John Lennon and Brian Epstein holiday in Barcelona, Spain

On this day Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr went on holiday to Santa Cruz, Tenerife, for a 12-day holiday.

At the same time John Lennon accepted an offer from Brian Epstein to accompany him to Barcelona, for a trip also lasting 12 days.

It was just three weeks after Lennon's wife Cynthia had given birth to their son Julian.

I was on holiday with Brian Epstein in Spain, where the rumours went around that he and I were having a love affair. Well, it was almost a love affair, but not quite. It was never consummated. But it was a pretty intense relationship.

It was my first experience with a homosexual that I was conscious was homosexual. He had admitted it to me. We had this holiday together because Cyn was pregnant, and I went to Spain and there were lots of funny stories. We used to sit in a cafe in Torremolinos looking at all the boys and I'd say, 'Do you like that one, do you like this one?' I was rather enjoying the experience, thinking like a writer all the time: I am experiencing this, you know. And while he was out on the tiles one night, or lying asleep with a hangover one afternoon, I remember playing him the song Bad To Me. That was a commissioned song, done for Billy J Kramer, who was another of Brian's singers.

The question of whether any sexual contact happened between Lennon and Epstein has been the subject of considerable speculation in the years since.

Cyn was having a baby and the holiday was planned, but I wasn't going to break the holiday for a baby and that's what a bastard I was. And I just went on holiday. I watched Brian picking up the boys. I like playing a bit faggy, all that. It was enjoyable, but there were big rumours in Liverpool, it was terrible. Very embarrassing.

Paul McCartney later suggested that Lennon agreed to the holiday in order to assert his authority within The Beatles.

Brian Epstein was going on holiday to Spain at the same time and he invited John along. John was a smart cookie. Brian was gay, and John saw his opportunity to impress upon Mr Epstein who was the boss of the group. I think that's why he went on holiday with Brian. And good luck to him, too - he was that kind of guy; he wanted Brian to know whom he should listen to. That was the relationship. John was very much the leader in that way, although it was never actually said.

Although neither he nor Epstein spoke publicly about the event, Lennon did apparently reveal what happened to his former schoolfriend Pete Shotton, who quoted the exchange in his 1983 memoir.

Eppy just kept on and on at me, until one night, I finally just pulled me trousers down and said to him: "Oh, for Christ's sake, Brian, here, just stick it up me fucking arse, then."
And he said to me, "Actually, John, I don't do that kind of thing. That's not what I like to do."
"Well," I said, "what is it you like to do?"
And he said, "I'd really just like to touch you, John."
And so I let him toss me off, and that was it... Yeah, so fucking what! The poor bastard. He's having a fucking hard time anyway. So what harm did it do, then, Pete, for fuck's sake? No harm at all. The poor fucking bastard, he can't help the way he is.

The Spanish holiday was later dramatised in the 1991 film The Hours And Times, starring David Angus and Ian Hart as Epstein and Lennon.