It took about three weeks to start the break-up of the Beatles. Those were the three weeks from the day when Yoko Ono first bumped into John Lennon until the night she climbed into his bed. That encounter was what finished John's marriage to Cynthia,

started the Beatles quarrelling and led to the first crack in the most fantastic show business partnership of all time. But who would have thought that a funny looking little five-foot-nothing Japanese bird with a broad face and too much hair could have done it?

I saw the whole thing happen. For nearly seven years I was chauffeur to John Lennon, before and after Yoko's arrival on the scene. Today, when they live more or less permanently in America, I have a new job. And life is much less exhausting if not so exciting.

John hired me in the first place because he and George Harrison took one look at my 6'4" 18-1/2 stone frame and came up with the same conclusion. I'd make a great bodyguard. As John's chauffeur, I was not only his bodyguard, but jack-of-all-trades, organiser, Mr Fixit and,

at the beginning, chucker-out of small teenage girls who crept into the Lennon household hiding everywhere, including the bedroom and lavatory. That had been one of the job's disadvantages, but mostly I enjoyed every moment - until Yoko came along. Then things began to change.

John met her at an art exhibition sponsored by Marianne Faithfull's ex-husband, John Dunbar. We went because John wanted to buy some daft exhibit consisting of a couple of wires taken from an Army tank that lit up at each end.

Any handyman could have made one for a couple of quid but John paid £600 for it. He also paid £200 for a magnet swinging in the middle of a bit of plastic. And said it was art. Yoko was also there. She took one look at John and attached herself to him like a limpet mine.

With, I suppose, about the same destructive end result. It all started by her saying she wanted John to help her with art shows. He didn't want to know. In fact, the funny thing was that at the beginning he couldn't stand the sight of her.

That first day she clung to his arm while he went round the exhibition, talking away to him in her funny little high-pitched voice until he fled. She came tripping out after him into St. James's, and begged to come along to the studios where we were going to record.

"Sorry," he said, hopping into the car and quick. "but we're too busy." I'll say one thing for Yoko. She wasn't easy to put off. A few days later she turned up at the studios where the Beatles were working and conned her way in.

I suppose she had a bit of a name at the time, having made a film that consisted of nothing but pictures of people's backsides. Daft that was, too. Anyway, over those first three weeks, it got so that John couldn't move without her bobbing up at his elbow,

wearing her scruffy slacks and a sweater and with her hair hanging all over her face. The security guards at the EMI Studios used to joke that she was practically chaining herself to the railings and John was always groaning about what a pest she was. But nothing put her off.

When she wasn't appearing out of thing air like this she wrote letters begging for money to get her art projects off the ground. And finally John began to weaken. Came the day when Cynthia went off to the North and Yoko arrived at their house to talk to John

about him sponsoring some art show. A business meeting they said it was. But she didn't go back until the morning, and after that John couldn't leave her alone. They say these J*ps (note: *excuse me*) have a way with them, and it looks as if they might be true in her case.

I suppose, too, she was very different from Cynthia, who is quiet and rather proper. Yoko's more go-ahead, and she's very interested in sex. In a genuine way, that is, not just to catch a man. Funny really, because John always seemed to be the least sexy of the Beatles,

but once he met her, everything was different. Before Yoko we used to lead a pretty quiet life. There were no parties at John's home.They lived with their little boy, Julian, and Mrs. Powell, Cynthia's mother. There was a housekeeper, and it was a real home.

Even though John didn't get up until about lunchtime, there was always the fish and chip pan on the stove all ready to get his breakfast. At the time he was absolutely tied-up in his work. He'd shut himself up in the little studio at the top of the house, writing,

sketching, and composing. We wouldn't see him for hours. I always thought he and Cynthia were happy. They had a huge bedroom -- two rooms knocked into one, in fact -- and a special seven foot square bed. The house was modern and just right.

It's a bit different these days with Yoko. She has her own ideas. She likes what she calls "exhibition stuff" like an electric fire cut in half, or half a settee or radio. She sets them up as ornaments like people have flowers in vases.

Then there's what she calls her exhibition room. John bought her a white grand piano for it. They've got a step ladder set up in a room with a magnifying glass hanging down on a piece of chain. A notice attached to it says: "Look through here".

And when you do, there's a dead fly on the ceiling. Yoko thinks up all these things and John just follows. Aunt Mimi, John's aunt who looked after him when he was little, has a different idea of Yoko's ideas. She went made when she saw the house.

She visited it once when they were away. When she saw all those drawings John did of him and Yoko making love, the ones that caused so much trouble when they were exhibited, all she could say was: "Oh, good God! I'm worried about him." I was embarrassed.

I tell you, there in the room over the fireplace was a life sized picture of John and Yoko stark naked. And with them both full frontal. It was, in fact, the original of a record cover that also caused a lot of trouble. One that had to be taken out of the shops.

But some friend had taken a picture of himself in the same state as John and superimposed it on the photograph so that there were the three of them standing there, the third chap with his arm draped round the naked Yoko.

Poor Aunt Mimi was so upset, and I didn't feel right myself looking at it with her in the room. In those days before John left Cynthia, he and Yoko used to do their courting, to put it politely, in the back of the car while I was driving them around.

Not that I could see anything, of course. It was all dark in the back, but John wouldn't have minded much if I could see. Nor would she. What Yoko had was no secret to anyone. Always walking about the kitchen undressed, she was, and it wasn't a pretty sight.

But I'll say one thing, they really are close. He's always been easy to influence, but she's got him right where she wants him. She didn't even have to fight much after that first night when she went to the house when Cynthia was away.

It took hardly any time at all before John was telling Cynthia he wanted a divorce. John had been a bit of a lad before Yoko came along. We had to change the Rolls for something less conspicuous in the end because we were always parking outside some flat until much later

then we should have been. And people noticed. But he won't get much chance for any of that now. Yoko doesn't let him out of her sight. There was the time when John was asked to tea at Cynthia's just to see Julian for the afternoon.

He'd only been there about half an hour when eh came running, in a terrible state. "Quick, let's go!" he said. "That silly bitch's threatening to commit suicide." The housekeeper had rang to tell him Yoko had either taken an overdose or was about to.

Not taking any chances, we rushed back to town. When we got there, Yoko was lying in bed, looking as if she were at death's door. After that John didn't go to see Cynthia and Julian again. Yoko was different from the other Beatles' wives and girl friends I met during

my seven years as the Lennon chauffeur. She liked to be involved in everything that was going on. The other girls tried to stay out of the way of work. Even if they went to premieres and parties with the boys, they'd stay out of the limelight. I don't think any of the girls

much liked to see their blokes being mauled about by the fans, but they accepted it. But if anyone went near John, Yoko would get very upset. I remember in Paris right after their wedding, the pair of them had been out to lunch with Salvador Dali, the surrealist painter.

They'd gone because they thought he was a bit of a nut, but amusing. Anyway, after lunch, when they got back to the Plaza Athene Hotel, there were two young girls waiting. As soon as Dali's Cadillac drew up and John got out the girls started crying and kissing and hugging him.

Yoko was out of the car like a Japanese cracker. She tried to pull the girls off, saying: "Leave my husband alone. Please leave him alone. Those days are over." It was understandable in a way. She'd only been married to him for five minutes.

Still, as I said last week, Yoko didn't like letting John out of her sight. This really showed when the Beatles were filming Let It Be. The other wives hardly ever went to the studio and there wasn't any question of them appearing in the film.

Yoko, though, wanted to be included. She kept getting in the way of the cameras. And when John was playing the piano, she'd cuddle up next to him on the stool. It was funny, really - he kept making mistakes. Later the Let It Be work was transferred to recording studios

away from the film set. By then Yoko was expecting John's baby - though they weren't yet married. She didn't want to stay at home in bed - so they decided the best thing was to get a bed into the studios.

They sent me off to Harrods to order one, a double bed, late on afternoon with instructions to have it back that night. When I got to Harrods, I explained that I wanted the bed delivered right away. "Sorry, sir," they said, "we're closing." "But it's very important," I told them.

"It's for John Lennon." They rushed about then. The bed was delivered immediately. Every day Yoko climbed into it and sat there knitting away while work was going on. Paul's wife, Linda, seemed more annoyed than anyone over this.

The trouble was that Yoko liked having a fuss made of her. She'd send out the road managers every two minutes to get her a nice bit of fish, or a steak and some salad, or coffee. Yoko really enjoyed publicity. She had a book of poetry published by John's publishers.

Grapefruit the book was called. Some people thought it was interesting but I couldn't understand a word of it myself. When John was fond of someone, he never minded how much they used him. He was proper daft in that way. Everyone took him for a ride.

But he was generous and always doing things on the spur of the moment. Like the time when he and Yoko got married. They were canoodling in the back of the car one day when we were driving down to see Auntie Mimi at Bournemouth.

Now the thing about John was that he always wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. He'd get completely overcome with the idea of buying, say, a yacht. But, if he couldn't actually get it that minute, by the next day the urge had worn off, and he was off on another tack.

It was a bit like that with the marriage. Suddenly the pair of them decided then and there from the back seat of the Rolls that they wanted to be wed. "Les," says John, "can we get married on a cross-channel ferry?" "I don't know," I said. "Well, find out,"

he said and shut the communicating window. I dropped them at Aunt Mimi's and went off to Southampton to find out if it was possible. After a lot of argy-bargy and talking to skippers, I discovered it wasn't.

But someone directed me to the Cunard offices because hey thought it was possible to get married on an ocean liner. I was dubious but at Cunard they said they thought it was possible. "Right," I said, "when's the next voyage?" "About two hours," they told me.

I rushed off to phone and tried to get hold of John at his Aunt's. But they must have been yacking on the phone because I couldn't get through. And when I did, it was late. "Right," said John. "We'll go. Have you booked us on?" "No," I said.

"I wanted to make sure you really wanted to go first." Well, he wasn't at all pleased. I rushed back to Cunard but, of course, I was too late. I rang John but he'd cooled down. It had been a round-the-world cruise and maybe he'd had second thoughts.

Anyway, all he said was to ring his office in London and see if they had any ideas. So I handed the whole thing over to the Apple office. Then they discovered they could get married in Gibraltar without any waiting. But, of course, they had to get to Gib. That didn't please John.

He wanted to get married in the next half hour, and tried his best to get me to drive them straight to Paris. I had to explain that I hadn't an insurance green card for travelling abroad in the car, nor was there any guarantee that they could actually get married once they were

there. Nevertheless, I drove them down to the docks at Southampton where they tried to get across, even though they didn't have a passport between them. The authorities didn't recognise John, hidden as he was under a big broad-brimmed hat, and covered with hair.

Well, he was all right. As a British subject, he could cross to France. Yoko couldn't, being a Japanese with American papers. So, in John's flamboyant style, we collected their passports and hired a plane. It cost £600. They flew to Gib, and then to Paris after the wedding.

They hardly had a change of clothes between them. But I often wonder if they might never have bothered to get married if it had been like the yacht - unobtainable at that moment.

Now I know it sounds funny but I do think that in spite of all his talent and all the money he has made, John is perhaps one of life's losers. For example, the first time he decided to drive himself and Yoko, plus her kid and Julian, his kid, around on their own on a holiday.

Sometimes Julian used to come down to the house for the weekend but John wanted them to be closer and for the little boy to know his step-sister. They set off in the Mini and after a few days he was cock-a-hoop about the distance they had covered,

but a bit upset because the gearbox had gone. He phoned me to bring the new Maxi up to Liverpool where they were. They were going to drive round Scotland on their own. Good thing, I thought. But the next thing I knew was that they had been in a smash.

The drama was quite something. They spent a few days in hospital, then John chartered a helicopter to bring Yoko home. Later, they had the car sent down and when John saw it with Yoko’s blood all over the seats, he said: "Great. Don't touch it. Leave it as it is."

Then Yoko had the bright idea of making a monument of it, and putting it on a piece of concrete in front of the house. Well, after a bit, they got fed up with that and it finally finished up being crushed into three little blocks of metal by a car-crushing firm.

And it sits there to this day, in the garden, rapidly going rusty. Still, you can't help liking John. He has a good heart and he really means well. Yoko is harder to understand but she seems to make him happy. They really are close.

But I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if we just had not been able to fix it for that spur-of-the-moment wedding.

@BillyJa82485665 I think Peter Brown wasn't the whistleblower, but our boy Les.