An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Dr. Beatles
These photos were taken the day after the Beatles had to cancel a show because Paul was sick. The other Beatles are proving that they have taken care of the situation and their bass player is doing fine.
John Lennon News from April 1980
John Lennon News
With a Little Help From my Friends
April 1980
According to the New York Daily News, the March 21 edition, for their anniversary, John gave Yoko a diamond heart and had 500 gardenias flown in. A surprised and pleasedYoko countered with a vintage Rolls-Royce.
Lennon recording rumors still abound. Even one of the doormen at the Dakota thinks he's up to something. He has been working in his studio apartment and has been out of town in mid-April, again, supposedly to record somewhere. Hmm.
Rita Hanson, who just got back from vacationing in New York, told us a few interesting tidbits. One of New York's tour buses goes right by the Dakota, and she saw Sean from the bus window. She also saw John and Yoko returning from somewhere on April 15, at 11:20am, looking very tired and talking with one of the doormen.
Rita learned a few things. Comusako, who looks after Sean, quit because she wanted to go back to Japan. Sean and the nanny had a near accident with a taxi. So now, John rarely uses a cab. It's always the silver limo now, whether Sean's going to the park or to the store.
John's seventh-floor apartment faces Central Park, the whole floor on that side, but also the courtyard, which is where the kitchen is. John has three pianos, two white and one black. The doorman Rita talked to helped do some moving and said he saw a whole wall full of pictures sent to them of him,Yoko, and Sean. Also, there's a white room where you can feel pure, but you can't go in without shoes. Every single thing in the room is white. The decor is modern, and they have oriental knick-knacks. Sean has a playroom with swings coming down from the ceiling, a slide, and monkey bars. The floor has two to four inches of foam in case he falls.
Whenever traveling, Sean and the nanny always go separately, never with John and Yoko. They go ahead or behind on a different flight. John still gets an enormous pile of mail daily, like over 100 letters. John, at the time Rita saw him in mid-April, was wearing a blue jacket, jeans, his hair Shaggy and almost shoulder-length, and a tapered beard. He was slender and very much in a hurry. She also heard that Sean was pulling out of school because they weren't satisfied, whatever that means.
John gets up early on Sunday mornings to get the Sunday paper. Also at the time she was there, a film was being made at the Dakota in the morning, something to do with a janitor.
Remember the postcard we mentioned that our friend Beth and Mary got a while ago in the last newsletter? They sent him photos they'd taken around Liverpool. The postcard you see above is the result, by the way, after getting that card, they did send him a photo of the art college, and he sent another thank you note in response.
Ringo signs with Atlantic Records
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Monday, March 9, 2026
Former Beatle Hard at Work (1981)
Former Beatle Hard at Work
By Patrick Riordan
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
March 8, 1981
Just past the white-washed bridge not far from the carpenter shop, up the steep unmarked road that turns off to the right between the two ancient mango trees, is the sign Paul McCartney drives past every day about 1pm local time: Air Studios, Montserrat Ltd, strictly no admittance, except by prior arrangements.
Beefy guards from Professional Security Group Inc of New York stand watch over McCartney's personal safety and his 4.6 tons of musical luggage. From the looks of it, some secret project may be going on. Some people speculate that there will be a Beatles reunion record in memory of John Lennon, who was shot to death December 8.
"Not so," says George Martin, the legendary electronics engineer who was dubbed the fifth Beatle for his masterful recording techniques for the rock group during the 1960s. Martin, who happens to own AIR Studios, indicated the recording project is a McCartney album without the former Beatles group Wings.
Their tribute to John is in themselves," Martin said in an interview at the studio on Sunday. "To go and make a tribute album is cashing in, I think, on John's death."
Fueling the Beatles reunion rumor, were the presence recently of ex-Beatle Ringo Starr for a recording session, and reports that the third living former Beatle, George Harrison, may record some tracks for the album later in London.
The album that McCartney and Martin are working on will be the first they have produced together since Abbey Road, the last Beatles album. "We're trying to get back to something we had before," Martin said. "The album is expected to be completed by the end of March and is to be released later this year."
Except for a minor car accident that McCartney had with an Associated Press photographer recently, his month in the British West Indies has gone smoothly. He has declined to be interviewed by the newspaper and television reporters who converged on the isolated island after rumors began circulating earlier this month that the surviving Beatles were reuniting for an album.
Someone who is close to McCartney and who asked not to be named said that the singer-songwriter's only complaint has been the lack of wind surfers on the island. He waterskis a lot in Woodlands Bay.
McCartney drives to the studio from his rented villa on the island's Northwest coast. The villa is a converted monastery overlooking the nearby island of Redonda. He works hard in light of the February 28 deadline to put down his tracks for the album. "They start about 1pm, and they don't get out of the studio until midnight," a spokesman for AIR studio said of McCartney and Martin.
Locally, McCartney's visit inspired only moderate interest. While much of the outside world has hung on every word of a possible Beatles reunion, local folks still think last year's visit by the soul-oriented group Earth, Wind & Fire was more exciting.
Montserrat is a study in isolation, a crown colony that cultivates the image and, in large measure, seems to achieve the reality of the perfect, unspoiled Caribbean island. Few planes arrive. Indeed, one of the attractions of the 39-square-mile paradise, first colonized by the Irish, is that the difficulty of getting here discourages low-rent tourism.
No jets can land here to disgorge economy fair vacationers. The aircraft of choice is the British Norman tri lander, a tri-motor airplane with two propellers on the wings and a third mounted on the tail, known locally as the Mini Concord. It is the workhorse of Leeward Island air transport (LI A T), the only airline servicing the island. Most tourists arrive from Antigua, about 50 minutes away by propeller plane. Landing is a thrill. Planes fly low over the waves directly toward a sheer rock cliff until they're within a few 100 yards of land.
Living in a Home in the Heart of the Country
Two previously unseen snapshot photographs taken at High Park Farm, the Mull of Kintyre farm owned by Paul McCartney. The images were captured shortly before Wings departed for their Wings University Tour in February 1972 and offer a rare, candid glimpse into life at the farm.
One photograph shows Denny Laine (left), Henry McCullough (centre) and Paul McCartney (right) relaxing outside a stone outbuilding, surrounded by several of McCartney’s dogs and puppies.
The second photograph features Paul’s adopted daughter Heather McCartney together with his daughters Mary McCartney and Stella McCartney, alongside Henry McCullough’s daughter Jesse McCullough, seated in the fields with the family’s pets.
Both photographs come directly from the estate of Henry McCullough and have not previously been published. Preserved within his personal archive, they provide an authentic and intimate glimpse into the relaxed environment surrounding Paul McCartney and those close to him at his Kintyre farm during this formative period.
Thank you for 17 years!
Today Meet the Beatles...For Real turns 17 years old! Can you even believe that? I started this little site 17 years ago and have been going strong ever since! I never would have thought 17 years ago that I would still love sharing photos and stories of the Beatles and their fans as much as I do.
I want to thank all of you for joining me on this journey for the past 17 years. Thank you especially for all of those who have been there from the start and thank you for those who just found this site.
I sadly think of all we have lost in the past 17 years. Lizzie Bravo, Kathy Burns, and Marie Lacey especially come to mind. I miss their comments and insights to the world of Beatles fandom.
Every year on March 9 I have the opportunity to renew the domain for Meet the Beatles For Real (about $30 total a year). Thanks to the generous donations of fans the past year I have had no problems renewing for another year plus I had enough to pay for subsciption to newspapers.com to continue to find interviews and interesting article to share (I hope you have noticed an uptick in newspaper article). I look forward to year 17 of MTBFR being another one of Beatles fun and information for fans around the globe!
Peace and Love!
Sara S. (aka Starshyne)
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