THE BEATLES NEEDED a way to finish their film. And time was running out. Throughout January 1969, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg (the man who shot the Paperback Writer/Rain and Hey Jude/Revolution promotional shorts) had been filming the dissolution of the biggest band in the world as they rehearsed and recorded the songs that would eventually appear on Let It Be.

The decision to move the production from the cavernous confines of Twickenham Studios to the intimate rooms of the new Apple offices at 3 Savile Row in central London was a wise one, immediately thawing the frosty atmosphere that had so far blighted the project. Beatles Press Officer, Derek Taylor: “I was glad when they came back to Apple and were inside the building again. There was a two or three-week period at the end of January when it was nice”.

A live concert had been suggested as a way to end the film and so it was that on January 30 The Beatles ascended the stairs at Apple HQ to play live together for the very last time. What followed remains one of the all-time greatest moments in pop culture…

With thanks to The Beatles Anthology and Mark Lewisohn’s The Beatles Chronicle.