‘He’s terrified, panicked, can’t sleep’: the tragic, lonely death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein

Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp paid £10k at auction for Epstein’s address book. He then used it to co-author a thrilling account of the swinging 60s – and an intimate portrait of a tormented man whose life was unravelling The email from Sotheby’s might easily have gone unread.

Despite his deep appreciation for the musical heroes who came before him, Gary Kemp is not a collector of rock memorabilia. But there, among the auction lots, was something that caught his eye: a 160x100mm black Twinlock binder that once belonged to the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein. The listing detailed 57 pages containing 404 entries, many handwritten by Epstein himself, cataloguing the social and business network of the Liverpudlian impresario in 1967, the year of…