Hela Hebba Helloa

What information do you have about the whole George and Maureen situation? A lot of people talk about George-Pattie-Eric but there’s not a whole lot of information about George-Maureen-Ringo (that I can find, at least). Also as a side note, I think it’s incredible that George and Eric and George and Ringo managed to be friends again after the whole mess! To me, that shows a lot of generosity and forgiveness, which I assume wasn’t easy!

Hmm, not George’s most shining moment, was it? 

I love George with all my heart, but honestly, he was a terrible womaniser. Did he had any relationships with women that didn’t involve sex? Any female friends at all? Anyway, topic for another time. 

Yes, the information on the whole George/Maureen/Ringo situation. I think that’s rather deliberate due to all parties involved not really wanting to talk about it, and who could blame them. 

As I understand it, this was the sequence of events… 

In 1970 with the break up of the Beatles, Ringo and Mo’s marriage was already on the rocks, exasperated by the problems within the band, Ringo’s infidelities and Ringo becoming a bit of a drinker. Despite this, they had their third child, Lee born on 11th November 1970 and Ringo and Maureen soldiered on together. 

Sometime in 1972, (probably the latter half of the year, during or just after the Living In The Material World sessions) there was a dinner party with George and Pattie and Ringo and Maureen. For some reason, I have in my head that this took place at Friar Park, but I could be imagining that. They have a nice meal, after which George is playing around on the guitar as guitarists do. Then he set down the guitar and very calmly and coolly declared he was deeply in love with Maureen. 

All hell breaks loose, as you might expect. Pattie is terribly upset. Maureen, who’d had no inkling George was going to do that (George had never expressed any interest in her in any way before) is terribly upset and locks herself in the bathroom. Ringo is furious and storms out. I don’t know what George did, but in my minds eye he just goes back to playing guitar while all this drama carries on around him. Maybe the meal was at Ringo & Maureen’s if Mo locked herself in the bathroom? If so, that would have been an interesting journey home for George and Pattie. 

What happens next is a little more unclear, and different sources have different accounts. Shortly after the dinner party, George and Ringo meet in a studio (this is why I think it could be during the LITMW sessions as Ringo played on that album) and George apologises and Ringo forgives him, and from what I gather, they carry on as if nothing had ever happened. 

Maureen meanwhile, still having martial problems with Ringo, decides she might see where this George thing might go. She goes to Friar Park to see him (once, twice, a few times? Not sure. More than once, I think) and she and George spend a lot of time locked in the meditation room there and/or George’s recording studio. Oh, Mr Harrison. When Pattie quite rightly demands to know what’s going on, George tells her they’re just meditating and talking. Isn’t that what every guy says? 

Pattie spends some time in Devon (where her mother lived) and when she comes home, she finds photos that show Maureen’s been at Friar Park while she’s been away. Maureen by now has also got into the habit of arriving at Friar Park late at night to spend time with George in his studio. On one final occasion, Pattie comes home to find them locked in a bedroom together. When she bangs on the door, demanding to know what’s going on, George tells her Maureen’s having a lie down as she was tired. A lie down. With George. 

Pattie calls Ringo and tells him his wife and her husband are locked in a bedroom together and he’d better get over there right away. 

This effectively ends both of their marriages. Pattie says this was the last straw for her, especially as she considered Maureen a friend, and she leaves George for Eric Clapton. (I’m not certain it was quite that clean cut). Meanwhile, Ringo and Maureen break up too - Maureen didn’t want to, but Ringo wants a divorce. 

It’s a little foggy how George and Ringo got back onto good terms again. Officially, I think, according to George the affair never happened, so maybe he told Ringo that and Ringo chose to believe him? - Though there is one interview somewhere (which I can’t find currently) where some cheeky interviewer asks George if he and Maureen had an affair and he sheepishly and in a roundabout way says they did (if anyone knows what I’m talking about please let me know!) Pattie was asked shortly after it happened by a newspaper and she denied they’d had an affair. I don’t recall anywhere where Ringo or Maureen commented about it. John though, condemned it and called it incest. 

So, why do that?! I have couple of thoughts. I can’t believe George wouldn’t have had some idea that Eric Clapton was in love with his wife. Maybe he suspected Pattie was having an affair with him (although Pattie I think says not at that time). But Eric was George’s friend. Could it have been a little act of ‘How do you like it?’ Although that’s rather mean on Ringo and Maureen. But George could just do strange things sometimes. 

Or maybe George thought he was in love with Maureen. If he did, I think he was more in love with what he thought Ringo had and his marriage with Maureen - something he and Pattie didn’t have and maybe never had. 

Or maybe - probably unlikely - could George have harboured feelings for Maureen for a while? The only “evidence” to support that might be the song ‘Maureen’ which appears on the Let It Be sessions. George says it’s a Bob Dylan song which he thinks Ringo could sing. However, it doesn’t sound like Dylan’s style and no Bob Dylan version has ever appeared. It does, perhaps, sound like a George song though. Why would he pretend it wasn’t his though, if that was the case? 

Maureen on the other hand, I think she did it to get Ringo’s attention and because it was solace and comfort for her broken heart. 

There does appear to be a cooling off of George and Ringo’s friendship following all this, although George was in England and Ringo went to America so it’s difficult to say. A lot of people point to the fact that Ringo was on all of George’s records up until then and then suddenly he’s not for a long time, but again, it could be geography rather than anything else. George did give Ringo songs to record (which he then sued him over. For God’s sakes, George! Haven’t you done enough?!) But you know, they were all friends again in the end. 

I’m sure there is more to the story than is known, particularly what went on between George and Ringo, but it is true that Ringo must have been exceptionally forgiving. A testament to his and George’s friendship and Ringo’s character. They should give him a knighthood or something. 

Lyrics from the unrecorded George song, Hey Ringo. At some point over the next couple of days, I’m going to get my book out and check if it says when this was written, or if I can determine when it might have been written, because I wonder if it was a 70s song? 

A little Starrison love: 

Thank you for your question! Sorry it’s taken me a little while to reply - I knew it would be a long one!

hey can you please explain the whole thing with phil spector and his bodyguard and john? i never heard about it until now, thanks

John was very drunk. Phil Spector told him to calm down and since John didn’t listen, Phil tied him to a chair and took off his glasses.

May Pang was too scared to do anything; it was awful to see John like this. Phil left the house and John managed to get rid of the ties. He broke the window by throwing the chair and he went outside. 

This is what happened then. Explained by May Pang in her book Loving John:

“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll calm him down. You wait for Roy and Jimmy.”

Tony drove up the road and spotted John near the house. John had ripped a large frond from a palm tree and was brandishing it in his right hand, using it as a shield to protect himself. Caught in Tony’s headlights, he threw his free hand up to cover his eyes. Even from a distance I could see that John looked like a trapped insane child. There was something so sad about seeing him that way, I couldn’t bear to look at him.

Tony got out of the car and slowly walked toward John. Although Tony was visibly shaken by the tortured look in John’s eyes, he walked straight up to him and said simply, “What’s the matter John?” John looked at Tony for a long moment, then collapsed into Tony’s arms and began to weep. Tony cradled John in his arms and rocked him back and forth. He stroked him and spoke soothingly to him. “Nobody loves me… nobody cares about me,” John cried out in despair.

“We love you, we care about you,” Tony kept repeating. John thrashed around in Tony’s arms, but Tony was strong enough to hold him still. No matter how violently John tossed and turned, Tony held on to him. Eventually John became calm enough to be led inside.

**Tony is supposedly one of John’s friends. 

A big thank you to @johnhateblog!

wait can you please post the pete shotten quote? im interested in it but dont gave access to the book

since other people asked me to publish it I’ll do it:

- From Pete Shotton “John Lennon, In my life”