PENNY LANE

S U N D A Y,  1 2  F E B

Talk about a cold: I had to blow my nose every five minutes. I’m not exaggerating.

Learnt Act 1 of Macbeth. Ma and Chump gardened a lot and the weather was glorious. I went out once to see Rabbit.

London Grandma and Grandpa came for tea. Grandma’s wonderful in some ways but she is the biggest snob I know. In her marvellous Dutch accent she said today that boys with long hair are “common slobs with no breeding”!!! Coming from her background she probably can’t help it, she has twelve Christian names for a start. Grandpa looked adorable in his old knee-britches and corduroy jacket.

This funny old man on television analysed Strawberry Fields and compared it to classical music!

Personally I prefer Penny Lane which is, as Alan Freeman said, more commercial.

“Penny Lane”

“In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass,/ And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen./ He likes to keep his fire engine clean,/ It's a clean machine.”

Penny Lane was released as a double a-side with Strawberry Fields Forever, a glorious creation that opened the doors to the Sergeant Pepper album and set the stage for the summer of love.

Conceived by Paul McCartney - “Penny Lane was the depot I had to change buses at to get from my house to John's” – the song harked back to both their childhoods, and was composed on a rainbow-painted upright piano. Neither track was included on the Sergeant Pepper album. As producer George Martin explains, “There was a feeling that if we issued a single, it shouldn't go onto an album. It's nonsense these days, but in those days it was an aspect that we'd try to give the public value for money.”