidence to withstand such a shock.’ At that time he had been meditating for all of two days. To be fair, John later said, ‘I had the 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.’ And more prophetically he added, ‘I knew we were in trouble when Brian died. I didn’t really have any misconceptions about our ability to do anything other than play music and I was scared. I thought, Now we’ve fucking had it.’’

  The inquest was held on 8 September and I was very relieved when the coroner’s verdict was accidental death. He died from the cumulative effect of bromide in a drug he had been using for a long time. The drug was Carbitral. The amount of bromide in him was only enough to be described as a ‘low fatal level’ but Brian had taken repeated ‘incautious self overdoses’ which added up enough to kill him. He had been taking more pills than were good to him at that time but I don’t believe in a million years he meant to kill himself.

  Rumours that Brian had committed suicide started straight away but I’ve never believed them. He had just had his grieving mum Queenie down to stay with him for ten days and he was very upset by how hard she had been hit by his father’s death. Brian was also right in the middle of making plans for her to come and live near to him in London.

  I had spoken to him from America several times in the days just before his death. I had gone to the States not for Brian but simply to help Robert Stigwood out. The Robert Stigwood group had just merged with NEMS. Stigwood’s group Cream were about to go off on their first American tour. There was a hitch in the paperwork in that they hadn’t bothered to apply for proper work visas. I pointed this out and found myself getting the American Embassy to open up on a Sunday to get the correct documents for Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Stigwood was pushing for me to go with Cream to help smooth the way but I insisted I couldn’t go anywhere without Brian’s approval. Brian first seemed miffed by the idea and sent me a pompous telegram saying, ‘Under no circumstances will you leave for America. Brian Epstein.’ I was annoyed because I’d been trying to contact him for a couple of days to ask him directly, but he had been very elusive. Then the phone rang at half-past-two in the morning. It was Brian, over a background of music and laughter. He said, ‘Alistair, it’s Brian. Wouldn’t you just love a week in San Francisco?’

  ‘Brian, I …’

  ‘I knew you would! Have a wonderful, wonderful time. Call me when you get there. Bye bye!’

  Lesley was not amused. I called at the Embassy to collect the visas on the way to the airport. Then there was another surprise. Brian was at the airport. Looking immaculate as usual, he smiled and said, ‘Hello, Alistair. Sorry about all that nonsense beforehand. I just thought I’d come and see you off.’ And he left in his chauffeur-driven Rolls as quickly as he’d arrived. Brian had come to see me off, and he hated airports even if he was going somewhere. He seemed natural and full of beans which was great, as he had been under the weather for weeks.

  There were several conversations on the telephone with Brian while I was away and he always seemed fine. In the last one, he asked me to come home via Los Angeles so I could call in on the Four Tops who were playing the Coconut Grove. He wanted me to ask them to come over and do another tour for us.

  Brian never sounded remotely like a man who was considering suicide. Certainly, he had some strange things going on in his private life but I’ve always felt the rumours about mystery lovers who were there at the end were pure fantasy.

  The Beatles met Queenie in Brian’s drawing room when they got back from Bangor. They were all very sad and they felt very sorry for her. There was a lot of respect for Queenie. She asked the Beatles not to come to the funeral because she felt the crowds would get out of hand if they did.

  The funeral was held in Liverpool and Brian’s body travelled up from London by road. It was delayed and there was one comical moment at the service. Cilla, Gerry Marsden and I were among other family members when there was a long and unexplained delay. Time dragged at the sad occasion as the coffin simply did not arrive and Gerry whispered to me behind his hand, ‘Trust Brian to be late for his own funeral.’ I had a job to suppress my laughter, but it was a respectful joke. Brian always had a reputation of not being terribly punctual and we enjoyed the humour of his memory. But it was the only light moment in a dreadful day.

  The debate goes on to this day about whether the Beatles would have left Brian if he had not died. Certainly they did not need him in the same way they needed him before. But I don’t believe they would have got together and sacked him. I think there was too much mutual affection, love and respect in there for that. But then, I’m an old romantic.

  12

  THE UNHAPPY ENDING

  I didn’t know what to do after Brian’s death. His brother Clive Epstein asked me to stay on as general manager of NEMS Enterprises. It was exactly what I didn’t want to do. I was so upset by Brian’s death and I knew that the Beatles were never going to be the same without him, so I had decided the best thing for me to do would be to get out and get another job. But Clive and Queenie appealed to me to stay on as general manager until things were sorted out. NEMS was still going. I was one of the longest-serving employees and I was happy to do anything which would help to keep Brian’s legacy intact. But this was a desperately unhappy time. Robert Stigwood and Vic Lewis were the two who were likeliest to run things and I didn’t want to support either of them. The atmosphere in the office was depressing. There was so much sniping and in-fighting that it was very a unpleasant place to work. The Beatles seemed lost without Brian. He had taken so many of the important decisions for them. And the vultures were already circling the business.

  Before he died, Brian had been planning a merger with Robert Stigwood, an up-and-coming pop entrepreneur and manager of the Bee Gees. But they had only had initial talks and Brian hadn’t told the Beatles anything at all about any possible link up with Stigwood. There were loads of aggressive businessmen around trying to tell Brian that he should have done better deals for the Beatles. The American Allen Klein made a huge fuss about getting a vastly increased royalty deal for the Rolling Stones.

  Brian was not at his old familiar best for a long time before he died. The Beatles’ decision to stop touring took away a huge part of his life and he did take his eye off the ball. But Brian never wanted to be the richest guy in the world. His great ambition was to give the Beatles to the world. And he had succeeded in that way beyond even his own vivid imagination.

  I felt totally lost without Brian. Some of th
e other figures seemed motivated by money and they seemed to want to spend their time wheeling and double-dealing. Stigwood asked me very soon after Brian died if I would come to work for him. He seemed to think the Bee Gees were going to go places and he wasn’t wrong.

  In fact, the first place Maurice Gibb and I went to was a sleazy strip club. He had a very striking convertible, burgundy-coloured Rolls Royce at the time. We had been drinking in DMs, a pub just on the fringes of Soho that was used by a lot of pop people. The car was just parked down the side of the pub, just outside a tatty little strip club. It caught Maurice’s eye and he said to me, ‘Do you know, Al, I have never been in a strip club.’ I used to go to Raymond’s Revue Bar in those days and I thought I was a very sophisticated man about town. And I knew what was coming next. Maurice grinned in embarrassment, gestured at this seedy strip joint, and said, ‘Should we go in?’ We couldn’t resist it and we went past the dozing bouncer and into this dim and dank den of iniquity. As strip clubs go it would have struggled to be even third-rate. We got a couple of drinks at the bar and turned to the tiny stage to watch a rather elderly stripper going through her routine. It was about as erotic as a visit to an abattoir and, like a couple of naughty schoolboys, I’m afraid we got the giggles. When you really shouldn’t be laughing, it’s always so much harder to stop and we found ourselves shaking with mirth. We could see that some of the more muscle-bound assistants were not taking too kindly to us laughing at the main attraction so we got to our feet and chortled our way back to Maurice’s magnificent motor.

  He was a smashing bloke and I would love to have had a role in managing the Bee Gees, but I felt a strong pull of loyalty to NEMS and Clive Epstein. Clive had almost none of Brian’s flair or charisma, but he was still a hell of a nice bloke. He wanted me to stay, so I stayed – it was as simple as that.