Read Online Paul McCartney by Philip Norman - Free Book Online

pile of lovingly laundered shirts and towels back at Forthlin Road.
    For Jim McCartney, the blow was devastating. Mary had not only been the love of his life but its organiser. Outside of his beloved garden, he had always left domestic matters to her. Now he faced the task of caring for Paul and Michael and steering them through adolescence and its numerous problems–all without the second wage packet Mary had always provided. When the awful news was broken, Paul couldn’t help blurting out, ‘What are we going to do without her money?’
    At first, Jim seemed unable to come to terms with his loss, sobbing that he wanted ‘to be with Mary’, almost as if he meant to end his own life, too. Men in that era, especially northern men, were not supposed to show emotion, and his sons had never known him other than totally composed behind his pipe.
    ‘That was the worst thing for me,’ Paul would remember. ‘Seeing my dad cry.’ But, grief-stricken though he was, the brown eyes shed no public tears. ‘I was determined not to let it affect me. I carried on. I learned to put a shell around me.’
4
    Puttin’ On the Style
    Rock ‘n’ roll did many things for British boys when it burst on the unsuspecting 1950s. For Paul, it turned a shell into a suit of shiny armour.
    Jim McCartney’s collapse was short-lived. After Mary’s funeral–the Catholic one she’d requested on her deathbed–Jim dried his eyes and buckled down to his new responsibilities. Since their mother’s death, Paul and Michael had been staying with their Auntie Gin and Uncle Harry in Huyton. When they returned to Forthlin Road, their dad seemed back to his old disciplined, understated self.
    On his small salary, there was no question of employing a housekeeper. So, at the age of 55, he had to teach himself to cook and do all the other household jobs that men of his generation, especially in the north of England, regarded as ‘women’s work’. His sons pitched in to help like the Boy Scouts they were, Paul now the proud holder of a ‘bivouac badge’ for building a fire and cooking over it. Their plentiful uncles and aunts rallied round with frequent morale-boosting visits and invitations to meals, Every Tuesday, Gin and Millie would clean the house from top to bottom and have a hot dinner waiting when Paul and Mike came in from school.
    The home Jim created was rough and ready, but never gloomy. ‘The house was full of laughter,’ Mike McCartney says. ‘There was always music playing–Dad with his records or on the piano, or the relatives around for a sing-song. Dad could have his moments [of grieving for Mary] but Auntie Gin would be there, or someone else, and it’d soon be all right again.’
    In the otherwise male atmosphere, Jim perpetuated Mary’s many hospital-inspired rules for hygiene and health–for example, only white tablecloths and towels because coloured ones got dirty without showing it. He also carried on her concern over her sons’ diet, urging them to eat healthily, with plenty of roughage, and inquiring every day whether their bowels were working satisfactorily. Unlike most bachelor establishments, too, the house always smelt of lavender, which Jim grew in the back garden, then rubbed between his fingers to unlock its scent.
    Bereaved families often find a pet dog helps to ease the pain, but Paul and Mike had no need of that: the sound of barking from the nearby police training school went on almost around the clock. The wide grassy tract behind their house provided a constant spectacle of dogs being trained or stately police horses at exercise. There were regular public displays of horse-riding and obedience-trials, always culminating with the routine the boys had seen on their first morning–the pistol-firing fugitive pursued by an Alsatian, grabbed by his outsize glove and sent sprawling onto the grass. Paul and Mike would put chairs on the flat roof of their concrete garden shed and see the whole show for nothing. Paul