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Picture source: Google Streetview

The Swan Inn was situated on Towns End. This pub was present in 1939 and is now in residential use.

Source: David Fisher

This is the pub the Beatles stopped at on the way back from their Magical Mystery Tour of the West Country in 1967. At the time I was working in Berkshire during the week, and at weekends used to travel home to Mere in Wiltshire along the A303 which in those days went through the village of Wylye. As we were driving through Wylye I saw a coach outside a pub (The Swan?) with quite a few people in pink shirts in the car park at the front. I then noticed George Harrison outside the pub, talking to one of the other people. We stopped the car a little way past the pub, and two of us walked back. I asked George for his autograph, which he willingly gave me on the back of an envelope I had with me, which was franked with the previous day's date. He suggested I went inside to get the other autographs, but for some reason I didn't. Meanwhile, my colleague, unbeknown to me, took a couple of photos of George. Many years later, still friends, we were talking about the incident after I chanced upon the autographed envelope in a drawer, and he mentioned the photos. His brother was "into" ebay, and he suggested that we advertise them for sale. We eventually sold them to someone in Australia for several hundred pounds, which we shared. If only we had gone inside ..

Peter Towndrow (June 2020)

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