Paul McCartney has spoken about his relationship with George Harrison, describing the last moments they spent together before his death, in an exclusive interview in this month’s Uncut.

“I sat with him for a few hours when he was in treatment just outside New York,” said McCartney. “He was about 10 days away from his death, as I recall. We joked about things – just amusing, nutty stuff. It was good. It was like we were dreaming. He was my little baby brother, almost, because I’d known him that long.”

“We held hands. It’s funny, even at the height of our friendship – as guys – you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing. But it was lovely.”

McCartney also speaks about their early days as students and how Harrison came to be in The Beatles.

“He pulled out his guitar and played ‘Raunchy’, and that was it – he was in the band. He was a bit too young, almost out of the age range for us, a little too baby-faced, but he was just a great player.”

The interview appears in the new August issue of Uncut magazine in an 11-page feature on ‘The Lonely Beatle’ alongside comments from Pattie Boyd, Michael Palin and Ravi Shankar.

BBC Radio 4 broadcast a lost interview with The Beatles today (July 1) after it was discovered in a south London garage. The recording was made for Scottish Television in 1964.