ELEANOR RIGBY - What's the truth?

[AntiPathos]

... As for Paul Simon getting the inspiration for "Homeward Bound" at Widnes North Railway station, I had heard that story as early as the Seventies, so possibly he said it in an interview somewhere closer to the time that he wrote the song in the Sixties when the memory was fresher in his mind...

Isn't there a plaque there to 'commemorate' this over a bench on the platform ? And at the time they unveiled it I recall a BBC journo type tracked down the lady he was pining for.

[Cadfael]

I'm not a great follower of the Beatles so I don't know every story, but I think personally (purely from a location view) that it would be strange to think that ER is NOT connected in anyway. Seeing as some of them were Woolton boys, the grave, being in St Peter's Woolton is literally about 5 seconds walk from the main lytchgate. To have that name in a song is more than coincidence in my opinion.

[Ged]

Possibly a bit more of the truth coming out - bit by bit.....


Salary register sent to woman by Paul McCartney contains name E. Rigby

LONDON - A 97-year-old document that contains clues to the identity of Eleanor Rigby, the subject of one of the Beatles? best-loved songs, is expected to fetch 500,000 pounds ($775,000) when it goes on sale this month.

The manuscript is a salary register from Liverpool City Hospital and features the name E. Rigby, a scullery maid who has signed for her monthly wage. Her annual earnings were 14 pounds.

According to its owner Annie Mawson, the document was sent to her in 1990 by former Beatle Paul McCartney when she wrote to him on behalf of her charity the Sunbeams Music Trust (Untitled Document), which uses music to help people with special needs.

?I wrote ... to Paul and asked him for half a million pounds. But by the end of the letter I just said ?Look, I know you?re a very caring person and I feel it?s a privilege to share my story with you,? she said on Tuesday.

?Nine months later, in June 1990, this amazing envelope arrived in the post. It was nine months after I?d written to him, which was part of the mystery because you always think it ended up in the waste paper basket,? Mawson told Reuters.

She said the envelope containing the document dated 1911 featured an official Paul McCartney tour stamp. The singer was on a world tour around that time.

Mawson did not immediately realize the significance of the register until she read down the list of names and spotted E. Rigby.

The document could be of huge interest to Beatles collectors, because it offers one of the clearest clues yet as to the identity of Eleanor Rigby, the woman in the song of the same name who dies alone with no one to mourn her.

According to music Web sites, previously McCartney has said the heroine of the poignant song was fictional.

The grave of an Eleanor Rigby was also discovered in the churchyard of St. Peter?s in Woolton, Liverpool, close to where McCartney met John Lennon in 1957.

?I wonder just how much Paul McCartney meant to unmask when he passed it on,? said Ted Owen, managing director of the Fame Bureau which is selling the manuscript as part of a pop memorabilia auction on Nov. 27 in London.

Mawson said she needed to raise around one million pounds to fund a center for her charity in Cumbria, northwest England.

?I thought this was the right time. I got the document out of the bank vault and decided I?ve got to go for it. We think McCartney might want to buy it back ? you never know.?

Copyright 2008 Reuters.










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[Ged]

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[Ged]

Text to follow which was lost in the ether as I actually posted that before the picture but it's somehow gone into this zany moderation

[Paddy]

Being for the benefit of Mr Kite was taken from a poster. I rest my case

[Ged]

The text I sent earlier may give the true meaning and therefore dismisses Mr Mc's earlier explainations. This new explaination involves the composer also, in case you're wondering how Macca would get it wrong.

[marky]

I saw this today...Eleanor Rigby signature to be auctioned:
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Merseyside | Eleanor Rigby signature auctioned

[Ged]

Well the full story (a different and extended one from Marky's including the old document, didn't show up at all - and I can't be bothered posting it again)

[Spike]

Ged the hospital document you posted with the name E Rigby.

look above that name it says "SPIKE"

[Ged]

Hee hee - so it does. Hey, you've been around a lot longer than you thought.

[ChrisGeorge]

Possibly a bit more of the truth coming out - bit by bit.....


Salary register sent to woman by Paul McCartney contains name E. Rigby

LONDON - A 97-year-old document that contains clues to the identity of Eleanor Rigby, the subject of one of the Beatles? best-loved songs, is expected to fetch 500,000 pounds ($775,000) when it goes on sale this month.

The manuscript is a salary register from Liverpool City Hospital and features the name E. Rigby, a scullery maid who has signed for her monthly wage. Her annual earnings were 14 pounds.

According to its owner Annie Mawson, the document was sent to her in 1990 by former Beatle Paul McCartney when she wrote to him on behalf of her charity the Sunbeams Music Trust (Untitled Document), which uses music to help people with special needs.

?I wrote ... to Paul and asked him for half a million pounds. But by the end of the letter I just said ?Look, I know you?re a very caring person and I feel it?s a privilege to share my story with you,? she said on Tuesday.

?Nine months later, in June 1990, this amazing envelope arrived in the post. It was nine months after I?d written to him, which was part of the mystery because you always think it ended up in the waste paper basket,? Mawson told Reuters.

She said the envelope containing the document dated 1911 featured an official Paul McCartney tour stamp. The singer was on a world tour around that time.

Mawson did not immediately realize the significance of the register until she read down the list of names and spotted E. Rigby.

The document could be of huge interest to Beatles collectors, because it offers one of the clearest clues yet as to the identity of Eleanor Rigby, the woman in the song of the same name who dies alone with no one to mourn her.

According to music Web sites, previously McCartney has said the heroine of the poignant song was fictional.

The grave of an Eleanor Rigby was also discovered in the churchyard of St. Peter?s in Woolton, Liverpool, close to where McCartney met John Lennon in 1957.

?I wonder just how much Paul McCartney meant to unmask when he passed it on,? said Ted Owen, managing director of the Fame Bureau which is selling the manuscript as part of a pop memorabilia auction on Nov. 27 in London.

Mawson said she needed to raise around one million pounds to fund a center for her charity in Cumbria, northwest England.

?I thought this was the right time. I got the document out of the bank vault and decided I?ve got to go for it. We think McCartney might want to buy it back ? you never know.?

Copyright 2008 Reuters.










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I hate to be a skeptic but all the document actually says is "E. Rigby" which could stand for Edna Rigby or Elizabeth Rigby or Enid Rigby, or whatever. McCartney may have received it from a fan at some point and decided to donate it for the cause, or else someone in his organization had it and sent it.

Since the salary register didn't come with a note from McCartney to say the document had anything to do with the song, it's not in itself proof that there is a connection. Also is it the same woman who is named on the gravestone?

The Eleanor Rigby on the gravestone would have been aged 16 in 1911. Would she have been working as a scullery maid? That gravestone cost the Rigby family a bit of money so it would seem unlikely, if the family had "brass" in 1911 as well later on, as they probably did, that their daughter would have been working as a scullery maid.

Chris

[naked lilac]

I do hope her charity gets the funding.. sounds like a good cause, even if it isn't the" Eleanor" Rigby.. it came from P.McC's. Liverpool source, and that gives it a boost anyway..

[Ged]

LONDON (AFP) ? Paul McCartney on Wednesday shot down suggestions that his Beatles song "Eleanor Rigby" was inspired by a hospital scullery maid after a woman claimed the star had sent her a pay slip signed with that name.

"Eleanor Rigby is a totally fictious character that I made up," McCartney said in a statement released to AFP by his publicists.

"If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me," he said, referring to a forthcoming auction of the document.

His spokeswoman added they had not been able to establish whether McCartney sent the pay slip to Annie Mawson, who is auctioning it off to raise up to 500,000 pounds for a music therapy centre.

The pay slip dates from 1911 and originally came from City Hospital in Liverpool, McCartney's home city.

Mawson, chief executive of the Sunbeams Music Trust charity, said the ex- Beatles' office sent her the document after she wrote to him asking for a donation to help children with special needs.

Explaining how she received the document in 1990, Mawson said: "One day in the post came a brown envelope with a Paul McCartney world tour stamp, nine months after I had written the letter.

"I opened it and inside was this beautiful, ancient document. It was spine-shivering really, partly because he responded in such a personal way."

"Eleanor Rigby" -- McCartney's song about a lonely woman who "died in the church and was buried along with her name/Nobody came" -- appeared on the 1966 Beatles album "Revolver" and was the B-side to the single "Yellow Submarine".

McCartney has previously said the name Eleanor was inspired by actress Eleanor Bron, who starred in the Beatles film "Help!" in 1965 and that Rigby came from the name of a wine merchant.

In the 1980s, a grave was discovered at Saint Peter's Church in Woolton, Liverpool, where McCartney and bandmate John Lennon used to sunbathe as teenagers, bearing the name Eleanor Rigby.

There was also a gravestone bearing the name "McKenzie" -- the song also features a character called Father McKenzie -- in the graveyard, which has now become a popular attraction for Beatles fans visiting Liverpool.

The document is due to be auctioned in London on November 27.



Too many co-incidences for me - gotta have been in his subconscious this.

[Paddy]

This is becoming sinister