Paul McCartney: "Eleanor Rigby is totally fictitious"

Sir Paul McCartney has attempted to quash reports that he revealed the identity of Eleanor Rigby by denying she ever existed. Again. The McCartney camp have been unable to establish where the page from Liverpool City Hospital's account book - bearing the signature of one E Rigby - actually came from.

"Eleanor Rigby is a totally fictitious character that I made up," said McCartney in an official statement. "If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me."

The document is up for auction on 27 November and was, before the former Beatle waded in, expected to fetch £500,000 in aid of a new music therapy centre for the Sunbeams Trust charity. The seller, Annie Mawson, claims she was sent the page in 1990 after writing to Paul McCartney with a donation request.

"One day in the post came a brown envelope with a Paul McCartney world tour stamp, nine months after I had written the letter," remembered Annie Mawson. "I opened it and inside was this beautiful, ancient document. It was spine-shivering really, partly because he responded in such a personal way."

Denial

McCartney has always maintained that Eleanor Rigby was a fictional character, so it's unsurprising to hear this refute. It does, however, contradict Phil Norman's John Lennon biography, which claims that Lennon talked to his Aunt Mimi about Eleanor Rigby as if she did indeed exist.

If Paul McCartney is keeping secrets, you can expect him to take them to the grave. Buried, along with her name, nobody came, etc.