George’s first wife, Pattie was born Patricia Anne Boyd in Hampstead, London, on 17 March 1944, the eldest of three sisters. Due to their father’s job the family moved to Kenya in the 1950s and didn’t return until Pattie was in her late teens.


Pattie and her sister Jenny first arrived in London in 1962 with ambitions of becoming models. Pattie was initially brought to the attention of the British public when she appeared in a series of television commercials for Smith’s Crisps. Dick Lester produced the commercials and when he was commissioned to direct the Beatles’ debut movie ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, he booked Pattie for the role of one of the schoolgirls who meet the Beatles on a train traveling from Liverpool to London.


Her part was cut down to one line and when the Beatles describe how they feel like prisoners, she had one word of dialogue “Prisoners?”


She arrived on the first day of filming and was to say, “I met them and they said hello. I couldn’t believe it. They were so like how I’d imagined them to be. They were just like pictures of themselves coming to life. George hardly said hello. But the others came and chatted with us.”


When filming began Pattie said she could feel George looking at her and was embarrassed. She was also terrified of John and when she came to ask for their autographs near the end of the first day’s shooting, she was too scared to ask for John’s. John was later to refer to her as Batty Pattie. When she asked George for his autograph she asked him if he could sign for her two sisters, Jenny and Paula, as well. He put two kisses under the autographs for the two sisters and seven kisses under the autograph for Pattie.


He came into the carriage where Pattie was sitting with another girl, Pru and asked her to come out into the corridor on her own. He asked if she would go out with him that night and she said no. This was because she had a steady boyfriend, 30 year old photographer Eric Swayne, who she’d been going out with for two years. The following Tuesday George asked her out again. This time she told her boyfriend it was all over and accepted George’s invitation. 


She recalled, “Eric was my boyfriend, but not any more. George is tremendous fun to be with. We want it to stay just fun without having to talk about engagements and marriages.” 


George was enchanted by her and said she reminded him of his favourite film star, Brigitte Bardot. By the end of the week she’d introduced him to her mother and sisters. He said, “She’s my kind of girl and we like each other a lot, but marriage is not on our minds. We hope to see more of each other when we can. It isn’t a sin to have a girlfriend is it?”


The following week was Easter and Pattie and George joined John and Cynthia for a weekend in Ireland at Dromoland Castle Hotel, but they were hounded by the press.


George, who, more than any of the other members of the Beatles, treasured his privacy, was furious when the hotel was besieged by reporters who covered every doorway and exit, asking. “Who’s the blonde, George?” and “What’s her name?” and “Do you love her?” The couples were left stranded in their rooms, with George saying. “Don’t we give those bastards a big enough pound of flesh every goddamn day of our lives? Why can’t they just leave us alone sometimes?”


Pattie and Cynthia had to dress up as maids and were smuggled out of the rear entrance in a laundry basket and driven to the airport in a laundry van. Then they went to Waikiki in Hawaii between 5 May and 20 May 1964. When they stopped over in Los Angeles they were spotted by photographers and George told them that Pattie was “my 29-year-old sister. My chaperone.”


By the end of the month George took her to see a bungalow he was considering buying in Esher. The bungalow was called Kinfauns and within four weeks George had bought it for the two of them to live in together. He proposed to her on Christmas Day 1963.


Pattie was to say,” We lived together for about a year before we got married. My mother knew, but she never mentioned it.”


She then began to receive nasty letters from fans and was unprepared for the hostility, which she found frightening. She recalled, “Hordes of wretched little girls used to lie in wait outside our gate waiting for me to go out to the shops. I was regularly kicked, bitten and even punched solely because I was George’s girlfriend. “You’d better leave off our George or else”, they would shout as I drove away. George attempted to talk to them about it, but every time he came round they just fell about swooning and giggling. The next morning, however, once again they’d be out in full force, screaming insults and sometimes actually threatening to murder me.”

Return to main section