Two Encounters With Neil Aspinall

RBP REGULARS will doubtless have read last week's obituaries for Neil Aspinall, who worked for the Beatles from 1961 until shortly before he died. He was their longest-serving, most loyal and certainly most tight-lipped retainer. While all and sundry who met the Beatles only briefly have felt the need to cash in by writing books, Neil – closer to them than anyone barring their wives, and certainly the most well-informed, long-term Beatles insider – resolutely refused ever to be interviewed. Whatever secrets he knew – and there must have been many – went with him to the grave.