Interview for New Musical Express (NME)

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Some weeks ago I begged to be excused from the full story of Paul McCartney and the village of Harrold, which began in Bradford one hot Sunday afternoon and ended with me staggering home in London in the thin, cold light of the Monday dawn. The Cider had got me.

It was also right there in the middle of my holiday, and I wanted the time to sit down and write about it as it was. And it was, as I still remember vividly, a dusk-to-dawn encounter that taught me a great deal about the Inner Mind of the Amiable Mr. McCartney and at least a little about myself.

It all started when Paul, Peter Asher, Derek Taylor and Tony Bramwell kindly offered me a lift back to London after the recording of the Black Dyke Mills Band.

One hour and a half later we were still in Bradford, sitting in the deserted hotel, talking to people, drinking tee, being friendly. A BBC TV unit turned up and Paul stood outside in the sun to be filmed chatting up some of the local talent.

We leave. The thermometer inside the Rolls has been at 110, but a touch of the button and the window opens and a nice breeze blows around us via Paul’s giant sheepdog Martha. On and on to the M1. Miles and miles of white concrete. Conversation. Paul pushing buttons on the radio and hearing the Marmalade’s “Lovin’ Things” with eyes wide open… “Fantastic. Get that bit”

Alan Freeman’s “Pick of the Pops”. Des O’Connor’s “I Pretend”… “but he’s a nice bloke” says somebody. Esther and Abi’s “One More Dance”. “God,” says Paul, “are the charts all like this?” Push of the button — “Sing Something Simple” on Radio 2. Community singing… we all join in “Music, Maestro, Please” and “Michael Row The Boat”. Well, it’s a laugh, isn’t it?! And there’s only that damn concrete, stretching on and on along the M1.

Boredom. Brilliant wit of Apple PRO Derek Taylor (ex-Hoylake, Cheshire, ex-“Daily Express”, ex an interesting and satisfying life in America and elsewhere ever since) comes to the fore. Fills in two Diners’ Club application forms, one from Max Wax, “Professional Killer,” the other from Norman Prince, of Wallasey, “part-time joiner at Grayson, Rollo and Clover” on Merseyside. No chance!

Back to “Pick of the Pops.” Easybeats’ “Good Times” slamming out of the speaker, Paul, Peter Asher and all knocked out by the sheer guts of it.

Sudden decision to get away from the M1 and an Asher eye sees the name “Harrold,” a Bedfordshire village. We head towards it but “Good Times” is still, kicking. around in people’s heads and the car is stopped and an attempt made to get through to Alan Freeman and say what about putting it on again?

No luck. Choked faces in the call-box. It’s a live show, isn’t it, but they won’t even put you through to the studio.

All you get is some stuffed-shirt Duty Officer saying it is not possible to make contact with Mr. Freeman during the course of the programme. (And Mr. Freeman, when I tell him later, is choked about it himself. They didn’t even give him the message). Two scruffy. urchins go by, bless ‘em, with dirt on their faces and their shirts hanging out, and they look up at the big Rolls and then at the famous passenger in the back. But there is no recognition. They walk on their way.

Eventually, Harrold.

Early Sunday evening, and only the sound of feet crunching along the road and birds singing and Paul asking: “So where’s the Ouse then?” — hadn’t Derek said we could find the River Ouse somewhere around there, and what are we doing stumbling around fields when we could be in the local village pub?

Bearded man in garden shows no immediate reaction to request from Paul for whereabouts of local boozer, delivered in heavy Liverpool accent, but gives Irish-accent directions to the Magpie down the road.

This turns out to be a cosy little place the size of a bathroom, with a Jolly Joker machine in the corner and a dartboard behind the door.

All of us are speakin’ like we do in d’Pool, wack, but there is no reaction from the customers to the effect that here is an international star sitting in their pub eating a piece of pie and drinking a beer and dipping into a bag of crisps. They’re all British, aren’t they? — nobody is going to blow his cool.

The only thing is that from time to time the door opens and somebody is standing there red-faced and gasping for breath as if he’s just finished a two-minute mile, and immediately a corner of his eye falls on Paul he forcibly regains his composure and walks casually over to the bar. But what I asked myself in one case, is: that particular customer doing wearing “I Love The Beatles” badge on his lapel in his local pub on Sunday?

The Bearded Irishman arrives with his wife Pat, and we get talking to him and he turns out to be a most genial man named Gordon who is the local dentist.

I’m not too sure about the rest of it (the Cider, you see – it was the Cider), but. the memories include a visit to another pleasant pub and Paul at the piano in the half-light, gravelling out Fats Domino songs like “Blueberry Hill” and. “Red Sails In The Sunset” and then a visit to the home of Gordon and Pat for meat and rice and more cider and wine

The children came downstairs in their dressing gowns in the wee small hours and play hide and seek, bashful about being seen by their famous guest until he shows one of the little girls some magic tricks and wins her confidence.

Time drifts on. Is it 3am? Four? The room is almost dark, but Paul sits at the head of the table, head dipped over acoustic guitar singing songs I have never heard before.

The voice aches over words of sadness and I wish, only wish, I could recall them now

They have to be from the next LP, I remember thinking, and pulling out a cheque book and trying to write some notes on the back. Something went wrong somewhere. All I see now is some faint scribble.

Time to go. Farewells to Pat and Gordon and the family. The crunch of the Rolls on gravel, then out on the road to London and conversations about people and life.

St Johns Wood. The first light of dawn. Farewell to Paul outside the high walls of his home and then on in the car to my part of town.

Trip over the dustbins.

Turn the keys.

Bed.

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