Which is strange, when you think we've had a thousand Beatles books these last 40 years, from people who never met them, to lawyers who did in passing, chauffeurs who once drove them and scruffs who stood outside their offices hoping for autographs.
Neil knew everything, everybody, and now, has taken it all to the grave. Unless there is a posthumous memoir, waiting to be released, which I doubt. I asked him countless times, saying he should get it all down, before it's too late, if just for his children. He always said no. Neil was there from the very beginning, a constant friend and associate, never leaving the magical mystery circle,
What never came out at the time was that Neil was having an affair with Mona, Pete's mother. In fact they had a son who was born that same year. Neil, only 19, was caught in a terrible emotional turmoil, with Pete sacked by his new best friends and Mona, his lover, furious at how Pete, her son was being treated
By the spring of 1962, Mona Best, who was 38, was excepting a baby. This caused a lot of gossiping because everyone knew that Johnny Best had not been around in a very long time. However, no one questioned Mona about the baby. Once Neil came to London, his relationship with Mona did not end. There are several stories about Mona coming and visiting Neil at his flat in 1963. But the relationship between them was over for good once Neil met Suzy in 1964. They were married in 1968 and remained married for 40 years until Neil's death.
After Brian Epstein died in August 1967, The Beatles asked Aspinall to manage Apple Corps, founded in April 1968. George Martin apparently opposed the idea, saying he was ill-suited to negotiating with the top-brass executives at EMI.
Aspinall was kept busy at Apple, which originally had five divisions: music, electronics, films, publishing and retail. He later said of the company's business practices:
In Apple We did not have one single piece of paper. No contracts. The lawyer, the accountants and Brian, whoever, had that. The Beatles had been given copies of various contracts, maybe – I don't know. I didn't know what the contract was with EMI, or with the film people or the publishers or anything at all. So it was a case of building up a filing system, find out what was going on while we were trying to continue doing something.
