The Beatles’ Puzzling Plan to Buy A greek Island

Hello Beatle people;

The following is a guest post by UK journalist Jonathon Knott regarding the circumstances which surrounded the Beatles’ ill-fated intention to purchase a Greek Island back in 1967. As he describes, his research into the topic “started by attempting to locate the island that the group wanted to buy, (and finding that) unevidenced assertions are then sometimes repeated unquestioningly in other accounts, leading to narratives and supposed facts becoming entrenched that contradict each other and don’t align with the available evidence.”

Research into a moment in Beatle history in which the narrative doesn’t align with available evidence? We live for that.

Enjoy everyone. As always, we look forward to you comments. ~ KH

THE BEATLES’ PUZZLING PLANS TO BUY A GREEK ISLAND

by Jonathan Knott

On a trip to Greece in 2010, I first heard the story about the time the Beatles wanted to buy a Greek island. Researching a travel guide on the island of Skiathos, I repeatedly encountered a local rumour that in the 1960s the group had visited the area and wanted to buy Tsougria, a small neighbouring islet. According to the tale, however, this proposed sale had eventually fallen through.

As well as piquing my journalistic interest, the story evoked a romantic vision that, it turned out, was backed up by comments from the Beatles themselves. At the height of the ‘summer of love’, the group had toyed with plans to “drop out” (in the words of George Harrison) and create a “sort of hippie commune” (Paul McCartney) on a Greek island. Apparent footage from a trip by the group to Greece, included in The Beatles Anthology documentary, reinforces this impression with its alluring shots of sunsets, beaches and shimmering seas.

I thought it would be interesting to write about these events – and perhaps attain more certainty about which island the Beatles had wanted. But the more I researched the subject – which I’m writing about for my Substack newsletter, Follow the Sun – the more mysterious it seemed to become. Barry Miles, for example, covers it in his authorised biography of Paul McCartney, Many Years from Now. According to Miles’ account, before the Beatles visited Greece, Alistair Taylor and Alexis Mardas – a Greek friend of the group who they had recently got to know in London – visited the country to “look at real estate”.

After several false starts, they found the perfect place: the island of Leslo, of about 80 acres, with four idyllic beaches and four smaller habitable islands surrounding it – one for each Beatle. The entire property was for sale for £90,000, including a small fishing village of traditional white-painted houses grouped around a harbour filled with brightly coloured fishing boats and 16 acres of olive groves.

In July 1967, Miles writes, the group then visited Greece – together with a small entourage comprised mainly of their partners and close associates. They spent a few days in and around Athens before embarking on a cruise around islands (minus Ringo, who returned early to London to be with his pregnant wife). After they visited the selected island, Alistair Taylor was swiftly dispatched back to Britain to arrange the sale. Permission to buy the special property currency needed for the purchase (which was at the time required due to restrictions on spending money overseas) was secured from the British government. However, the sale never went ahead after the Beatles’ enthusiasm for it “cooled”, says Miles. So the group sold back the property currency which they had bought, making a profit in the process.

In their broad outline, the events that Miles describes are not disputed. The Beatles definitely went to Greece in the summer of 1967 – and for a time, they were exploring the idea of buying an island there. It’s also true that while the Beatles sought and gained the approval of the British government for the plans, the proposed purchase ultimately didn’t go ahead. The evidence for this basic narrative includes photographs, newspaper reports, memoirs, official documents and video footage. But when we try to reconstruct a detailed account from these sources, things start to get confusing.

Official Documents

The most conspicuous problem with Miles’ account is that the name he gives for the island – Leslo – doesn’t appear to exist. As far as I know, there is simply no Greek island with this name. This situation becomes even more mysterious when we look at other evidence – because a completely different name for the island is given in official documents held in the UK’s National Archives. 

London solicitors acting for the Beatles – Goodman, Derrick and Co – wrote to the Bank of England on 25 July 1967, requesting permission for the four to buy property currency worth £120,000, so they could purchase a Greek island and renovate cottages on it. According to the application, the island comprised “approximately 300,000 square metres of arable land, olive trees, beaches and rocks”. There were five vacant fisherman’s houses there, and the deal would also have included “five smaller offshore islands”, with a purchase price of £86,914.

There is no overall size given for the island, and the details of the vendor are “to be supplied”. What about the island’s name? According to Goodman Derrick’s letter, it was “an island called Aegos in Konstadinos, Greece” – which is particularly puzzling, because there is no known island in Greece called Aegos, nor anywhere called Konstadinos.

Memoirs From Beatles Associates

The events surrounding the island plans are also described in accounts from a number of people who worked with the Beatles. The most comprehensive of these is provided by Alistair Taylor across 14 pages of his 1988 memoir, Yesterday. Taylor describes in detail a trip to Greece with Alexis Mardas in order to “make a short list of likely places” before the Beatles went to look at them. Following unfruitful trips to Crete and near Thessaloniki, the two then arrived at “the perfect setting for the Beatles”.

“There’s one big island of about 80 acres with four superb beaches and at least four other smaller islands surrounding it, all habitable,” Taylor writes of the location. The main island had 16 acres of olive groves, and a village with “half a dozen tall old houses set on a gently curving bay”. According to Taylor, the island and all the business on it was “owned by one family”, who wanted “£90,000 for the package”. When the Beatles visited Greece and saw the selected island, Taylor says they asked him to fly back immediately to arrange the purchase, believing that the price was a “bargain”.

In The Love You Make (1983), Peter Brown offers a similar description. He writes that the group were interested in a “tiny cluster of islands 25 miles out into the Aegean, 100 acres in all”. According to Brown, there were four beaches and 16 acres of olive groves on the large main island, which had “five satellite islands” – and the price for it all was £90,000.In his 2015 memoirs, Stephen Maltz – who worked closely on the Beatles’ finances at the accountancy firm Bryce Hanmer – says in a 2015 memoir (The Beatles Apple and Me) that the group were looking at an island that was “112 acres plus 5 little islands and five houses and only cost GBP 86,915”. (Maltz also writes that he had “received details” of a different island: “20 acres and one house” for £150,000.)

Despite some differences, there are clearly many consistent themes across these accounts – which in many respects also align with the descriptions given by Barry Miles and in the archive documents. But none of them provide a name for the island (or group of islands) that the Beatles wanted. 

Labis Tsirigortakis’ Reports

The Beatles’ visit to Greece in July 1967 was covered by the Greek media at the time – with one Athens-based newspaper, To Vima, publishing near-daily reports. This included an exclusive scoop on 23 July, reporting from an “elegant villa” in an Athens suburb where the group were based (and which we now know belonged to the Mardas family), accompanied by photos and quotes. On 25 July, the newspaper then covered a day trip by the group from two days previously, when they had visited several places on the Greek mainland accessible from Athens – Arachova, Itea and Delphi. It also provides details of various locations of their subsequent cruise around Greek islands. From these reports, it appears beyond doubt that the Beatles’ party travelled north up the gulf between the mainland and the large island of Evia, before heading north east to visit the Sporades group of islands.

Many (if not all – some are unbylined) of these articles were written by Labis Tsirigortakis, a Greek journalist who was then a reporter for To Vima, and later became a London-based correspondent for Greece’s state broadcaster. In his own memoirs, published in Greek in 2023, Tsirigotakis recalls speaking to both Lennon (during the 23 July excursion) and McCartney (at the house in Athens) in Greece before they embarked on the cruise. According to the book, when Tsirigotakis asked about whether an island or several islands had been suggested for the Beatles, Lennon replied: 

• Yes, we have selected three islands, which we are supposed to visit tomorrow and the day after. Don’t ask me which islands these are, because I don’t remember their names.

“From my own reporting, I later learned that these three Greek islands were Agia Triada opposite Eretria, the Lichadonisia in north Evia, and Tsougria opposite Skiathos,” adds Tsirigotakis. “The Beatles visited them by yacht two days later and their choice was the island of Tsougria.”

The journalist then writes that despite agreeing a price of £100,000, the Beatles later withdrew their interest after lawyers advised them of the likelihood of bureaucratic difficulties.

Other Media Reports

But according to another Greek newspaper, the Beatles’ apparent interest in Tsougria ran aground at a much earlier stage. On 29 July 1967, a paper called Makedonia wrote that Tsougria was set to be sold by its owner to the Beatles for 12.5 million drachmas (equivalent to about £150,000 at the time). However, according to the article: “The Ministry of Agriculture prohibited the sale and rejected the intervention of tourism, which thinks everything is about money and supported the sale. So Tsougria will remain free Greek territory for all Greeks to enjoy.”

The article also attributed comments on the issue to Paul McCartney, writing: “We wanted to buy it, said one of the Beatles, Paul, but they are no longer selling it to us. They told us that selling big plots of land is no longer allowed in Greece.”

Narrowing Down The Location

Before Labis Tsirigotakis’ book was published in 2023, I had identified the same three islands as the most likely subjects of the Beatles’ interest: Agia Triada, Tsougria and the Lichadonisia. (I discuss the evidence for each of these in more detail on my Substack.) But notwithstanding what Tsirigotakis has written, it seems to me that there is also a strong case for the Lichadonisia as the main location of the Beatles’ interest.

For one thing, this group of islands off the north-west tip of Evia appears to be a closer match to many of the descriptions of the place the Beatles wanted – consisting as it does of one main island, Monolia, which is about 80 acres big, and several smaller nearby islands. In contrast, Tsougria is much bigger – at about 290 acres – while Agia Triada is around 12 acres. (While there are various smaller islands near Tsougria, they don’t share a collective name or identity with the larger island.) Monolia also has plenty of olive trees, and other features mentioned in various accounts, such as a few houses and a gently curving bay. And there is footage of an island in the Anthology documentary that looks very similar to Monolia:

Above: Monolia, the largest of the Lichadonisia islands. © Jonathan Knott

In addition, from the documents in the National Archives it appears that substantial discussions about the possible purchase took place until several months after the Beatles’ visit. It wasn’t until 30 October 1967 that a note from an official confirmed that the group had decided not to proceed after being advised of “certain legal difficulties and of additional sums required to acquire the land in question”. But if the report in Makedonia is accurate, it had become apparent that the Beatles wouldn’t be able to buy Tsougria much earlier than this: while they were still in Greece.

Whatever the truth, the complexity of determining the island’s location highlights more general issues around researching Beatles history. The accounts in memoirs that we have were written more than a decade after the events, and it’s not clear whether they based solely on memory or on any documentary records. Later biographies may well have used these memoirs as sources – but we don’t know for sure, since they generally don’t include specific citations.

Contemporary news reports offer another perspective. But we should be wary of trusting these completely – and not only because the Greek media was censorsed at the time under the country’s then dictatorship (see below). Labis Tsirigotakis’ reports are extremely helpful, but include some confusing elements. An article on 27 July, for example, says that on the evening of Monday 24th, “John Lennon gave a lavish party to celebrate his son Julian’s birthday”, with all those on the trip offering the child “beautiful gifts”. This is surprising, since Julian’s birthday is on 8 April. Tsirigortakis doesn’t tell us about how he was able to report on the Beatles’ cruise or the sources he used. But given this apparent discrepancy, it is worth bearing in mind Paul McCartney’s admission (included in Many Years from Now) to Miles that “we started to try and plant lies to the press. We used to award each other stories for the best story printed.”

A headline from To Vima on 27 July 1967 about the Beatles’ cruise. The subheading reads: “Party for the birthday of Julian Lennon”.

(I’ve been in touch with Labis Tsirigotakis, who kindly gave me a copy of his memoirs. However, he didn’t respond to my specific queries about his reporting on these events.)

We might expect the archive documents to bring more clarity – but by introducing a second confusing name for the island, in some ways they do the opposite. Despite such difficulties, establishing more accuracy about this topic may help shed light on wider aspects of the Beatles’ history – such as the examples I discuss below.

Financial Motivations

From Stephen Maltz’s perspective, a significant factor in the discussions around the island plans was the potential to save tax. In his book, Maltz recalls the time when Mardas suggested the idea to him in June 1967: 

Alex said that he had heard from John and George that they were not happy paying so much of their income in taxes. He said he had very good connections in Greece and he could help the Boys resettle and pay a lot less tax in Greece than they were paying in England.

Hearing this, Maltz “immediately saw the financial possibilities”. The idea of resettling certainly seems to have been considered by John Lennon, who is quoted by Hunter Davies(in his authorised biography, The Beatles) discussing the possibility of the Beatles living in Greece for six months a year or more.

Regardless of the extent to which the island idea was financially motivated, the question focuses attention on the Beatles’ finances. At the time, extremely high tax rates meant that the group risked having to pay most of their earnings back to the British government, despite their phenomenal success. Addressing this matter was a major challenge for the Beatles’ financial and legal advisors. It’s not disputed that tax was a factor behind the creation of Apple Corps. But I believe that the significance of the financial issues facing the group at this time is often under-appreciated.

Politicals Of The Move

Clarifying the facts of this story involves untangling a range of surprising connections to British and Greek politics. In April 1967 – a few months before the Beatles’ visit – Greece was taken over by a military dictatorship. The colonels’ junta was unpopular in the UK, and some prominent cultural figures were urging a tourism boycott of Greece.

In contrast, the Beatles appear to have made no public statement on the situation, despite its high profile in the media. (In The Beatles, Hunter Davies quotes John Lennon saying that he was “not worried about the political situation in Greece, as long as it doesn’t affect us”.) Peter Doggett has argued that the episode demonstrates the Beatles’ “political isolation”. However, in other ways, they were showing strong political engagement at the time – particularly Lennon. All of the Beatles signed an advertisement in the Times of London that appeared while they were in Greece, protesting the criminalisation of cannabis – a hot political topic in the UK. And in his book, Labis Tsirigotakis recalls a conversation with Lennon in Greece where the Beatle railed against the “social inequalities in England” and the “inhuman crimes” being carried out by the US in Vietnam. These apparent contradictions would benefit from further examination.

It is also fascinating to consider what the attitudes of both the British and Greek governments may have been to the Beatles’ plans. Despite the junta’s strong disapproval of hippies and rock music, the country’s “tourist people” apparently “used [The Beatles] as propaganda” (in Hunter Davies’ words). Media reports at the time, as well as Labis Tsirigotakis’ memoirs, indicate the involvement of Greece’s National Tourist Office in the Beatles’ day trip on 23 July. It would be helpful to know more about how this came about, and whether Alexis Mardas or his father, Argyris (a military man who is often said to have had some connection to the Greek dictatorship), played any part.

Within the British government there was extensive deliberation, involving senior officials, about whether to approve the Beatles’ property currency application. But according to the archive records, these focused purely on policy. There is a notable lack of discussion about possible political dimensions, despite the ongoing controversy over the Greek regime. In a further twist, Arnold Goodman – a senior partner at Goodman Derrick, the firm which wrote the Beatles’ currency application – was also a confidant to the British prime minister, Harold Wilson. (In his memoirs, Goodman says that at the time, he was meeting Wilson for late-evening conversations every one or two weeks.) Personally, I would find it surprising if the possible political impact of the Beatles’ Greece plans never occurred to any of the senior figures in British politics who knew about them. But I’m not aware of any evidence that this was ever discussed within government.

Psychological Motivation

Various accounts suggest a psychological motivation for the Beatles’ desire to buy a Greek island. (“We want to buy an island, not here in Britain, but somewhere warm and away from the crowds,” is how Taylor characterises the group’s views in Yesterday). It seems clear that by late 1966, in the words of George Martin – “the boys were tiring of their prison of fame, and each wanted his own identity back.” The ongoing pressures of global renown, and frustration with public personas they had increasingly outgrown, may have contributed to the Beatles fantasising about escaping to their own island. The idea seems to have exerted a particular pull on John Lennon, who bought the island of Dorinish in Ireland a few months before the Greece idea emerged (March 1967).

In addition, the Beatles’ plans developed as the concept of the private island as a celebrity status symbol was gathering momentum. Today, we take this idea for granted. But in the 1960s, it seems to have still been emerging, with few high-profile examples before Aristotle Onassis’ purchase of Skorpios in 1963, and the sale of the Teti’aora atoll in the Pacific Ocean to Marlon Brando in 1966.

Connected to these psychological factors is the question of how AlexisMardas – a complete unknown when he moved to London in 1965 – was able to quickly find his way into the Beatles’ inner circle, which had previously tended to consist of long-standing friends they had known since their pre-fame days in Liverpool. Despite the years he spent working closely with the group, very little is still known about Mardas and his background. Deepening our knowledge about him would surely also add to our understanding of the Beatles.

CONCLUSIONS

In these ways and others, attempting to establish more certainty around the Greek island plans can – even if the truth remains elusive – help us to de-romanticize the story to reach a more accurate and balanced understanding. The same is surely true for other parts of Beatles history.