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Document with clues to Beatles song Eleanor Rigby could raise 500,000 pounds

The document is a 97-year-old salary register from Liverpool City Hospital and features the name E. Rigby, a scullery maid who has signed for her monthly wage. Her annual earnings were £14.

Paul McCartney has previously claimed the heroine of the poignant song was fictional.

The grave of an Eleanor Rigby, who in the song died with no one to mourn her, was also discovered in the churchyard of St. Peter's in Woolton, Liverpool, close to where McCartney met John Lennon in 1957.

According to its owner Annie Mawson, the document was sent to her in 1990 by McCartney when she wrote to him on behalf of her charity the Sunbeams Music Trust (www.sunbeamsmusic.org), which uses music to help people with special needs.

She said: "I wrote ... to Paul and asked him for half a million pounds. But by the end of the letter I just said 'Look, I know you're a very caring person and I feel it's a privilege to share my story with you.

"Nine months later, in June 1990, this amazing envelope arrived in the post. It was nine months after I'd written to him, which was part of the mystery because you always think it ended up in the waste paper basket."

She said the envelope containing the document dated 1911 featured an official Paul McCartney tour stamp.

Ms Mawson did not immediately realise the significance of the register until she read down the list of names and spotted E. Rigby.

"I wonder just how much Paul McCartney meant to unmask when he passed it on," said Ted Owen, managing director of the Fame Bureau which is selling the manuscript as part of a pop memorabilia auction later this month in London...

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)