Eleanor Rigby - Some Fascinating Findings

Many of you reading this will know that some months ago, after playing a few gigs in Liverpool, I was shown by a local guide a tombstone in a churchyard which had the inscription to Eleanor Rigby.

This aroused my curiosity and I decided that I would try and find out a bit more about this person whose name was on the tombstone, and also about the other people mentioned on the same tombstone.

I did indeed find out some information and I wrote an article about my findings. If you would like to read a copy of this article then please go to my website mentioned at the bottom of this article, and there you will find my email address and you can simply email me and request a copy.

I did say in that letter that as and when I could find out some more information, I would be writing another article, and this is the reason for these writings.

Now in case you cannot remember who Eleanor Rigby was, let me give you a few verses of the song, by The Beatles, which made her famous.

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for,

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

Do you remember that, a great song with a haunting melody.

Well now, soon after I had written my first article on what I had found out about Eleanor, I received an email telling me about a fascinating auction that was shortly about to happen in the UK.

What led up to the auction was this. A charity in the UK had written to Paul McCartney asking for a donation, nothing surprising in that you might think.

This charity did not hear back from Paul McCartney for 9 months, and then, right out of the blue, they received a letter which included a document.

The document was a Liverpool City Hospital salary register, showing the signature of an E. Rigby.

Eleanor Rigby apparently worked there as a scullery maid and the custom was to sign for your monthly salary.

Eleanor earned the princely sum of £14 per month back in 1911 when this salary register was signed.

This document gives us one of the clearest clues yet as to the identity of Eleanor Rigby, the woman in the song of the same name who dies alone with no one to mourn her.

Well I have more to say on this, and more research to carry out, so if you would like to be kept updated then please go to my website where you will find my email address. Simply send me a message asking to be kept updated.