Features
Macca Rejects Rigby Claim
An executive for Sunbeams Music Trust, which provides music therapy for people with special needs, recently came forward with a document dated Nov. 30, 1911 that bears the signature of one E. Rigby, a scullery maid who worked at Liverpool’s City Hospital.
Anne Mawson claims Macca sent the document to the trust in 1990 as a response to a donation request, and she’s put the paper up for auction at London’s Idea Generation Gallery, where it is expected to fetch £500,000 (US$750,000).
“Eleanor Rigby is a totally fictious character that I made up,” McCartney said in a statement to global news agency Agence France-Presse. “If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove a fictitious character exists, that’s fine with me.”
McCartney has claimed previously that the name for the song was inspired by actress Eleanor Bron from the Fab Four’s 1965 film “Help!” and the name of a wine merchant.
The document goes to auction Nov. 27.