The only time I have previously had the privilege of strolling across the most famous zebra crossing in the world and into the most famous studio in the world, it felt like stepping into a museum: to the extent that they even had the original, stand-up sixties ashtrays set up in Studio Two. Ashtrays into which john Lennon and Paul McCartney would once – well, more than once – have tapped their Gauloises Bleus while recording with the Beatles.
“They will have them here, but they’re not in the studio,” smiles Mary, the daughter of the latter, sat in the Gatehouse Room of Abbey Road – the studio about which she has made a documentary –when I ask her if this is still the case. “They’re probably trying to discourage people lighting up in the studio these days.”
