The Ray Connolly Beatles Archive

'Most books about the Beatles are by writers who never met them. I was lucky, I was a journalist and I was there. I knew all of them, John Lennon confiding in me during a visit to Canada in 1969 that he'd left the Beatles - months before it became public knowledge; and then Paul McCartney asking me to interview him so that he could explain his side of the break-up.

'Before that I went to Beatles' recording sessions at Abbey Road studios, followed the Magical Mystery Tour around England, and when John Lennon returned his MBE to the Queen it was me he phoned to break the news. I was there in the front row at George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in Madison Square Gardens, while Ringo would co-star in a movie I wrote called That'll Be The Day. Then, in December 1980, I was about to fly to New York to interview John when I got the phone call telling me that he'd been murdered.

'So this is my account of the Beatles' story, a selection of some of my many interviews with them and others connected with them, as well news stories and reflections that I've published over the past half century in various British national newspapers.' - Ray Connolly