http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0800beatles/0050news/page.cfm?objectid=12137718&method=full&siteid=50061
True story of me and George
Aug 22 2002
by Peter Grant, Liverpool Echo
LOUISE Harrison has one of those mid- Atlantic accents that are difficult to
place.
But there's no mistaking her roots when she says 'ta ra' and gives a
friendly laugh.
And the elder sister of George Harrison, travelling from her home in South
Illinois, has been looking forward to returning to the city where she and
all the Harrisons - dad Harry, mum Louise, brothers Peter and George and
herself were born.
"It's going to be wonderful being part of The Beatle celebrations and
opening an exhibition of photographs of George, taken by people who loved
him," she says.
But before she was back in the UK, 70-year-old Louise wanted to put the
record straight about reports of a rift with her late, much-loved brother.
It was reported in the press that she had opened a Beatle-related B&B and
George thought she was cashing in on her Beatle connections.
She insists: "There has been a story that just isn't true that there was
this rift between us. Never.
"It was said that I owned a bed and breakfast hotel in that little place
called Benton, in South Ilinois.
"I have never owned a B&B in my life.
"There is a B&B called A Hard Day's Nite which was my old home, but not
connected to me beyond that.
" In America this story is unheard of but in the UK, it seems to be passed
on and passed on. So thanks to the ECHO I can put that straight."
Louise says although she did support the B&B publicity-wise, that was her
only connection.
"So when people said after his death that there was a rift - well that was
nonsense," she says.
"George always spoke about being positive in life and about being human. And
that we were all here on a visit.
"His life was about spirituality and making people feel good."
Louise says she remained in touch with George throughout his life and was
with him just two weeks before his death in November last year.
She drove 900 miles from her home in Illinois to Staten Island University
Hospital where George was being treated for cancer.
"It was a very, very positive and loving meeting. I felt very much at peace
as I drove home after seeing him. I hated seeing him in that shape when he
had been such a vital, wonderful man.
She says one of her favourite memories of George, who was a devotee of Hare
Krishna, giving her a book about spiritual leader Maharashi Yogi.
"I told him that I had joined the Yogi's organisation and showed him my
membership card. George laughed out loud and said, 'so you're my Divine
Sister'.
"He still had his humour." Louise was born in 1931 and moved to America in
1954 after marrying Gordon Caldwell. They had two children but divorced in
1982.
During her early years in the US, George and their brother Peter visited her
before Beatlemania made such further cosy family reunions impossible.
She smiles at the memory of one such visit to her home in Benton, on
September 16, 1963, just months before the Beatles' famous appearance on the
Ed Sullivan Show.
George loved it in America and it was wonderful to see him. He made a lot of
friends," recalls Louise.
"He even played at a tiny club here and I remember it was like the kind of
British Legion you have in Liverpool.
"George played a few songs and the audience went wild. One man said to the
band leader 'hey you've got to book that guy'.
"Again, no-one really realised that they would go on Ed Sullivan and it
would never be the same again."
In America the following year George was taken ill with a bad throat and it
was Louise who moved into the adjacent room at the Plaza Hotel in New York
and nursed him back to fitness.
Louise says George was a man who believed in love of a very definite kind.
"Unconditional love - that's what he said to me. That is what we had. It's
what I spread in my work today. I run an organisation called Drop In as
opposed to Drop Out. It supports the work of people protecting the
environment."
For the past decade, Louise has appeared at Beatle conventions around the
world, much to the delight of fans who find her firsthand memories of the
Fab Four compulsive listening.
"When I was in America, radio stations would constantly ask for news about
George and the boys and I would recall tales they had told me."
Louise says she looks back fondly to the Beatles' early years in Liverpool,
when the fan base began to grow beyond the Beatles' dreams.
"That's when the Global Family was born - that's my term for it.
"Mum and dad would answer fan mail, because they knew that John and Paul and
Ringo could not go round writing to Beatle people - I never call them
'fans' - and the boys couldn't hug everyone they met.
"So mum and dad would write back and sign letters, 'Love From Mum and Dad
Harrison."
Recently Louise met up with Paul McCartney on his Driving Rain Tour.
"He was in such great form with Heather. I had last seen him in Orlando on
his world tour in 1990 ."
Louise is looking forward to her sentimental journey home and visiting the
house in Arnold Grove, Wavertree, where she grew up.
"I am so looking forward to spending time in Liverpool visiting the old home
and opening the photographic tribute exhibition at the Mathew Street
Gallery.
"I want to drive past my old school, La Sagesse in Grassendale, I still
think about the girls I went to school with back then. All my friends would
be in their 70s now. I certainly don't feel 70."
And then Louise's memories return to little brother George.
"In the 80s, I sent George all his letters back to him. I didn't want them
to become public property or to fall into the wrong hands.
"I am happy to put an end to any idea of any fall out or rift.
"George was all about love. "He is still about love. I'm in Liverpool to
keep that love flowing."
