Rare 'backwards' Beatles Abbey Road photograph that dispels 43 years of conspiracy theories sold for £20,000

Photo shows Paul McCartney wearing sandals - proving he didn't 'die'

Hidden for 10 years, it's one of 25 prints in existence



Sold to an anonymous bidder for twice the estimated auction price







A rare photograph of the Beatles that disproves a conspiracy theory about Sir Paul McCartney's 'death' has sold for £20,000 at auction.

The photo shows the band walking in the 'wrong' direction across the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing - and more importantly shows McCartney wearing a pair of white leather sandals.



For decades fans of the Fab Four have suggested the singer was killed in a car crash and replaced with a lookalike - pointing to his barefoot appearance on the Abbey Road album cover as proof.

Iconic image: Taken at the same time as the famous Abbey Road album cover in 1969, this picture clearly shows Paul McCartney, third from left, wearing a pair of sandals The photo on the album cover was in fact just one of ten taken during the same 1969 shoot by photographer Iain Macmillan The outtake has been kept hidden away by a music memorabilia expert who put it up for sale at auctioneers Bloomsbury in London on Tuesday. The print had an estimate of £10,000 but it ended up selling for nearly twice that amount, to an anonymous private British collector who bid £19,600.

Alive and well: Paul McCartney on stage in Mexico City last week

Sarah Wheeler, the music specialist at auctioneers Bloomsbury, said: 'Both we and the vendor are thrilled with the price it achieved.

'Although there were 25 chromogenic prints of frame two of the shoot made at the time, it is still very rare for one to come on the market.

'The market is also very strong for Beatles memorabilia and it is these two reasons why it did so well.'



Macmillan, who died in 2006, was chosen for the shoot in North London because he was friends with Yoko Ono.

It was staged in August 1969 and featured John Lennon leading the band over the zebra crossing next to the Abbey Road studios.

The location has become something of a mecca for Beatles fans, and thousands of tourists have the photographs taken at the pedestrian crossing every year.

In 2010 the crossing was given Grade II listed status so it can be preserved for the future.

According to a theory at the time, McCartney died in an accident and was replaced with a lookalike.

Conspiracy theorists believed the Abbey Road cover contained clues, as the band wanted to reveal the truth of their guilty secret.



John Lennon, in white was seen as a preacher leading a funeral procession, Ringo Starr’s black outfit indicated he was an undertaker, while a denim-clad George Harrison was the grave-digger.

This left McCartney as the corpse because he was barefoot and out of step with the rest of the band.



Other so-called ‘clues’ include a car number plate relating to his age - 28 - if he had been alive, and the grouping of onlookers.

It was also claimed that the fact left-handed McCartney had a cigarette in his right hand had significance.

The theorists constructed a back-story that McCartney had been beheaded in a car crash earlier in the 1960s and the Beatles had continued with a replacement



The band, and Macmillan, always denied this.

McCartney insisted he had merely kicked off his sandals because it was a hot summer’s day.

On the day of the photoshoot, The Beatles were dressed in the suits of Tommy Nutter, Savile Row’s enfant terrible of the time – all except George Harrison, who insisted on wearing denims.

