Laudate: Newdigate, Surrey.

By all accounts a prince amongst men, Beatles press officer Derek Taylor leased a house in the middle of nowhere (actually in the middle of Surrey) from Peter Asher for a while in 1968. The Japanese style dwelling overlooked a lake set in 11 acres of grounds, and one much talked about evening Derek invited Neil Aspinall, Pete Shotton and John over to listen to Nilsson's first album and drop acid. Such was the stuff of quiet evenings in...or out. John and Pete spent part of the night rowing on the lake, illuminated by spotlights. At 4 in the morning, during a thunderstorm, the wife of the groundskeeper walked in from the darkness unexpectedly, to everyone's delight, and began improvising a song. John was much impressed. Amusingly, when she left, they all got the fear - paranoia about who else might be lurking in the trees. (As it turned out, the answer to that question was the police - one of the Great Train Robbers, then on the run, had used Laudate as a hideout, and the scuffers were rather hoping he might put in a repeat appearance). Later on, John's ego dissolved, as it does. Derek spent much of the night re-assuring Mr Lennon that he was actually a man of some considerable worth. Anyway, here is Laudate. (Incidentally, or not, Derek Taylor's book As Time Goes By is well worth seeking out, full, as it is, of lines such as "He met the Beatles in the acid summer and that was that and that was that and that was that". And that is that.(Is it just me, or has the house been demolished?)