WHEN fame was young and the tastes were fresh and the sights strange, the boys had a generous share of happiness and you could see it spreading in the smiles and in their obvious friendship, one for the other.
So, when people asked them for autographs, they were honoured to sign the books or scraps of paper, offering their names to eternity in the scrawl of a Biro.
It was nice that these strangers waiting outside the office, the recording studio, the house, the shop or the concert hall, should want a little bit of them
But, after a while, fame lost its charm. Instead of offering freedom and unimaginable pleasures, being one of the four most famous faces in the world had turned them into prisoners of their own celebrity, unable to move without chauffeurs and minders.
So, when someone came up and asked for an autograph, they looked furtively from side to side and signed it without the old smiles.
Even adoration can become routine. So, as the material possessions mounted and the pens of the journalists were pointed at them like spears, they sought spiritual answers.
After all, theirs was an extraordinary story, even in the 20th century of war, famine, political turmoil, TV, cars, burgers and astonishing inventions, which led to man leaving his footprint on the moon.
Now, the slow, sad trail from jubilation to disillusionment can be followed in one of the most interesting books about the Beatles to be published in recent years.
It is the story told in the changing expressions found in more than 400 photographs taken of the Beatles between the late 1950s and 1970, with extra ones at the end, showing a drained, weary and unhappy-looking John Lennon on December 6, 1980, two days before he was murdered by Mark Chapman outside New York's Dakota Building, where he lived with Yoko Ono.
