Dot soon discovered that John already had a girlfriend named Cynthia, whom she quickly became good friends with, and who remembers Dot as a "gentle soul who spoke in whispers and blushed frequently". Seeing as her favourite was already taken, she turned her attention towards Paul who was a little slow asking her out, so she worked out a way of getting him on his own. "We were sitting around talking and I said I felt a bit woozy, that I might faint, and went outside into the garden. Paul came out after me to see if I was all right and it was then that he said ‘D’you fancy going out?’ This had been my plan and it worked a treat. But although I had moments of being very bold, all the doubts then came out. Anyway, I said yes, and we agreed to meet somewhere. It could have been Penny Lane which was roughly half way between our houses. The first date was the pictures. We didn’t have any money to go anywhere else.
Paul soon wanted to move their relationship onto another level, but Dorothy was reticent, not being as experienced in these things as him and still a virgin. "I had to fight him off - maybe that was the attraction for him. All the other girls were falling at his feet." But Paul was sweet and charming, singing romantic songs for her and making her feel part of his home life at Forthlin Road. She resisted the temptation for about four months and then finally succombed around Christmas 1959, telling her mother she was going to stay at a friend’s and then sneaking round to Paul’s house when his dad was staying with one of Paul’s Aunts. "I was terrified that someone might come back, but I couldn’t fight him off any more. Paul was kind and gentle. After that we were frequent lovers, and it just felt right."
Dorothy not only fell in love with Paul, but she also fell in love with his whole family who were so very different from her own. "I think I was probably in love with Paul because I loved his family, too. His Aunties were great. One of them always came round on a Monday night to do the washing and make supper. And I loved his dad too - he was great. At Christmas and new year I would go there and it was so different to my house. They had brilliant parties and they would play music together, Paul on guitar and his dad on piano... Paul was always writing songs and he would try them out on me. He would say that he wrote them for me. Two songs, Love Of The Loved and PS I Love You he said were definitely for me... I remember the first bit, something about ‘Each time I look into your eyes I see the love of the loved.’ but no more. It is such a long time ago... PS I Love You must have been written later, in Hamburg, because the words were about writing home to a loved one."
By late 1961 Paul started visitng her less, and when he did visit there would be dreadful rows. "John was really kind to me and was always telling Paul he should be nicer." Then Brain Epstein became the Beatles manager. "He said we couldn't go to the concert's anymore. We obeyed him. We were very annoyed but we thought, if it helped their careers we would do it... I could see that Paul wa growing away from me. I knew what was coming. And all these years he had been having his bits on the side and it was getting so easy for him. he was young and he couldn't resist. That was a time of sadness but also release. I didn't keep trying so hard or worrying about trying to keep up, or saying the right things or not having my hair right or not being enough fun"
The relationship ended in the Summer of 1962 when The Beatles were weeks away from national fame. Dorothy will never forget the night Paul visited her and told her they had to break up. He called unexpectedly at her flat when she was wearing her mother's cami-knickers and a baggy old sweater, with her hair in rollers. "Paul said we'd been going out so long that it was either get married or split up. He said 'I don't want to get married, so even though I love you we'll have to finish.' He didn't cry but I knew he felt badly and he was sorry, just by the way he looked. I burst out crying. I said how can you do this? What am I going to do? I thought he might come back because it had been three years, but I suppose really I knew." Dot's friend Sandra Hedges remembers that Dot's pushing to get Paul to marry her was indeed a large factor in them splitting up: "Dot wanted them to be married as were their friends John and Cynthia who lived upstairs. In an attempt to shake Paul, she returned home to her parents. Two weeks later Paul became the love of the world; the famous ticker-tape welcome in America, his face in every newpaper, every newscast. Despair! A year later we bade farewell to Dot when she emigrated to Canada and I recall once saying to her: 'I'm fed up with those lads from the art college practicing in our front room every Sunday. You'll never get anywhere with them'."
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