I suddenly discovered that feeling in me and I like it

I suddenly discovered that feeling in me, and I like it.”Yet, there is still the anger – a long-simmering fury, which, she insists, she has always managed to contain and channel. It is no secret, for instance, that Yoko has been held in deep suspicion by many of Lennon’s fans, who have continued to blame her for detaching her husband from his bandmates and precipitating the break-up of The Beatles. Stories about her battles with the surviving band members continue to circulate with some venom.”I was upset about many things. I was not immune to the fact that the whole world misunderstood me and kept attacking me They did when I got married to John. The thing is, at the time, if I gave into it, and just got upset, then I would have made myself ill I couldn’t afford to do that. That is what I am saying about negative thinking, and that is what we can’t afford.” And the shooting of Lennon? “I am still not free of it,” she answers, “but I have transformed that energy of anger – an incredible energy – into a passion for bettering the world.”One of the reasons that I was able to think that way was because of my son.

I had a five-year-old who was crying, so I couldn’t afford just to be angry, I had to do something about it.” Sean, now a recording artist, is in Los Angeles, she says, working on a new album “I like that he is such a sweet person A very politically correct person. I didn’t teach him that, he learnt on his own.”As for the disagreements between her and the other Beatles after John’s death, she admits that they arose, but mostly over business The press loves to play it up, she says “You like the idea of us being in the boxing ring It is not exciting if we are just friends. You like this idea of animosity between us.” If business arguments do break out, it is because she is trying to protect John’s legacy “That’s the responsibility he gave to me. They don’t bleed so much; we can cut their arms, but it doesn’t hurt them so much. They are different.’”This was the home she built with John and their child It was right to remain in it, she argues.

If John were alive today they would probably be sitting in this room right now, with its corner window looking on to the park and down the avenue of Central Park West Although perhaps not for ever “He wanted to retire in Cornwall. He said we would be sitting in rocking chairs together, waiting for a postcard to come from Sean.”But nothing seems to unbalance Yoko more today than the accident of having left her dressing-room door open for me to spy into. It is no ordinary walk-in wardrobe, but a room larger than the average Manhattan apartment. And it is brimful with outfits, many on hangers arranged on circular stands. Most of them are black.Yoko admits that she hasn’t thrown anything away since she and John arrived in New York from London in 1973. At the time, they ditched all their London clothes – an impetuous act that she has long regretted. But don’t cast her as some kind of Imelda Marcos, she pleads.

“You go to any Hollywood household, and all those ladies will have as many shoes, and in New York too,” she protests. “Imelda was accused because she was Imelda, because she had dark skin. When she was accused, all the ladies in Hollywood were horrified, because all of them had bigger shoe closets than she did.”Yoko Yoko Stop with the negative thinking No one is accusing you of anything. Keep your clothes, by all means, and forgive us for being mildly interested.