George Harrison's final serene moments as devotees chant beside him

[Guest guest]

I'll always love him, he's my baby brother, says tearful McCartney

By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles and Hugh Davies

(Filed: 01/12/2001 on Daily Telegraph site www.telegraph.co.uk)

 

 

GEORGE HARRISON, the youngest of the Beatles, was cremated at a private

Krishna ceremony yesterday after his "serene" death in Los Angeles from

cancer.

 

 

Tribute: Sir Paul McCartney

The ashes of the 58-year-old guitarist are expected to be taken to India,

where he spent some of what he called his most "enlightening" moments, and

will be scattered on a river.

 

His wife Olivia, son Dhani, 23, and two Hare Krishna friends, Shayam Sundara

and Mukunda, were with him at the home of another friend, Gavin de Becker.

They were said to have chanted quietly as he died.

 

In a statement, Harrison's wife and son said: "He left this world as he

lived in it, conscious of God, fearless of death and at peace, surrounded by

family and friends. He often said: 'Everything else can wait, but the search

for God cannot wait.' "

 

As fans left flowers outside the Abbey Road recording studio in London,

where the Beatles recorded almost all their work, Sir Paul McCartney paid an

emotional tribute at his home in nearby St John's Wood.

 

 

George Harrison with his wife, Olivia, shortly after he had cancer surgery

earlier this year

Harrison was "a lovely guy and a very brave man who had a wonderful sense of

humour", he said. "We grew up together and we just had so many beautiful

times together - that's what I am going to remember. I'll always love him,

he's my baby brother."

 

Sir George Martin, who helped to craft the Beatles sound at EMI, said: "He

never really gave up or worried too much about what was going to happen.

Death to him was not the awful thing it is to most people.

 

"He had a tremendous spiritual quality. I am convinced he has gone to a

higher plane. He, too, was convinced that was going to happen." Harrison's

friends believe that his ashes will be scattered in the north of India.

 

Kripa Moya Das, of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness,

thought he had chosen the Yamuna river, 40 miles from the Taj Mahal. He

said: "This holy river runs through his favourite retreat.

 

"He would stay there for days at a time. It was a place where he could

worship with peace of mind. George wanted to keep his death a private

matter, just like his life."

 

The Queen was said to be "very sad" and the band of the Coldstream Guards

played a Beatles medley during the Changing of the Guard. Tony Blair said

the Beatle would be "greatly missed".

 

He said that "we grew up with the Beatles". Their music and personalities

were "the backgrounds to our lives". The Prime Minister added: "He wasn't

just a great musician and artist; he did an immense amount for charity."

 

In New York a crowd began gathering before dawn at Strawberry Fields, an

area of Central Park named after the Beatles song following John Lennon's

death in 1980.

 

Ari Fleisher, a White House spokesman, said that President Bush had been

deeply affected by the news. "He considers the Beatles to be one of the

greatest groups of any time in music." Harrison, formerly a heavy smoker,

was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1997.

 

Dr Gil Lederman, a New York hospital doctor who treated him in the final

stages, said he had been playing the guitar only two weeks ago. James Brown,

the "Godfather of Soul", said: "George Harrison was one of the world's few

good men.

 

"I will, and the world will, miss him. He was truly loved."