[1967mccartney]

Candid of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, photographed at the gates of EMI Studios on March 1, 1967 (A Day in The Life Sessions) by fan Denise Werneck. [For the HQ version of this picture, buy ‘Do Rio a Abbey Road’ by Lizzie Bravo].

[dreamilyleftreview]

[the-cosmic-empire]

“One of my best friends was killed in gun violence right around here, so it’s important to me.”

[Paul, at March For Our Lives, New York City, 24th March 2018]

Paul and Nancy photographed at the New York City March For Our Lives gun violence protest today. 

Pics: Rex / Shutterstock / Spencer Platt / Getty 

[the-cosmic-empire]

@a60sthingy

PART THREE: PAUL

“Go back and spend time with my mum.“

[Paul’s reply to his first ever ‘You Gave Me The Answer’ question on his blog, which asked “What would you do if you had a time machine?”, 25th February 2013]

Like George’s family, the McCartney’s seem to be a very large, but very tight knit family. As any Beatle fan will know, Paul’s mother was Mary Patricia McCartney (29th September 1909 – 31st October 1956) and James McCartney (7th July 1902 – 18th March 1976) more well known as Jim, and both of his parents seem to have had a great and long lasting influence over Paul. 

Mary and Jim met in June 1940 during a World War Two air raid on Liverpool. Mary was a nurse and midwife and was staying with Jim’s sister Jin (Jane - Paul’s Auntie Jin) at the time. An air raid warning went off at 9.30pm and lasted all night. The McCartney family and Mary spent the night in their Anderson shelter in the back garden and Jim and Mary talked until dawn the next day. 

They were married on 15th April 1941. Their first home together was at 10 Sunbury Road, Anfield, Liverpool, which is where they were living when thier first son, a certain James Paul McCartney came along on the 18th June 1942, but they moved when Paul was only a few months old, firstly briefly to 92 Broadway, Wallasey, in November 1942 and then to 3 Roach Avenue, Knowsley, temporarily and 75 Sir Thomas White Gardens, a rent-free flat in Everton, Liverpool which they received because of Mary’s job. 

In February 1946, to 72 Western Avenue, now with their second son, Peter Michael McCartney (born on 7th January 1944) added to the family, the McCartney’s moved to 72 Western Avenue in Speke. Here’s a snap of the boys and their mother at that house: 

Mike at the front and Paul with his mum in the background. In 1948, the McCartneys moved again to 12 Ardwick Road, Speke (a five minute walk from George’s home at 25 Upton Green) and then finally in 1955 to the famous 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton. All the moves were Mary’s idea, as she tried to move her family to better areas and better houses. 

Mary had great aspirations and ambitions for her boys. She wanted them to have professions when they were older (she hoped Paul would be a doctor or a teacher) and she tried to teach them to speak the ‘Queens English’, and not in their Liverpudlian accent. Paul has said how he would tease his mother about this and that he regretted it later, but I’m sure she knew he was joking really. Mary was very proud when both her boys passed the Eleven Plus exam and attended the prestigious Liverpool Institute for Boys. 

Mary’s aspirations for her boys certainly rubbed off on Paul and gave him his drive and ambition to succeed and be the best at everything he wanted to do - and he has succeeded in this, albeit in a slightly different career to what his mother envisioned. 

Money was always scarce for the McCartney family, although both Mary and Jim were working. They couldn’t afford to buy a TV until 1953 and never owned a car. I wonder if money was often discussed in the house, as this seems to have had a lasting effect on Paul in particular. “Every mickle makes a muckle,” was a saying in the McCartney household (according to Mike) - meaning every penny counts. 

A family trip to a farm in North Wales - Paul on the left and Mike on the right. 

Despite any money worries, the McCartney boys seem to have had a quite idyllic childhood, with lots of trips out to the countryside, and an emphasis on education and learning and music filling their lives. 

Sadly, this world crumbled when Mary passed away from complications after surgery to stop the spread of breast cancer on the 31st October 1956. Paul was only 14 and Mike was 12, both very young ages to lose their mother. I think this could be the defining event of Paul’s childhood, and essentially it ended his childhood rather abruptly. 

The last time Paul and Mike saw their mother was when they went to visit Mary in hospital following her operation. It was a traumatic experience, Mary was very ill and there was blood on her hospital bedsheets. After their visit she deteriorated rapidly and passed away not very later. Her last words, told to Paul’s Auntie Dill, were, “I would have liked to have seen the boys growing up.” 

Jim was devastated and beside himself with grief - an image which had also stayed with Paul. “You expect to see women crying . . . but when it’s your dad, it shakes your faith in everything.” 

Jim with Paul and Mike taken on the same day as the above photo. Both of these photos are on display at 20 Forthlin Road, which also contains a wooden engraved tribute to the happy home Jim and Mary created there, situated over the front door and dedicated from Paul and Mike. 

You will have heard the story of his remark when he was informed his mother had died - “What will we do without her money?” - which seems flippant on the surface, but speaks of deeper problems. I think Paul has trouble dealing with grief or any sad situation which is beyond his control, and I think it almost definitely stems from the experience of his mother dying. 

Paul and Mike were sent to live with their Uncle Joe and Auntie Joan for a couple of months following Mary’s death, while Jim tried to recover from his grief. When they returned to the family home, Paul chose to move into the smallest bedroom in the house (having previously shared bedrooms with his brother) - a tiny room at the front of the house where he could be alone. It was at this time that Paul threw himself into learning, practicing and perfecting the guitar too. 

It’s probably true that losing his mother was also something which brought Paul and John closer together in the early days - an understanding of grief between them which others couldn’t be part of. When Paul’s father died in 1976, Paul seems to have had just as hard a time dealing with that too. 

“It was no coincidence that Paul was on the continent at the time of the funeral (as I’m sure he’ll tell you). Like Dad, who’d apologise for not being able to hold our stomachs when, as kids, we were being sick, Paul would never face that sort of thing. As Dad would say, ‘It’s just the way you’re made, son.’”

[Mike McCartney, Thank U Very Much: Mike McCartney’s Family Album]

The photo at the start of this post is the picture Mike selected to put on Jim’s coffin at his funeral in 1976. It’s said that because Paul was away from home at the time his father passed away, it was John in New York who heard the news first. He called Paul to pass on the news and offer his condolences. (I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope so). Around 18 months after Jim McCartney died, Paul and Linda had their first and only son, naming him James Paul McCartney after both Paul and his father, as Paul had named his first daughter Mary after his mother. 

Lastly, maybe the most important thing Paul got from his parents, and his father in particular - a love of music. 

“My dad was the original. To us kids he was a pretty good player, he could play lots of tunes on the piano. I was very influenced by him. I used to ask him to teach me but he said, ‘No, you must take lessons,’ like all parents do. I ended up teaching myself like he did, by ear. […]

“I grew up steeped in that music-hall tradition. My father once worked at the Liverpool Hippodrome as a spotlight operator. […] He had a lot of music in him, my dad. He taught me and my brother harmony; not the concept, not written down, but he would say, ‘This tune is the harmony to that tune,’ so I learned very early how to sing harmony, which was one of my big roles in the Beatles. Whenever John sang I automatically sang in harmony with him, and that’s due to my dad’s teaching. I remember talking to the guys very early on about harmony, in the same was as my dad talked to us, saying, ‘This would be the harmony for this.’”

[Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles]

I don’t think I need to recount the story behind Let It Be, I’m sure you all know it. It’s the perfect example of how much of an influence both of Paul’s parents had him - his mother in the lyrics and his father in the music and harmonies, in my opinion. Here’s take 23 of Let It Be, with an extra verse at 2:55 which was later dropped - watch it now before YouTube takes it down!

[isolate]

No one told you life was gonna be this way?

[allyouneedisallmyloving]

[ringno-deactivated20130609]

[alrightgeorge]

[love-personal]

[harryandhisbox]

[robotmoxie-blog]

secondhand embarrassment is pure agony and i wish a lot of comedy didnt rely on it

[vaspider]

I cannot deal with it. I have to literally leave the room.

[ahaze]

It’s a sign of being extremely empathetic.

[kelssiel]

thanks! i hate it, how do i uninstall?

[silentevil77]

I have to look away a lot of the time

[shrlocks]

What do we want to be Prefects for? It’d take all the fun out of life.

[likeneelyohara]

[rockstarsgifs]

[malcolmdickdowell-deactivated20]

jimi was seriously one of the most modest and polite and thoughtful people in rock history man we need more jimis in this world

[izumikoshiro]

some choice moments of everyone’s favourite quidditch nerd

[fanonical]

remember when oliver wood was so obsessed with quidditch that he was totally willing to play on a dementor-infested pitch

[selinas-deactivated20251210]

He looked helplessly at Hermione, whose face was stricken. “Harry,” she said timidly, “Don’t you see? This… This is exactly why we need you … We need to know what it’s r-really like… Facing him … Facing V… Voldemort.” It was the first time she had ever said Voldemort’s name and it was this, more than anything else, that calmed Harry.

requested by → @ronniesandrews