Pattie Boyd on marrying a Beatle: ‘I’m an old-fashioned girl – the man is the king of the house’

To be welcomed into the chic, bright Kensington apartment of Pattie Boyd is to enter a virtual gallery of the former model’s inspirational journey thus far. From the exquisite canvases of her iconic Sixties portraits dotted around the lounge, to the intimate framed snapshots of her with family and friends that line the shelves, Boyd’s story, played out for decades both in front of and behind the lens, is proudly and prominently displayed for all to see.

Sitting resplendently in the centre of this visual history, Boyd, 78, exudes pure class. Softly spoken and careful with her words, she is nevertheless absolutely honest at all times, while a cheeky streak of naughtiness befitting a countercultural idol and two-time rock wife bubbles just under the charming surface.

Invited into this evocative archive to discuss her new book My Life In Pictures, a stunning collection of more than 300 images documenting Boyd’s seven decades of work, our conversation naturally spans her emergence into the dazzling world of fashion as a teenager – represented here with shots by legendary photographers including David Bailey, Terence Donovan, Duffy, and Norman Parkinson – through to insightful glimpses into her personal life taken by Boyd herself, revealing unseen private memories from her marriages to The Beatles’ guitarist George Harrison, and then to his best friend, rocker Eric Clapton.

However, despite making a name for herself as a model, and the glamour of the celebrity lifestyle she had enjoyed for so long, it was, as she explains, only after two divorces and their emotional fallouts that Boyd began to finally piece her own identity together. “It took time and experiences,” she says, “to work out who I was.”

It was in 1962, while working as an apprentice in the Elizabeth Arden beauty salon in London’s Bond Street, that Boyd first made the move into fashion. A client, who worked at a fashion magazine, invited Boyd to pose for some test shots, then recommended her to a modelling agency. For an 18-year-old Boyd, the invitation into the elusive realm of her beloved Vogues and Vanity Fairs was too good an opportunity to miss. “This was the world I wanted to be in,” she explains, “full of wonderful people that knew about fashion, divine clothes, lovely photographers, and the excitement and the buzz that you get in a studio and when everybody’s working and being creative together.”

In addition to chronicling Boyd’s modelling progress, My Life In Pictures simultaneously charts the evolution of fashion during those revolutionary times, illustrating the shift from stiff, outdated set-ups to the innovative methods of photography’s new breed. “It was like a big movement, really,” Boyd confirms, noting how the cultural transitions manifested in boys’ hair getting longer and girls’ dresses getting shorter.

As her busy career took off, Boyd left behind a past that had once threatened to restrain her. Attending boarding schools in England after spending the first few years of her life in Kenya, Boyd was caught between the strained relations of her distant parents (her turbulent family life was exposed in Boyd's must-read 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Today) and the strict, stifling command of Catholic nuns, who’d groom their girls for marriage and servitude. “I didn’t realise that I could have a career,” Boyd admits. “I didn’t realise that the world was as broad as it is, and that there would be many things that I could possibly do. I had no idea.”

By 1964, Boyd's appointment books were regularly full as she crammed her days with numerous shoots. On one occasion that year, having attended a casting session for an unknown project, she unwittingly landed herself a role in The Beatles’ debut movie, A Hard Day’s Night. On their first day of filming, Boyd and the crew boarded a train at Paddington Station. Twenty minutes later, when it stopped at Acton Main Line, The Beatles – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – joined them. “We were in a carriage, us girls,” Boyd remembers, “and they sort of slid back the door and introduced themselves, shaking our hands. And they were so polite and charming, but they’re all giggling as well.”

“George Harrison asked me out!!!!!” reads the entry for that day in Boyd's diary, which is reproduced in her new book. The guitarist had invited her to dinner, but Boyd declined since she had a boyfriend - she was dating photographer Eric Swayne. The film required a press shoot the following week, so Boyd, excited to see Harrison again, ensured she was single for the occasion, should he ask her out a second time. He did. Less than two years later, the pair were married.

Being a Beatle’s wife naturally heightened Boyd’s profile, and she became an in-demand model, walking the catwalk for pioneering designer Ossie Clark (“He never paid us,” she laughs, “but he would give us the outfits” – she still has them) and setting Sixties trends alongside good friends Twiggy and Penelope Tree.

Working in the spotlight brought extra pressure to maintain her figure, so harmful slimming pills and diet biscuits were the order of the day. “I didn’t didn't think about my health at all,” Boyd says now, looking back at her impervious youth. “I thought about my weight, and the look. Health was the last thing I thought about.” She bears no regrets, but is glad that models’ natural shapes are fully accepted today. “People should be how they are,” she adds. “That shows in a photograph. If somebody’s very happy and proud of how they’re looking, that comes over. That’s great.”

Despite her enviable status, however, Boyd still struggled with a crippling insecurity that stemmed from her childhood. Working required a great deal of self-motivation. “I had to take a deep breath,” she says, “and know and understand that I have to put one foot forward and move, otherwise the universe is not going to help me.” Her anxieties were further tested by the intense public scrutiny around her husband. “People wanted to meet George, and they’d want to meet me, and I'd feel very insecure,” Boyd reveals. “And so I had to force myself to bring out what was hidden inside me.”

Eventually, Harrison persuaded Boyd to curb her modelling. “I’m probably an old fashioned girl at heart, that the man is the king of the house,” she insists, “and so I didn’t expect to be on the same par as George, obviously, but everything was really for him.” She bought a Pentax camera and, having learned on the job from her photographer friends, began taking her own pictures. Her photos of her and George at home in their Surrey bungalow suggests that Boyd embraced the domestic life well. “I did,” she enthuses. “I loved it. I loved cooking for George and being creative. We were vegetarians, and so I had to work even harder.”

During that time, Boyd devoutly absorbed the Eastern philosophies that she and Harrison discovered on their travels to India, and it was she who was first initiated into Transcendental Meditation, a technique then fervently adopted by The Beatles, and one that Boyd still practices today. But even meditation couldn’t relieve George Harrison’s tensions as The Beatles reached breaking point, and the mood at home darkened. “He brought it all home,” she says, “and it was kind of difficult to live with.”

Revisiting that period last year when she watched Peter Jackson’s illuminating The Beatles: Get Back documentary, Boyd was relieved that the film (which showed Harrison working on an embryonic Something, his love song to Boyd) brought back only positive memories. “I had forgotten how really hilarious John Lennon was. He was so funny,” she says. “It was good for me to see because I could see that they were funny and they were having a nice time.”

Unfortunately, Harrison’s erratic mood swings worsened, exacerbated by excessive cocaine use in the early Seventies, and his affairs with other women eventually pushed the couple apart. Boyd left Harrison, and what she described as a “ludicrous and hateful life”, in 1974. “It was an extremely difficult decision of mine to make,” she sighs. “I felt that I had to leave George because things were getting really out of hand. George was just being a different George. We had gone in different directions, basically. But we still loved each other… It’s just that I think he wanted to spread his wings and take advantage of being the handsome, famous, rich guy that he was, and see how the girls feel about him. A hot-blooded boy – why not, I suppose.”

Within weeks, Boyd started going out with Eric Clapton. The guitarist had pursued Boyd for years, declaring his undying love to her while married to his best friend, and pleading with her to leave him. One of his beseeching letters is presented in Boyd’s book (“If you want me, take me, I am yours,” it reads) and is cryptically addressed to “Layla”, a reference to an ancient Arabian love story, and later the title of the classic track Clapton wrote to lure Boyd.

The couple married in 1979, but it was an unstable relationship from the start. Clapton had descended into heroin addiction after Boyd’s repeated rebuffs, but having cleaned up, began drinking heavily instead. Boyd had gone from one life of excess to another, and this one entirely without structure. “Yeah,” Boyd scoffs, “we never had weekends.”

Clapton’s odes to Boyd – which include the tender Wonderful Tonight – endure, but her suffering of his alcoholism and infidelities had to end, and they split in 1987. The trauma of her two divorces hit hard, and her self-esteem crashed. “Well, I was no longer Mrs Famous George, or Mrs Famous Eric, so who am I?” she says. “I am no-one. No-one knows me – I don’t even know me. I was at a critical point in my life, and so I saw a psychotherapist who was quite wonderful. She was amazing. She guided me out of this mire of despond and gradually I learned to believe in myself.”

Photography proved Boyd’s lifeline – not only did it keep her busy, but it earned her a living, and an identity all of her own – and she has since exhibited her work around the world. Now a New York Times best-selling author, Boyd also helms her own podcasts; Lunch In Lockdown documented her pandemic recipes, while Cocktails With Pattie finds her mixing drinks with famous friends such as model Jodie Kidd and Queen’s Roger Taylor.

She is seven years happily married to property developer Rod Weston, whom she met in 1991, and can finally say she has realised the secret to a long and healthy relationship. “I think it’s a really good idea to keep in touch with each other all the time to know what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling,” she reports. “To lose that code of communication, you gradually can drift apart.”

Today, Pattie Boyd is both an icon of fashion and empowerment. It was the adoring letters from young girls eager to replicate her Sixties style that led to Boyd publishing My Life In Pictures, and she’s proud to know she’s an inspiration to a new generation  – a fact best exemplified in 2018 when Boyd was interviewed for Harper’s Bazaar by Taylor Swift, who perhaps found herself identifying with certain elements from Boyd’s autobiography. “[Taylor is] such a massive, good influence on a lot of young people,” beams Boyd, “and for her to say that she likes what I’ve written, it makes me very happy.”

That Boyd is here to tell her tale makes her a survivor and that in itself heartens others. “Some girls tell me about going into deep depressions and sadness and then reading my first book, it brought them out and encouraged them to carry on, and realise that life doesn’t have to be all a downward spiral,” she says.

Thriving on a journey of self-discovery, Boyd’s resilience has ensured that she has never been a victim of her own ordeals, something she is keen to prevent girls becoming in today’s often brutal world of social media. “Certainly if I can help any of them,” she vows, “I hope that I do in whatever way that I can.”

My Life In Pictures is published by Reel Art Press on October 25