This story is found in the Fall 1981 issue of the McCartney Observer.
Air ‘73
Pat Simmons
If you ever want to meet one of the Beatles and make a
complete idiot of yourself, invite me along.
I seem to have a knack for doing just that. After 17 years, I’m still totally awestruck
by them, and when seeing any of them, my entire being seems to turn into one
large blob of Jell-O. Let me
demonstrate.
It is October 1973, the last time I’ve been to England. Kris S., Kathy B. and I are nosing through a
huge bookstore around the corner from Soho Square. Kris, who has been in England for several weeks
already, asks us if we’ve seen MPL yet.
We hadn’t, so Kris takes us there.
When we arrive, we see a limo conspicuously waiting outside – you couldn’t
miss it, it was taking up the whole street.
Quaking Kathy and I push brave Kris up to the car to try to worm out of
the driver if he happens to be waiting for Paul, and of course he snaps an
irritable “No!” Deciding he probably is,
we cross the street to the square to hide behind the shrubbery and hope. Sure enough, before too long, out bops Paul
and Linda. I was so complete startled to
be seeing them so totally by accident that all I could croak out was “there he
is.” Kathy and Kris, who’d been sitting
down on a bench with their backs to MPL’s doorway, said later that I said it so
calmly they wondered “that who is?” When
they saw my gaping mouth however, they whipped around and saw them too. Kathy had never met Paul before and was
becoming so unglued that she managed to get hopelessly entangled in her camera
straps, while doing a little jig trying to get free and swearing for all she
was worth. My but it was quiet on that
street…
Our legs like lead, it took us a while to get our butts
across the street, and by that time, Paul and Linda had gone around the corner and disappeared
into another building. We stared at each
other dementedly for a few minutes, and then decided to station ourselves at
the corner. When we saw them come out of
the building again out of the corner of our eyes, the three of us proceeded to
stare straight ahead at the lamppost.
Something about the way we were staring at that lamppost with our eyes
bugged out of heads and cameras around our necks might have given Paul a little
clue that we were fans, so he walked right up to us and shone a flashlight in
each of our faces. Kathy and I went into
spastic silence, wanting so much to say something intelligent, and our brains
not cooperating. Kris managed to squeak
out, “Is this a stick-up?” Paul and
Linda cracked up, and lingered for a minute, wondering if we were going t come
out of our comatose state and be able to carry on a conversation. My jaw was flapping up and down like an
unhinged door but nothing was coming out, so giving up, they started walking toward
MPL again.
Realizing they were leaving, Kathy came out of her stupor
and said something like, “We’re blowing this, somebody do something!” Yes, it was a quiet street. He had to have heard her, and was probably
eating up the entire episode with a large spoon. Kathy’s outburst had shocked me out of my
stupor, and suddenly, saying “Oh, ok!” on legs that certainly couldn’t have
been mine, I started trailing after Paul, mumbling, “Uh….Paul?” He didn’t turn around, so I croaked a little
louder, “Paul?” This went on until the
time they had reached MPL, and suddenly Paul spun around, nearly giving me a coronary,
and raising his eyebrows, said “Yes?” He
does like to make people suffer, doesn’t he?
I babbled out, “Ah, er..would you think I was obnoxious if I asked if
you’d pose for a photo?” Even as I said
it, I couldn’t believe it. Meantime, Paul
seemed to be getting more amused by the second.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said patiently, grinning broadly. I could hear Kathy, still at the corner with
Kris say, “all right!” and the town of them joined me. The first photo I took, after feeling a tad
guilty and asking Linda to be in the photo too, I was shaking so hard that Paul
said, “You’re shaking, you’d better take another one!” The fact that the second photo did come out
much clearer was no doubt largely due to the fact that he was at the time
looking toward Kris and Kathy as they took a photo. Something about when that man looks straight
at you that definitely puts you in an unbalanced state.
While posing for Kris and Kathy, Paul noticed Kathy’s
camera, and whistling and seeming impressed, he crowed, “Ooooh! Top Conn, ooooh!!!” I thought later I should have held up m y
camera and said “ooooh! Instamatic,
ooooh!!” but it’s one of those things
you don’t think of til a week later.
It seems to me some other things were said, but in the state
we were in, it all seemed like a dream.
It would be one thing if we were at a studio where he was recording and
knew we’d be seeing him eventually leaving the building; it’s quite another
thing to see him totally by accident!
After Paul and Linda had gone back into MPL, Kris took off
to call a couple of friends, who made it there in record time. A short time later, when they emerged from
the building again, Marla sent them off with a huge wave which, once in the back
seat of the limo whose driver had said he wasn’t waiting for Paul, and turning
around to look through the back window at us, Paul skillfully duplicated. My worst humiliation of the whole event came
a few hours later when I realized what I was wearing: a jacket with HDN and Sgt. Pepper patches
sewn on it! Well, all I’d known was that
we were going to a bookstore! Embarrassed
is not the word (try mortified!)
At this time, Paul was working on “Helen Wheels” at Air
Studios, so just about every day, we’d go over there to see him arrive. He delighted in parking around the corner on
a side street (illegally; he got tickets
every day!) and walking through the crowds of people on Oxford Street,
preferably in rush hour, enjoying immensely the double takes office workers
would give him, staring after him as though to say, “Nah, it couldn’t be him!” The one time he created a real stir in the throngs
when he arrived decked out in plaid jacket, a top that looked like a maternity
dress, baggy trousers, and complete with a “hat” that looked like underwear or
shorts! Linda was dressed equally weird
(but then she usually was anyway), and they passed at the doorway of the studio
to do a little dance step before going inside.
Another time at the studio, Marie had stopped him just
before he went in the door to show him some concert photos she’d taken of him earlier
in the year. He stopped and admired
himself for a while and when he turned to go into the building, collided
straight into me. For the briefest
instant he grabbed my arm, said, “Sorry” and once again left me a babbling
idiot. He can run into my anytime!
The “guards” in this building were really nice, a lot nicer
than EMI guards had been of years past.
Many times when it was cold outside they would let us wait in the lobby,
and eventually even over by the elevators.
One particular night after hours and hours of waiting, my bladder was
about to explode. I hated the thought of leaving and missing
him, though. I continued to wait, pain
mounting, till I could stand it no more.
I walked up to the guards’ desk like a penguin asking if they knew if
there was a commode nearby in a pub or something, and noting my slightly green
coloring, took pity on me, saying “You can use the one on the 4th
floor here.” They had been so nice to us
I didn’t want them to get in trouble.
Particularly when I found out that was also the floor Air Studio was
on! But they insisted it would be all
right if I hurried and came right back downstairs. I begged someone to come with me, but nobody
would budge so the elevator door closed and took me up to the floor. I was even petrified to get ouf the
elevator. I would hate to have to answer
Paul’s question of “What are you doing up here” if I should run into him. But, when you’re desperate, you’re desperate.
I followed the directions once up there that the guard had
given me, but I couldn’t find anything remotely resembling a bathroom. Beyond one of the doors seemed to be closet,
but I wasn’t THAT desperate. I was just
about to turn around and go back downstairs and ask for directions again when I
heard whistling and several people talking at the same time. And one of those voices was Paul’s! Panic and full bladder to not mix.
I couldn’t run to the elevators, I’d never beat him down
there. So I did the only think I could
think of, which was to hightail it down the stairway. Did you ever tyro t run down four flights of
marble stairs with a painfully full bladder?
I wailed down those stairs like a steam locomotive, and by the time I
reached the lobby, God only knew what colors I was turning while I was panting to
get my breath back. The rest of my
friends were still waiting by the elevators, so when Paul and gang paraded into
the lobby I was the only fan up there at the time, and he looked straight at me
and broke into another huge grin, either having heard the commotion of me
stampeding down the stairs while waiting for the elevator, or who knows, maybe
he remember my HDN patch.
Ah, the embarrassing moments we fans have known. But we wouldn’t’ trade those memories for anything,
would we?
i loved reading this! pat has been a dear friend for as long as i can remember. i stayed at her house over a weekend in the 80's, went there just to meet her. then we met again in chicago for a paul concert and press conference. i remember running down the street with her and other friends. we have been close friends all these years, and i can tell you she is still as funny as when she wrote this! i could always speak normally to any of the beatles, as long as it wasn't john. in that case, my vocabulary became rather scarce...
ReplyDeletein the early 70's Macca was very often seen obviously high so may be case of stupid clothing choices - I remember him wearing this babydoll with underwear looking hat once which made me cringe
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