The OBE was recommended by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport who said that Harrison should be recognised for his contribution to the music industry. The citation read: “He was a member of a band that many people would say is the best thing that Britain has ever produced, and possibly the best in the world, The Beatles.”
McCartney had been awarded a knighthood in 1997. Those who knew Harrison said he would have regarded the lesser honour as ‘an insult’.
The OBE was suggested by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to recognise his four decade-long career in showbusiness.
The citation read: “He was a member of a band that many people would say is the best thing that Britain has ever produced, and possibly the best in the world, The Beatles.”
However, journalist Ray Connolly, who knew The Beatles, said Harrison would have viewed the offer of an OBE as a snub in comparison to McCartney’s 1997 knighthood.
“Whoever it was who decided to offer him the OBE and not the knighthood was extraordinarily insensitive,” he said. “George would have felt insulted – and with very good reason.”
Harrison, along with the rest of The Beatles, was awarded an MBE in 1965, but John Lennon later sent his back as a peace protest.
Recently, this May, Pattie Boyd, former Beatles wife, will bring her compelling and entertaining life story to audiences. In London from 5th May – 2nd June 2018 at The Blender Gallery, Paddington
Entitled George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me; An Evening with Pattie Boyd. Boyd will share memories, film footage and personal photographs of life in the“rock-ocracy” of the Sixties that included The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin,Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.
Pattie Boyd was both muse and wife to Clapton, to George Harrison before him and no stranger to drug and booze-fuelled partying.
But there was little danger of failing memory for her. She kept a record of the wild years – portraits and reportage style snaps taken with a Polaroid and, later, on a Hasselblad.
. “I took endless photos,” she says. “It was something to do, otherwise you could feel a bit spare.” This is an extract from SMH.com.au by Jane Wheatley
The museum hosting the show—”George, Eric, and Me,” opening to the public on May 6th, is Liverpool’s aptly-named The Beatles Story. From the selection of images released in advance of the opening, it’s plain to see that Ms. Boyd was an integral part of their stellar run, and much else besides.
She met George Harrison on the set of A Hard Day’s Night – she played a schoolgirl – and they married when she was 21. They moved into Friar Park, a gothic pile in Hampshire where the Beatles came to record, friends drove from London.
