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PATTIE BOYD Rock and roll’s most famous muse Pattie Boyd has finally found her own identity, says Charlotte Metcalf Portrait by ALEXANDRA DAO
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husband! Also I learnt early on from Ravi Shanker the importance attie Boyd frequently graced the covers of magazines of forgiveness. He taught me that very few people really want from Honey to Vogue when she was a model, wife to hurt others.’ Reading in her memoir about how cruelly and and muse of George Harrison and later Eric Clapton. carelessly George and Eric behaved towards her, both through So I’m taken aback when she confesses that she doesn’t addiction and repeated infidelity, I am constantly struck by how like having her photograph taken. ‘Looking back, I always seemed to look OK but at the time I never liked how I looked and wanted to unjudgemental she is. She’s always looking to excuse them and it’s this generosity that makes her utterly without bitterness or look different – like Jean Shrimpton or Celia Hammond,’ she says. resentment today. Yet it was Pattie’s face that inspired George Harrison to I am trying to understand how someone so famous propose the day they met as teenagers. It was her face can be so modest and she tells me a story about the first that drove Eric Clapton wild with desire and inspired time her photographs went on show in San Francisco: him to write Layla and, later, Wonderful Tonight, which ‘I arrived at the exhibition with a couple of girlfriends became the title of Pattie’s 2007 memoir, written with and we were told to go upstairs and have a drink and Penny Junor. At 73, Pattie’s cornflower blue eyes remain some minder came with us. Eventually we were called startling and her legs are as enviously long and slim down and I saw the minder mumble into his walkieas ever. At one point we talk about hair. ‘People keep Killer heels talkie up his sleeve, “Pattie Boyd is coming down now.” telling me I should cut it – should I?’ she asks. Having or country Suddenly for the first time ever it was all about me. long hair myself I demur. ‘Sod it,’ she says, ‘I like having brogues? I love It was like entering a whole new world.’ long hair,’ and she lets out a great gutsy gargle of a shoes but killer heels always Being Mrs Harrison and Mrs Clapton had never laugh that indicates an underlying spirit of merriment get stuck in given Pattie a sense of identity. She describes losing and joy, despite the ups and downs of the roller coaster the grass, her sense of purpose in both marriages: ‘George that has constituted her life. don’t they? was the man of the house and could do anything he Anyone with any interest in the sixties or seventies Dog or cat? wanted. Servants were there to obey every whim. But knows quite a lot about Pattie already. She met George We have an one of them started cooking for him instead of me as a model, when she was cast to play a schoolgirl in A Irish terrier. and George preferred his food, I felt hurt, usurped Hard Day’s Night. He was instantly smitten. Later she Michelin star or and ganged up on. Women must never let that married Eric Clapton. Her memoir about those times country pub? happen – I floundered.’ is an irresistible page-turner, not so much for its juicy In London I Today Pattie’s happily married to Rod Weston, a glimpses into the world of rock ’n’ roll but more for love a Michelin property developer, and lives between Kensington and Pattie’s endearing modesty and emotional honesty. starred restaurant but West Sussex. She still loves gardening and cooking and Behind the glittering life that most women would in Sussex I love is building a studio in line with her developing career have ripped a limb off for, is a young woman with the Half Moon as a photographer. Recently Taylor Swift interviewed simple, universal needs: she wants a husband at Kirdford, Pattie for Harpers about the creative process between to love and be loved by; she wants to see her friends owned by Jodie Kidd – the food the muse and the songwriter. Typically Pattie only has and family; she enjoys gardening and uses cooking is fabulous. praise for her. ‘She was adorable, smart, intelligent,’ as a way of nurturing the people she loves. She’s most she says. ‘I told her that the most important thing to honest of all about wanting a baby, a yearning that Penthouse or country remember is that life never remains the same. I thought was never satisfied. When I knew I was going to be cottage? my life was so fab and would always be like that. Then interviewing Pattie I asked one of her friends why Country one day the limos are nowhere to be seen and you she thought Pattie was so irresistible to men. ‘She’s cottage. can’t go shopping willy-nilly any more. You have to be just so kind,’ she answered. Designer dress adaptable.’ Pattie admits she feels she’s finally grown Certainly she was kind about moving her schedule or country up and discovered her identity. ‘Time and being around to accommodate this interview and even casuals? I’d battered around by life has made me feel strong,’ writing her memoir sprang from an altruistic motive. have to say designer dress. she says. As she says at the end of her memoir, ‘If ‘I wanted to help girls and young women and I had the someone stops me and says, “Aren’t you Pattie Boyd?” knowledge to do that,’ she says. ‘I was unrealistically Glass of wine I give them a big smile and say, “Yes! I’m Pattie Boyd!”’ optimistic about relationships and now I know how or green tea? Despite her fame as rock and roll’s most iconic muse, crucial it is never to lose your girlfriends – at least the Glass of wine. she never really asked for more. ones that pass the test of not wanting to jump on your
IN BRIEF
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