#(a second Tenerife60 post tomorrow)

[harrisonarchive]

At the end of April 1963, George, Paul, and Ringo vacationed in Tenerife with Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann. Pictured here is a postcard George sent to next door neighbors in Liverpool.

“We sat together for hours by candlelight and exchanged memories and stories. When no one was quite able to keep their eyes open any longer, George approached me and whispered: ‘Is that fab little car out there yours?’ ‘Yes, it’s mine. Looks great, doesn’t it?’ ‘Do you think I could go for a quick drive before I go to sleep?’ I knew that George was crazy about cars, and sports cars especially. Years later he would drive Sterling Moss’s car at a charity race. I also knew that George was a very good driver to whom you could entrust your car even at five in the morning and after two bottles of wine. I couldn’t deny him his request, and accompanied him. And so, the car’s top down, we drove toward the sunset. We didn’t speak a word, listening instead to the sound of the motor of my small Austin, which sounded to me very different than it usually did. I think the motor was humming ‘Please Please Me’ in Spanish. Later we quietly drove toward the house. He even switched off the headlights, so as not to wake the neighbors or our sleeping friends. That was typical of Georgie. I knew him as one of the most considerate people ever. Later, George would become intensely involved with studying yoga, which goes far beyond the physical and breathing exercises we associate with it in the West. Today I believe that George already had the fundamentals for this in him back then. The practices and meditation techniques only serve to steer people toward the right path. They are only aids designed to make one more conscious and observant of one’s self and others in order to gain wisdom. George exhibited these traits early on. You noticed it with these small gestures and attentiveness.” - Klaus Voormann; translated from Warum spielst du Imagine nicht auf dem weißen Klavier, John? (2003) (x)