Annie: I kept John and Yoko love secret
VETERAN broadcaster Annie Nightingale knew about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s relationship before it was made public – but did not report the story for fear of breaking her bond of trust with The Beatles.
Nightingale, 80, the first female presenter on BBC Radio 1 and its longest-serving host, tells BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today that as a frequent guest at the Fab Four’s Apple Studios sessions in London, she learned secrets about the band long before they became public.
‘I was accepted but also knew that they had a kind of code – one strike and you’re out.
‘You let them down, you break that trust, and that’s it, it’s over,’ she tells host Lauren Laverne.
‘And I thought that was perfectly fair. I knew about John and Yoko before it was announced.
‘If that story breaks then they’ll think, “Oh, it’s your fault.” And when they did go public it was a great relief because sometimes it’s not good to be in the right place at the right time.’ Lennon and Ono’s relationship is often blamed for the break-up of The Beatles in 1970. They were married from 1969 until his murder in 1980. Nightingale, whose Desert Island Discs include songs from Billie Eilish and Beyonce, began her Radio 1 career in 1970, three years after the station was established. She tells Laverne she asked for a job when it started but was turned down because she was a woman. Nightingale says: ‘ They came out with this wonderful line, they said, “Our disc jockeys are husband substitutes.’’ That set up a lot of assumptions that all the women pop fans were housewives at home doing the ironing.’ Annie Nightingale is on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4 at 11am today.