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DATES: 22ND DECEMBER 2009
James Paul McCartney was born at Walton Hospital in northern Liverpool, where his mother had worked as a nurse, and where his brother, Michael McCartney (also a performer, whose stage name is Mike McGear), was born a year later. He was baptised a Catholic, but otherwise raised non-denominationally; his mother was a Roman Catholic and his father was a Protestant. His father, James McCartney, was a self-taught pianist, and dance-band leader who encouraged his son to be musical.
The elder McCartney gave his son a trumpet, which was largely abandoned when he learned it would put a callus on his upper lip - and after he realized that it is impossible to sing and play a trumpet at the same time.
Later, when skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet at Rushworth and Dreapers (the largest musical instrument suppliers on Merseyside at the time) for a £15 Zenith acoustic guitar which he still has. The early death of his mother Mary from breast cancer, on 31 October 1956 when he was 14, was a formative influence on the boy's life. It later created an additional bond between him and John Lennon, whose mother Julia Lennon died on 15 July 1958 when Lennon was 17. Both McCartney and Lennon found some solace from their grief in each other's music.
Paul McCartney will play a one off gig at the 02 arena on the 22nd December 2009.
