I first went to see Paul McCartney on 14th September 1966, in the house he’d recently moved into, a Georgian gem in St John’s Wood.
That was a surprise in itself. John and Ringo – young lads, new to London, new to untold wealth – had moved to the suburbs into mock-Tudor mansions on an estate in Weybridge, Surrey. They thought, ‘This is posh. This is what you do, as lads from the North.’
George got it even more wrong – he had moved into a horrible modern bungalow in Esher, also in Surrey. But Paul was ahead of the game, realising inner London was the place to live, in a period house, among the affluent and upmarket, arty, intellectual folk.
In his house, I noticed a Magritte above the mantelpiece. Goodness, how did a lad of 24 get to know about such artists, growing up on a northern council estate – as I had done, too.
Paul still has that same house today as his London home. A sign that, deep down, he is a conservative sort of fella…
I had gone to see him to ask him where the words of came from. I thought they were amazing: so literary, clever and evocative. I was sure it would be the best poetry
