Jenny Boyd

From Wikipedia:

Helen Mary “Jenny” Boyd (born 1 November 1947) is an English former model, the younger sister of 1960s model and photographer Pattie Boyd (first wife of George Harrison). She quit her modelling career in the 1960s after discovering Transcendental Meditation, stating that modelling was “a waste of her time”. She later managed an addiction treatment centre and wrote two books.

Early life and career

Helen Mary Boyd was born in Guildford, Surrey, England in November 1947 to Diana Frances Boyd (née Drysdale) and Colin “Jock” Ian Langdon Boyd, a pilot.

She was a freelance model in the 1960s, and often accompanied her sister Pattie to modelling jobs. Through Pattie’s relationship with George Harrison, she came to know the Beatles, various bands that included Eric Clapton, and other major British rock acts. As a rock star muse, Boyd inspired Donovan and Mick Jagger to write songs about her.

From December 1967, she worked at the Beatles’ short-lived retail venture, Apple Boutique, in London. Early the following year, she accompanied Pattie and Harrison on the band’s visit to Rishikesh in India, where they studied Transcendental Meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In July 1968, she and Pattie opened a boutique in London’s fashionable Chelsea Market; they named it “Jennifer Juniper” after Donovan’s song of the same name. Boyd managed the shop, which sold antiques and other objets d’art, while Pattie was the buyer.

She wrote, or co-wrote, two songs for the band Fleetwood Mac, although the group’s manager gave the writing credits to her husband, Mick Fleetwood. Following Pattie’s return to modelling in the early 1970s, Boyd, Pattie and their youngest sister Paula were the subject of a British Vogue shoot by photographer Patrick Lichfield.

Boyd attended UCLA in the late 1980s, earned a PhD in psychology, and became manager of an addiction treatment clinic. She co-authored a book about music and psychology, titled Musicians in Tune. She spent many years running an addiction treatment centre in England. In 2020, she published her autobiography, titled Jennifer Juniper. […]

It was while I waited patiently for our trip to India that I was offered a job in the Beatle’s new Apple Boutique, which opened on December 7th, 1967. The Beatles asked four friends of theirs, known as The Fool, to design a mural for the outside of the building. The Fool consisted of two young couples from Amsterdam: Marijke and her husband Simon, plus Joskje, and her husband Barry. A few months previously they had painted the surrounding white brickwork of Pattie and George’s fireplace at their bungalow in Surrey with silver stars, crescent moons and planets. After they’d finished, they were asked to do the same on the outside of their house. I’m sure the Surrey neighbors must have been shocked!

The Apple shop stood on a corner on Baker Street, and a month before it opened, The Fool and some students painted an enormous mural on the outside wall. A swathe of every color from the rainbow, plus planets and stars, swept across the front and side of the building from the ground all the way up to the fourth floor, including the chimney. Nothing like this had ever been seen before! It was shocking and wonderful and attracted all kinds of people to stop and peer through the window. Baker Street, up until this point, was basically 19th century conservative and the only thing it was famous for was the Sherlock Holmes Museum.

Jenny Boyd – From “Jennifer Juniper – A journey beyond the muse” by Jenny Boyd, 2023

There was a lot of interest in the Apple Boutique. Because I managed the shop along with John Lennon’s friend, Pete Shotten, journalists often asked me to describe this new way of thinking the boutique represented. I finally felt in sync with myself and in my environment. This shop symbolized everything I believed in and I was happy to talk to people about our philosophy. Expensive clothes that The Beatles’ wives and girlfriends wore were now made available to the masses. It allowed people’s imagination to soar. The upstairs of Apple was filled with Indian posters of gods and goddesses, incense, bells, and anything else that was affordable and from the East. Down the creaky wooden stairs, customers were greeted by a splash of color, every kind of garment on hanging rails, in rows across the floor.

Jenny Boyd – From “Jennifer Juniper – A journey beyond the muse” by Jenny Boyd, 2023

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