The men behind the controls of the final Beatles album have spoken out about the tensions that led to the Fab Four's split, insisting a decision to wheel an injured bed-bound Yoko Ono into the studio was a terrible idea that could have marked the beginning of the end.

John Lennon's wife had been injured in a family car crash in Scotland and the Beatles star insisted she had to be with him at all times.

So a Harrods double bed was placed in the corner of the group's studio at Abbey Road and Ono watched the recording of what would be the group's final album, also called Abbey Road, as she recovered.

But engineer John Kurlander tells British music magazine Mojo it wasn't so much the bed in the studio that added to the tension in the studio, but the endless stream of visitors.

He explains, "My memory is not so much that it was curious that she was convalescing in a bed in the corner of the studio, but that she had her entourage... She had a lot of visitors

"It was on the studio floor, so if the guys were working on a song, it was distracting that she had so many people coming to see her."

Part-time tape operator Alan Parsons adds, "It was a strange atmosphere: Yoko in the bed in the studio, sending someone out to run errands and pick up food... and she and John would occasionally snuggle in there.

"I don't think there was any serious hanky-panky going on, but they would be side by side, like they would be in a hotel room... (But) it wasn't our place to comment."

Even Paul MCCartney, who agreed to be interviewed for the Mojo expose into the last months of the Beatles, has revealed the 'bed-in' was "surprising," adding, "We just had to work around her - and walk around her. It was the madness of the times: you just had to put up with it. What could you do? You couldn't say, 'Get that bed out of here.' She was John's girl."

