Paul, Linda and Twiggy spend New Year Eve in Liverpool

Linda McCartney had become a really good friend. And that year she suggested we join them in Liverpool for New Year’s Eve. They always went to Paul’s Uncle Joe’s house for New Year, she said.

‘All the McCartneys will be there and all the relatives. Do come. It’ll be really good fun.’

We arrived in good time and after supper Paul disappeared upstairs.

‘Come up and look what I’ve found,’ he called.

It was a box of old exercise books he’d had at school. The four of us sat on his bed laughing looking at all this old stuff. Nostalgia was in the air.

‘And this is my first guitar.’

Like a proud kid he got this guitar down from the top of the wardrobe where it had been shoved and showed us how the guitar man at the shop had had to re-string it for him because it was a right-handed guitar and Paul is left handed. So sweet. No sense of showing off. Of all the people who’ve stayed normal Paul gets the gold star.

This trip down memory lane meant we were running late. By the time we piled into the Range Rover it must have been nearly nine o’clock, the time we were expected at Uncle Joe’s. It was quite squashy, Paul driving, Linda beside him in the front; Michael, me and the kids behind; and right in the back baby James in his carry-cot. Stella and Mary would have been quite little; Heather, Linda’s daughter by her first marriage, about thirteen.

Problems started as soon as we tried to cross the Mersey. The usual tunnel was closed, but Paul said he thought there was a new one. We came out the other side locked into a one-way system and Paul, having no idea where we were, was desperately looking for landmarks. Suddenly he saw his old school. ‘Look,’ he said pointing into the night, ‘that’s where me and John smoked behind the bicycle sheds.’ And like a tap that’s turned on, out came all these reminiscences. It was just luck that he happened to pass his old school and, because it was New Year, he was already feeling nostalgic. Next he took us to Strawberry Fields. I don’t know what it’s like now but then it was an open space, a wildish park thing but with railings and a gateway. Then we went down Penny Lane and past the barber’s shop and he got hysterical because the barber’s had gone unisex. He was on a jag and obviously loving it. And there was Linda saying, ‘Come on, Paul, or we’re going to be late.’ She was thinking of Uncle Joe, and unlike Michael and me, had heard it all before. It was a magical night, truly truly magical. He was obviously just enjoying being back and driving around his old life.

By now we’re seriously late. We’re all laughing: Paul McCartney lost in Liverpool. Outside a pub we see a group of lads. Paul winds down the window. ‘I’m going to have to ask the way.’

One of them staggers towards us. Paul smiles that inimitable smile.

‘Hello, mate. Do you know the way to Such ’n’ such street?’

What’s wonderful about Paul, like Dustin Hoffman and a few other famous friends, is that they don’t have this thing about ‘I’m a celebrity. I can’t go out.’ […] Paul is like Dustin. He’s always gone out to restaurants. Yes, people recognise him, but he has decided that he’s not going to let fame ruin his life. […] This young lad outside the pub looks at Paul, does a double take, looks again, finally twigs (excuse the pun) and backs off, first talking under his breath then shouting and gesturing to his mates, ‘It’s Paul McCartney, it’s fucking Paul McCartney.’ Inside the Range Rover we’re hysterical with laughter. By this time the guy is standing in the headlights, rocking on his feet and screaming at the top of his voice and everyone seems to be pouring out into the street, so we move off, Paul driving very carefully around the drunken youth, who shows no signs of moving, with a cheery, ‘Thanks mate. Happy New Year.’

By now we’re in a very run down area, small factories, warehouses. No shops. No one to ask the way except one middle-aged lady walking down the street, bottles under her arm. Paul stops and opens the window.

‘’Scuse me love but I’m lost. I’ve got to get to Such ’n’ such street.’ She looks at him, not a flicker of recognition, and starts to give directions.

‘Tell you what, I’m going that way myself,’ she chirps, ‘so give me a lift and I’ll show you.’

‘Jump in,’ says Paul.

Linda slides across and this woman gets in next to her, puts her bottles down in front of her and rubs her hands.

‘Bloody cold,’ she says and explains that she’s just finished work and is ‘going home to my old man’. Then she says, ‘How’s the new baby then, Paul? You didn’t think I knew who you were, did you? And I know who you are,’ she adds, nudging Linda and laughing. Then turning around to us in the back, ‘And I know who you two are and all. You’re Twiggy and you’re Michael, and you’re Stella and Mary and Heather, and is that James in the back? Is he a good baby?’

It was hysterical. And of course Paul loved her. When we got to her street he offered to take her to her door. But she said no.

‘I can walk that bit.’

As we drove off, I said to Linda, ‘She’ll go in now to the old man and say, ‘you’ll never believe who’s just given me a lift home, Paul and Linda McCartney and Twiggy was in the back.’ And he’ll say, ‘Oh yeah, how much have you been drinking?’ ’ I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall.

Uncle Joe’s house turns out to be straight out of Coronation Street, two up, two down and packed to the eaves with relatives, uncles and aunts and cousins. All really friendly and welcoming to two total strangers. Very Liverpudlian. As it comes up to midnight everyone makes for the door. It’s what they do every year. The whole street goes out and joins hands to sing Auld Lang Syne, all the doors open, the street alive with people. Televisions down the street are turned up and we hear Big Ben strike twelve. Happy New Year. And everybody kisses everybody else like you do. I kiss Michael, then I kiss Paul, then Linda, then the kids, then Uncle Joe and the other uncles and aunts and the cousins and the friends. It goes on and on, for what seems like forever. Eventually Paul comes and explains what’s happened. The word had gone round the other street that Paul was there and I was there. So they thought they may as well join in. Paul was getting all these girls from all the streets in the area and I was getting all these other fellas — an endless stream of people kissing us. And not one behaving horribly among them, for all the booze. It was so funny. A brilliant end to the most magical New Year’s Eve.

Twiggy – From “Twiggy in black and white: an autobiography“, 1998

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