Pete Shotton the storyline of "Eleanor Rigby" (he suggested that the two lonely people in the song meet, but too late). Shotton also recalls Lennon squinting at the words of a Victorian-era poster for Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal that hung in Lennon's music room at Kenwood while he worked out the tune for "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!". According to writer Stan Williams, Shotton's wife Beth is the "pretty nurse" selling poppies mentioned in the lyrics of "Penny Lane". After the Beatles became famous, Lennon and George Harrison bought a supermarket on Hayling Island, and gave it to Shotton to
Vase with Red Poppies Vase with Red Poppies Vase with Red Poppies was a painting made by Vincent van Gogh in Paris in 1886. Flowers were the subject of many of van Gogh's paintings in Paris, and one of his many interests due in great part to his regard for flowers. As he said to his brother, "You will see that by making a habit of looking at Japanese pictures you will come to love to make up bouquets and do things with flowers all the more." To his sister, Wil, van Gogh advised her to cultivate her own garden, like Voltaire's Candide, to