Greek Island Treasury Document

[Jai Guru Deva]

From the U.K. National Archives, verification of a piece of Beatle history--the purchase of a Greek island in 1967.

[Girl]

Wow... great find, Jai.

[-Wings-]

I kind of find it odd that Ringo used Ringo Starr instead of Richard Starkey. But if he could do that, I guess Bill Sheppard could have signed it Paul McCartney.

[Girl]

Good point, Wings, but I imagine the name "Starr" was valid as far as anything "Beatles" was concerned... just like ol' Billy. Proving once again, that the "rules" don't apply the same for everyone...

[JoJo]

From Anthology, to the tune of "Baby You're a Rich Man".

Ringo: And it came to nothing..(the Greek island tour) We didn't buy an island, uh, we came home.

[revolver]

Interesting comment by Ringo. I wonder why he [they] covered it up on Anthology. Buying an island isn't something most people would forget. I remember someone suggesting that might be where they laid Paul to rest.

[-Wings-]

Hah, well I hope they did something with the body before then. Ten months in and it would be stinking something awful.

[Doc]

jojo said:

From Anthology, to the tune of "Baby You're a Rich Man".

Ringo: And it came to nothing..(the Greek island tour) We didn't buy an island, uh, we came home.

Perhaps they leased one, instead?

[plastic paul]

At the time of the Anthology series being made, this information wouldn't have been available to the public. It was only released in 1997, 30 years later, under the Freedom of Information Act.

Perhaps Ringo was unaware of the fact that this would be made public after a certain time and felt it was best not to open old wounds by inviting a whole series of questions regarding their purchase.

[guitargaz]

I guess Bill Sheppard could have signed it Paul McCartney

Again references to Bill Sheppard (sic) which are just based on the Pepperpots non-link with Bill Shepherd. There never was a link with my father to the Beatles, nor was there ever a Bill Sheppard involved in this story - it was Bill Campbell. You are mixing up names to make some empirical connection.

[plastic paul]

Gaz, that's two years ago, correct me if I'm wrong but you weren't here then, we are now all incredibly well-informed about the situation and we thank you for it, won't happen again.

Note to mods: Purge the forum of any incorrect use of the name Bill Sheppard to avoid upsetting people for something that happened ages ago.

Cheers!

;D

[LOVELYRITA]

I can't access the document, but it is interesting becoming public domain years later.
Maybe Ringo didn't understand that after a period of time those things are made available.

It's true when they said mysteries would be made known....

[fourthousandholes]

GuitarGaz wrote:
"...nor was there ever a Bill Sheppard involved in this story - it was Bill Campbell. You are mixing up names to make some empirical connection."

Well now.....
Not so fast Plastic Paul, and with all due respect to Guitar Gaz, there still seems to be
an element of "shepherd" in this mystery that relates to "Billy Shears" being a modern take on
William Shakes-his-peers, whose works are thought to have been at least partially written
by Sr. Francis Bacon, who is sometimes portrayed with a shepherd's crook. He (Sir Francis)
also edited the Bible, which includes the story of "the good shepherd".
So I'm not quite ready to disregard that name, because there does seem to be a deliberate linking
of Beatles songs and Christianity. For example, "I'll follow the sun". ("the Son")
So, GuitarGaz, Bill Shepherd may have been your father,
but there still could be someone else using that name involved in the mystery.
You could almost say, "If there wasn't, there should have been!" ;D
And, for what it's worth, the name "William Campbell" has questionable origins too.

[beatlies]

I was just reading "The Beatles Anthology" book pages on the Beatles/Faul's visit and near-relocation to a Greek island in 1967. Some questions that I have:

who exactly was Alex Mardas "magic Alex" and what was his relation to the Greek military and the military/fascist coup d'etat that happened in Greece in 1967?

what was the contest of John Lennon/Brill's statement to the effect that he didn't care if a brutal military dictatorship, "fascism" as he admitted, had just taken over Greece?

Is there a Sardinia fascist "Gladio" (think Marisa Sannia)-Greece coup connection?

"Our story begins in Corsica ..." ---Lennon on a Beatles Christmas message record.

From wikipedia, on the conspiracy of the right wing military junta that seized Greece on April 21, 1967, until August 1974. Note the Operation Gladio (Sardinia/CIA/MI6/NATO) connection:

"The conspirators were known to Spantidakis. Indeed, he was instrumental in bringing some of them to Athens, to use in a coup he and other leading Army generals had been planning, in an attempt to prevent George Papandreou's victory in the upcoming election and the Communist takeover that would, supposedly, follow it. The colonels succeeded in persuading Spantidakis to join them and he issued orders activating an action plan (the "Prometheus" plan) that had been previously drafted as a response for a hypothetical Communist uprising (see Operation Gladio). Under the command of paratrooper Lieutenant Colonel Costas Aslanides, the LOK (see above) took control of the Greek Defence Ministry while Brigadier General Stylianos Pattakos gained control over communication centers, the parliament, the royal palace, and according to detailed lists, arrested over 10,000 people. Since orders came from a legal source, commanders and units not involved in the conspiracy automatically obeyed them. Many of the arrested were held during the first days in "Ippodromos" (a stadium for horse racing by the sea) and some of them (Panayotis Elis one of them) were executed in cold blood by young army officers.
By the early morning hours the whole of Greece was in the hands of the colonels. All leading politicians, including acting Prime Minister Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, had been arrested and were held incommunicado by the conspirators. Phillips Talbot, the US ambassador in Athens, disapproved of the military coup, complaining that it represented "A rape of democracy" - to which Jack Maury, the CIA chief of station in Athens, answered, "How can you rape a whore?" [5] The Papadopoulos junta attempted to re-engineer the Greek political landscape by coup."

[guitargaz]

we thank you for it, won't happen again

Point taken about the date of the original post - I thought it was more recent. While there may indeed have been other Bill Shepherd's involved, my dad was not one of them - and when the story first started it was Bill Campbell as the name.

Also as to Shakespeare (sorry I am betraying the fact that I am an English graduate here) all recent scholarship with the benefits of new research and findings pretty much dismiss the Francis Bacon link and any others - Shakespeare was the son of a former mayor of Stratford upon Avon, a well to do glover who's fall from grace was to do with his secret Catholicism - Shakespeare was actually well educated and perfectly able to write the plays - something that was previously denied. But he was a Catholic in a Protestant England which meant secrecy in education and sponsors. I doubt there is any connection with Sgt Pepper.

As to the links of the Beatles and Christianity, anyone who knows anything about Liverpool would know it is a city with a strong division between Catholics (a lot of Irish descendents) and Protestants. The two football teams in Liverpool (and certainly this was very strong in the 60's and 70's) have always been divided by the religions i.e. Everton being Protestant, Liverpool Catholic. So anyone growing up in Liverpool would always have the religious divide as a very strong backdrop to their lives. So no surprise you might get some references to Christianity - however the example given is smewhat stretched in my opinion.

[JoJo]

There was also a Bill Shepherd who wrote numerous columns in the Beatles Book fan magazine, a mysterious behind the scenes character who had seemed to have unrestricted access to all their comings and goings. You wouldn't know anything about that perchance?

Not for nothing, but there has been unconfirmed information that Paul had a more than trivial interest in the writings of Manly P. Hall, even meeting with him at some point. (in 1966) As I'm sure you know, he wrote at length about the idea of Bacon being the real Bard.. Now.. the interesting question is not about the Shakespeare/Bacon debate, but whether JPM (and perhaps John) embraced this as the truth, and with all that follows.

[plastic paul]

Rangers - Celtic is probably a better example Gaz, but yeah you're right.

[guitargaz]

There was also a Bill Shepherd who wrote numerous columns in the Beatles Book fan magazine, a mysterious behind the scenes character who had seemed to have unrestricted access to all their comings and goings. You wouldn't know anything about that perchance?

Not the same person - it wasn't my Dad.

Rangers - Celtic is probably a better example Gaz, but yeah you're right.

Yes a good example but the Liverpool teams are relevant to the Beatles and their upbringing.

[Mellow Yellow]

I don't understand why, if the Beatles hated the lies and disinformation that surrounded them, would they help fuel those lies by saying that they never bought an island?

[TotalInformation]

As to the links of the Beatles and Christianity, anyone who knows anything about Liverpool would know it is a city with a strong division between Catholics (a lot of Irish descendents) and Protestants.

Yet in 1953 Catholic JPM was playing bell choir in the Anglican Cathedral!

Things that make you go hmmm...

[eyesbleed]

guitargaz said:

There was also a Bill Shepherd who wrote numerous columns in the Beatles Book fan magazine, a mysterious behind the scenes character who had seemed to have unrestricted access to all their comings and goings. You wouldn't know anything about that perchance?

Not the same person - it wasn't my Dad.
.

Yes, we're aware of that, but there was a Bill Shepherd involved with the Beatles before 66. I think the name Cambell was thrown out there as a bit of misinformation... could be wrong about that, I dunno, but there is still a good possibility that Bill's last name is also Shepherd. That's a fairly common name & a quick google will show ya that there are several Bill Shepherds out there who are profesional musicians..... so I think there's room in this world for Bill Shepherd the Bee Gee & Bill Shepherd the Faul.

Who knows what his last name is.... we may never know, but I haven't seen any reason to drop Shepherd as a possibility.

[guitargaz]

I haven't seen any reason to drop Shepherd as a possibility

Apart from any proof that is .....by that logic you could keep any old name in the ring. Sorry to sound dubious but this name was never part of the story. I still am not sure apart from the Pepperpots "connection" how this name was ever included in the JPM story.

[JoJo]

guitargaz said:

I haven't seen any reason to drop Shepherd as a possibility

Apart from any proof that is .....by that logic you could keep any old name in the ring. Sorry to sound dubious but this name was never part of the story. I still am not sure apart from the Pepperpots "connection" how this name was ever included in the JPM story.

Perhaps this is not clearly understood:

All contents of this discussion board are conjectural, opinion, and exploration of a well-known folk legend, and not intended to be taken as established or proven.

Anyway, there have been other discussions about the "shepherd" (small "s") theme, having nothing to do with the Pepperpots issue, some have had to do with the images in the McCartney album art and music for example.

One can gather these little details and get a strong signal, but not "proof", such a thing would require some kind of detailed outline from the parties involved. Does anyone think that's a realistic possibility?

[TotalInformation]

Just to go further offtopic -- could mr. gaz tell us whether Bill Shepherd of the BeeGees was born with that name? Were *his* parents named Shepherd?

[fourthousandholes]

Jojo wrote:
There was also a Bill Shepherd who wrote numerous columns in the Beatles Book fan magazine, a mysterious behind the scenes character who had seemed to have unrestricted access to all their comings and goings.[/color]

Guitargaz wrote:
"I still am not sure apart from the Pepperpots "connection" how this name was ever included in the JPM story."

I believe there was some speculation at TKIN that Bill Shepherd, the author, may have been "Billy Shears",
Paul replacement. Both names akin to William Shakespeare.