Eleanor Rigby Payslip Sold

• 3rd Dec 2008

That 97 year old pay slip signed by E Rigby, who may or may not have been the inspiration for Beatles song 'Eleanor Rigby', has sold for £115,000, a not insubstantial sum of money, though quite a bit less than some had predicted (though a lot more than the £14 Ms Rigby was signing for on the salary document). The seller was charity Sunbeams Music Trust, whose founder was sent the pay slip by Paul McCartney in 1990 after she wrote to him asking for donations.

The document auctioned was a salary register from Liverpool City Hospital and features the name and signature of E Rigby, a scullery maid who has signed for her monthly wage. It's thought this E Rigby is the same as the Eleanor Rigby who is buried in a churchyard in Woolton, Liverpool where a young Lennon and McCartney sometimes hung out.

Macca originally said he made up the name 'Eleanor Rigby' by taking the name of actress Eleanor Bron, who had appeared in Beatles film 'Help!', and crossing it with the name Rigby, which he saw on the sign of a shop in Bristol. However, when the aforementioned grave came to public attention he later admitted he may have been subconsciously influenced by the real Eleanor Rigby's grave, which he may have seen as a teenager.

The document was sold at the Idea Generation Gallery in Shoreditch last Thursday.