Twenty-five years ago today, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reunited with George Harrison for the last time. The three surviving Beatles met for lunch in New York on November 12, 2001, while Harrison was receiving treatment for cancer. Just 17 days later, he was dead, aged 58.
Looking back on that final visit, McCartney recalled an afternoon filled with laughter and reminiscences rather than sadness. He also remembered an unusually tender moment between two friends who had known each other since childhood.
“We held hands,” McCartney told Uncut seven years later. “It’s funny, even at the height of our friendship, as guys, you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing. But it was lovely.”
“But it was really lovely, and the years just stripped back,” McCartney said of the visit.
Rather than dwell on Harrison’s illness, the two friends found themselves reminiscing about their shared past. McCartney recalled one exchange in particular, when Harrison expressed frustration at being moved between treatment facilities.
We held hands. As guys, you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing. But it was lovely.”
— Paul McCartney
“One of the things I remember him saying, because he’d been moved from Switzerland to a clinic in New York, and then to a clinic somewhere else because you sort of follow the treatment, he said ‘Can’t we just stop in one place?’ And I was going, ‘Yeah! Let’s go to Speke Hall!’”
Speke Hall, a Tudor manor house in Liverpool, was not far from the neighborhoods where the two musicians had grown up. McCartney’s suggestion was a playful invitation to return to familiar surroundings, far removed from the medical treatment that had come to dominate Harrison’s final months.
Their friendship had begun long before Beatlemania, when the two boys discovered they shared a passion for rock and roll and electric guitars.
“I first met George a long time ago, on the school bus,” McCartney told Uncut. “We occasionally would sit next to each other on the bus, and we found we had rock and roll in common, and guitars. Eventually, we made a guitar together. It turned out more like a Hawaiian guitar.
“It was a block of wood with strings on it. When I say we made it, I have to hand it to George, he was more the engineer than me. I stood by and made a few useless suggestions. Those kinds of things brought us closer together. We became friends.”
That friendship would eventually change the course of popular music. When McCartney and John Lennon realized neither of them had the skill to play lead guitar, McCartney knew exactly whom to recommend.
He was a bit too young, almost out of the age range for us, a little too baby-faced, but he was just a great player.”
— Paul McCartney
“Eventually, when we were looking for a guitar player, I suggested to John that I had this friend who was really good. So George came along one night, on an empty bus, on the top deck, somewhere around Woolton where John lived. And he pulled out his guitar and played ‘Raunchy,’” he said, referring to Bill Justis’s 1957 hit song. “And that was it — he was in the band.
“He was a bit too young, almost out of the age range for us, a little too baby-faced, but he was just a great player.”
Harrison joined the Quarrymen, the group that would evolve into the Beatles, while still a teenager. He would go on to become one of the most distinctive guitarists in rock, contributing to some of the band’s most enduring recordings before establishing a successful solo career.
Looking back on their final meeting, McCartney captured the lifelong affection he felt for his friend.
“It was good,” he recalled. “It was like we were dreaming. He was my little baby brother, almost, because I’d known him that long.”
