The wardrobe department gave him a pair of round wire-rimmed spectacles. He wore them for the rest of his life.

The Beatles had just played their last concert. John Lennon cut off the hair, took a part he had no particular reason to take, and went to the desert.

HOW I WON THE WAR (1967) is Richard Lester's anti-war satire, made by the man who directed A Hard Day's Night and Help!, and it is nothing like either.

Michael Crawford, Broadway's original Phantom of the Opera, plays a cheerful idiot of a lieutenant, sent behind enemy lines to build a cricket pitch. Dead soldiers come back and keep marching with the platoon. Lennon plays Private Gripweed for approximately eight minutes.

There was a great deal of waiting between setups. Lennon had a guitar. Over about six weeks he wrote a song about a Salvation Army children's home in Liverpool and played it to the only person around.

Michael Crawford was the first human being to hear "Strawberry Fields Forever."