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A month before his death, Brian Epstein wrote to his American business partner Nat Weiss, thanking for him for his kind words following the recent death of his father.

He went on: ‘The week of Shiva is up tonight and I feel a bit strange. Probably been good for me in a way. Time to think and note that at least I’m really needed by Mother. Also time to note that the unworldly Jewish circle of my parents’ and brother’s friends are not so bad. Provincial maybe, but warm, sincere and basic.’

He moved on, as always, to the Beatles: ‘The boys have gone to Greece to buy an island … a dotty idea but they’re no longer children and must have their own sweet way’.

The idea of buying a Greek island had been popped into John’s head by his new best friend, ‘Magic Alex’ Mardas, perhaps the most fraudulent of all the Beatles’ hangers-on.

Alexis Mardas was the son of a major in the Greek secret police. Arriving in London in 1965 on a student visa, he worked briefly as a television repairman before a chance meeting with Marianne Faithfull’s husband, John Dunbar. Handy with a screwdriver, Mardas had constructed a box with small lights which flashed on and off at random. This was enough to convince Dunbar of his genius. The box served no practical purpose, which only added to its wonder.

Dunbar introduced him to the Rolling Stones, and Mardas seized the opportunity to pitch them a system of spotlights designed to go on and off to the beat of live music. The Stones employed the system on their next tour, though with mixed results. In Mardas’s defence, Dunbar claimed the system had worked ‘some of the time’ – possibly during the ‘off’ moments.

Having failed to convince the Stones, Mardas concentrated his energies on John Lennon. Cynthia watched as John succumbed to his charms: ‘John was knocked out by Magic Alex … He was a truly plausible person, and had the face of an innocent. His hair was as blond and as angelic as his smile. To John, who was totally ignorant of the tricks one can make with electricity, he believed that Alex really had something magic about him. He believed every word that he said.’

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One morning John brought him along to Paul’s house. ‘This is my new guru – Magic Alex,’ he said. Paul was a little taken aback, but made no comment. These were happy-go-lucky times, when scepticism was outlawed. ‘We didn’t really call anyone’s bluff, it would have been a bit too aggressive,’ says Paul. ‘So we just let him get on with it.’

John regarded Mardas as a genius, and sought to reward him accordingly. On 1 May 1966 he was at Kenwood with his old friend Pete Shotton when he suddenly remembered that the following day was Mardas’s birthday. ‘Fuck me,’ he said. ‘Magic Alex is coming round tomorrow and I haven’t even got anything for him. What can I give him, Pete?’

Shotton had no idea. John remembered that Mardas had purred appreciatively over the expensive Iso Grifo Italian sports car he had bought at the Earl’s Court Motor Show a week before. At that time it was the only Iso Grifo in the UK. ‘Let’s give him the fucking Iso then!’

Pete and John wound great spools of ribbon around the car, rounding it all off with a big bow. ‘The birthday boy was suitably impressed,’ recalled Pete.

Mardas’s adoption by the Beatles was perfectly timed. At the end of 1966 the group had been advised by their accountants to avoid an excessive tax bill by investing their money in freehold property and retail trading. They duly set up a number of companies under the umbrella of Apple Corps, among them Apple Records, Apple Films and Apple Retail (which ran their boutique on Baker Street). With the promise of far-reaching, mind-blowing inventions, Apple Electronics was given to Alex Mardas to run.

By now John was taking daily doses of LSD, which perhaps left him better equipped to appreciate the full glory he called ‘one of those massive, big, sort of computerised laboratories they’ve been trying to invent for years’. In the months ahead, he allowed himself to be convinced by Magic Alex that generous sums of money were all that was needed to usher in a golden age of electronic wizardry.

Sitting in the studio one night, the Beatles were complaining to each other about their lack of privacy when John suggested they should create their own little kingdom, like an island, where they could build houses, and a studio, and even a school. Julian could be taught alongside the children of Bob Dylan, who would be sure to join them. At this point, Mardas’s ears pricked up. There were, he volunteered, thousands of islands off the coast of Greece, and moreover they were ‘dirt cheap’.

Mardas was summarily despatched to Greece to pick the perfect island. Within forty-eight hours he phoned to say he had found a cluster of Aegean islands, one of eighty acres, with a sixteen-acre olive grove and four secluded beaches, surrounded by four smaller islands, one for each Beatle. The asking price was £90,000. Mardas added that in his estimation the profits from the olive groves would pay back the total cost within seven years.

All four Beatles flew out to Greece, unfazed by the new ruling military junta’s ban on both long hair and rock music, and its declarations that drug offences were to be punished with possible life sentences.

Through family connections, Mardas seems to have struck some sort of deal with the junta: in return for a form of diplomatic immunity, the Beatles would agree to pose for a series of pictures for the Ministry of Tourism. John was warned not to criticise the junta, and to behave himself. ‘All I remember about the holiday is that some of us took acid, and we didn’t have to go through passport control because Alex’s father was so important,’ recalled Pattie Boyd. As it happened, the moment he landed at Athens airport, John realised to his horror that he had left his drugs at home. ‘What good is the Parthenon without LSD?’ he complained. After a frantic call to the NEMS office, their willing dogsbody Mal Evans was on board the next flight with the mislaid package.

‘It was a great trip,’ recalled George. ‘John and I were on acid all the time, sitting on the front of the ship playing ukuleles. Greece was on the left; a big island on the right. The sun was shining and we sang “Hare Krishna” for hours and hours.’

They went ahead with the purchase, against the advice of their accountants, who insisted it would place their already precarious finances in further jeopardy. Arrangements for transferring the money were made directly with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, James Callaghan. At one point the avuncular Callaghan wrote to the Beatles informing them that £95,000 was ‘the absolute limit’ he would allow to flow out of Britain, adding in his own hand at the foot of the letter, ‘But not a penny more … I wonder how you’re going to furnish it?’

This particular problem was solved by indifference. Having bought the islands, the Beatles immediately lost interest, forgot to build their utopia, and never visited them again. A year later they sold them for a profit of £11,400. Looking back, George noted approvingly that ‘It was about the only time the Beatles ever made any money on a business venture.’