Apple Press Office.

I always dreaded visiting the press office on the second floor, it appeared to be a party that I wasn’t invited to.   Our office was so calm and business like, but up there the booze and fags flowed freely.   Sitting in a peacock chair was Derek Taylor, head of all the madness.   I knew Derek from my Nems years, he arrived in the press office and wrote a few of the album sleeves, even then I didn’t feel comfortable in his company. Tony Barrow and Brian Sommerville were always easy to get on with, and I had many a good time in their company.  Derek’s staff, Dee Meehan and Carol Paddon were great fun, years later we met up and Carol said she didn’t like visiting our office as it was such a closed shop, maybe we should have all spoken up at the time.   There were always journalists around, and we had been well warned not to confide in them.   However, we had our favourites, mine was Ray Connelly, always a gentleman and I instinctively knew would never want to harm the Beatles.  From the early years a guy called Don Short who worked for the Daily Mirror, was someone you knew would sell his soul to the devil for a good story.   Maureen Cleaves who caused complete mayhem with her story of John’s statement that the Beatles were bigger than God, though she always gave me the impression she had not deliberately set out to cause trouble.   The one I hated the most was Nigel Dempster, he was the biggest shit of all.

Derek Taylor introduced us to Chris O’Dell, she came from Tucson Arizona, and a breath of fresh air entered the building.   She managed to fit in to either the press office or ours adjusting seamlessly.  We all liked her and stayed friends for years until she returned to the States.

Mary Hopkin was our new signing, Twiggy had suggested to Paul that after watching her on a talent show she was well worth a listen.   One day Paul asked me if I would take Mary out to shop for a dress, we were walking along when suddenly two guys wolf whistled at us, Mary turned to me and said, “I bet that has never happened to you before.”   Red rag, and bull came to mind, “Oh, I don’t know Mary, I get the occasional look.”   Needless to say I couldn’t have given a shit how well her album did.

Apple Studios was always good for gossip, some great personalities down in the basement.   Georgie Peckham was the disc cutter, and he knew the business inside out,  he had been in the Fourmost in the Nems day.   He had a party piece, the first time we witnessed it was at one of our Christmas parties, he jumped up on the table, pulled down his jeans and set fire to his pubic hairs.

There was one engineer that no one liked, he was far too cocky which didn’t go down well with the rest of the bunch.   He had a girlfriend in Germany and planned to visit her. This was too good an opportunity for Nigel to miss. He decided to put bromide in his tea for two weeks prior to the visit. Needless to say the trip was unfruitful and he suspected what had happened, he left shortly after.   The answer was never f... around with the equilibrium.