The Autumn of '68 - Conclusion

JoAnn and Paul

Paul and Linda

I have been posting these wonderful stories about some American girls who went to London for two weeks in September-October 1968.  This is the last of the stories.    They were originally published in the fanzine called "McCartney Publications."   They were re-published in the "McCartney Observer" and this one can be found in Winter 1983 issue.   This story was written by JoAnn and Linda.   The photos did not scan very well because they were just xerox copies to begin with.   Hopefully I can find some better photos ones of these days.  

The Autumn of ’68 – conclusion

Written by Joann DeFilippe and Linda Rabe

The next night we decided to go to Paul’s house instead of EMI.  We left the hotel with Mary and Sue, and were the only ones at his house until Colin and his friends showed up with the car.  We had climbed the wall to see if the Aston was there and it was.  We figured he was home.  We told Colin that, and he said that he heard Paul had walked to EMI and said he’d drive around and ask the girls there.  When he came back he said Paul did walk.  So now it was a matter of just sitting and waiting for him.  Mary and Sue had to go to the bathroom.  We told them there was one around the corner on Wellington in a petrol station.  We told them to hurry around so they wouldn’t miss Paul coming home.  They said if he does, stall him.  We were watching them going down the block and every once in a while they would turn to see if he was coming.  They were finally out of sight and Linda and JoAnn decided to sit on his milk crates.  All of a sudden we heard footsteps up the block and every time he came under a light his body would just stand out (pant).  We saw him with a blonde and thought it was Linda Eastman, but as they got closer we realized it was Margo. 

 Meanwhile we’re thinking “Where’s Mary and Sue?”    We heard Paul saying to Margo “no not really” and he just walked back to EMI.  Meanwhile we were still sitting there waiting for Sue and Mary, wondering just how we could stall him.  He was carrying a brown envelope and came over and just stood in front of us.  We heard a long hello and we looked up to see him staring down and smiling at Linda; then he said another long hello, as he stood staring and smiling down at JoAnn.  Then he turned to Carol who as standing against the wall and said to her, “Here, hold this,” handing her the envelope.  He turned back to Linda and JoAnn.  He was just standing there looking at us, as the two of us sat (on milk crates) and tried not to look directly in front of us because a certain section of the man’s body was directly in our faces!  We tried to look up into his face and he still had that silly smile on his face and said, “I can’t find my keys.”  So, not thinking as usual we looked to see where he was looking and his hands were searching in an area where no one would ever find keys, especially to a house.    As we turned multicolored, we looked down at the ground.  As JoAnn was sitting on the milk crate she crossed her legs and Paul said “You kicked me.”  JoAnn:  “I didn’t kick you.”  Paul:  “You did too” (smiling).  Joann looked down to see that her foot was like an inch away from the cuff of his trousers and thought to herself, “Maybe I did!”  Paul then said in a louder voice “You did too kick me.”  JoAnn, staring at his smiling face, noticed his whole body sort of leaning forward and he hit her in the shin with his knee.  Thinking she was going to fall backwards off the crate, his knee just pressed against her leg hard enough so that she wouldn’t (if you want to call that a kick!).  He finally found his keys in his coat pocket.  On his coat he wore four pins which looked like little men.  He was getting ready to go in and we had to stall him.  We didn’t know what to do so we figured we’d tell him the truth.  JoAnn said, “There’s these 2 girls from Pennsa-uh-Philadelphia…”  Paul:  “Oh, Pennsa-Philadelphia-did you ever hear of Boston-York or Los-Francisco?”  He kept making different names for cities and we said to him, “They went around to the um…, they went for a walk.”  Carol then said to Paul in sort of a nasty tone, “You have to wait!”  Paul turned to her and said, “I have to wait?”  We thought, “Uh-oh, this is it,” when he turned and smiled at JoAnn and Linda and said very nicely, “Goodnight.”  We said “Good night, Paul.”

  After he went in the three of us were talking about the pins on his coat, and laughing said that there’s one for each of us and one for him.  We looked up the block and now Sue and Mary were coming back.  We though how do we break the news.  Colin then drove down the block and told them, they ran.  We told them we tried to stall him, but it didn’t work.  Thanks to Carol.  We decided to go around EMI, but Mary said that she was going to stay.  Colin and his friend said goodbye and rode off.  The three of us and Sue went around and left Mary there, we figured he wouldn’t come out again.  When we got there we were talking to Margo.  About 20 minutes later Mary came with the girl who said she had slept in Paul’s backyard a couple of nights before and said “look who I found.”  We thought “oh no.”  She was telling us Paul let her sleep in his car and in the morning invited her in for tea and being that she was cold, he gave her one of his sweaters to wear.  Margo kept saying “that’s not one of his sweaters, look at it.  It’s dirty and has holes in it.  Besides he doesn’t own a brown sweater like that.  I know all his sweaters!”  Mary said, “Paul autographed my biography” and told us that Paul took the girl out to the gate by the arm and said “Now be a good girl and go home.”  The girl said to him “I thought you were nice.”  Paul kept looking at Mary as if to say “is she for real?”   We were standing there and waiting for the other boys and JoAnn, Carol and Mary said they were going to go home.  Linda and Sue decided to stay.  Before they left we wished each other a Merry Christmas and Margo said, “Not you too.”  We all laughed because it was John’s birthday and there had been a lot of greetings going on. 

After waiting so long for someone, Ringo finally came out.  You could hardly see him because he was standing behind his driver.  The English girls were saying goodnight to him and Sue and Linda were going to talk to him.  Maureen was right behind him and she just smiled at everyone.  Linda kept calling him and was right in back of him.  She thought he was deaf.  All of a sudden, he turned and said, “Yes luv.”  Well he scared the tar out of her and she couldn’t say anything to him except hello.   Which he said right back, very politely and they got in the car to leave.

  Not too long afterwards we were sitting on the steps waiting for John and George to exit when Linda turned to look in and saw John and Yoko coming out.  She tried to tell everyone but nothing would come out of her mouth.  John and Yoko were standing in the lobby and pointing back and forth to each other about something and had opened the door a couple of times to come out but never did.  Finally when John came out he had his guitar slung over his shoulder and was wearing an orange scarf one of the girls made him and had a cake they gave him.  We all said “Happy birthday John” and he just gave each individual one of his famous Lennon looks and said “thanks.”  He started down the steps and Yoko beat him there.  Linda asked him if she could take his picture as she shook.  He said “sure luv” and just stood there so she took it and then remembered she had some notes for him from some of the girls in New York.  As she was going down the steps toward him George managed to fit between her and the handrail without hitting either one and said “good morning.”  He’s so skinny; she didn’t even see him pass until he was in the car.  Linda then walked over to John and Susan was just standing there still holding the gifts she had for him.  He was sitting in the car and Linda said “ooh wait.”  He just looked.  She said she had some letters for him and he twisted his arm an awkward way and said “Give um here.”  Then the three of them pulled off and Sue and Linda headed for home.  

When we got up the next day we were sort of depressed because it was our last day in London and we made a vow that if we had to wait all night we’d stay to see Paul to say goodbye.  We left the hotel around 11:00 for EMI and just stood around talking to the girls.  We kept seeing feet under the doors and then lined the wall figuring someone was coming out soon.  At 2:30 Miss Eastman exited from the doors of EMI all by herself.  She was quite hesitant about coming down the steps as we were all standing staring at her.  No one said and word and when she got to the last step she threw her head back dramatically giving us all dirty looks as usual.  We had just about taken enough of her and started saying little things under our breath.  As she turned to go out of the gates we all stomped our feet as if we were running after her, to which we all congratulated ourselves on our great work.

At a quarter to three, Margo announced, “feet, feet!”, as we saw feet under the door of EMI.  As the door opened THE man stood on the top step and he went down two steps and stopped.  We just sat there staring at him and not saying a word as he stood and stared at each one of us individually.  He then stretched out his arms and yelled “In the beginning…” to which we said “there was a man, that man.”  As we all got up to go by the Aston, a girl from New Jersey asked him if she could take his picture.  He said “sure” and dramatically threw his body on the Aston and she took his picture.  We went over to stand in front of him as he was saying things which didn’t make sense.  We kept saying “Paul, Paul” and he kept talking about nothing and finally said a long “Yes” and smiled.  We told him we came to say goodbye.  He said “Goodbye?  Your two weeks are up, huh?”  We said, “yeah.”  Paul:  “I’d ask you what you got out of London for two weeks, but when I went to camp, the man always used to ask me what I got out of camp and you know I could never really answer that man.”  As he stood staring and waiting for an answer we couldn’t answer because how do you tell him it was him, so we just smiled at him and he smiled back as if to say, see.  But we knew better.   He then said “wait a minute” and put his hands in his pockets and took out one of the pins he wore the night before.  He then said “See this pin, it looks like a little man.  It’s a present from me to the three of you.”  We took the pin which was very warm and said “thank you.”  We said to him “how can the three of us wear one pin?”  He went in his pockets again to look again and dropped something and he hollered, “Does anyone have a match?”  Margo handed him a box of sparkle matches and he took them and lit on and it sparkled all over.  He put it under the car to look and said “These things are great, aren’t they?”  We all joined in for the search and thought we were all going to blow up.  We told him that and he stood up and said “It’s alright.  Whatever it is, it isn’t important.” 

 We then asked him if we could take our pictures with him and he said sure.  He had the car door opened and was standing there, Linda walked over to him and stood there.  Paul put his arm around her very gently and then pulled her close so that the sides of their bodies were touching.  Carol was getting ready to take the picture when Linda hollered, “Wait!” so she could take off her glasses.  Paul looked down at them and took them out of her hand and put them on, and was going to take them off for the pictures to be taken we all told him to keep them on, that he looked good.  So he put them back on and we took the picture.  Afterwards Linda started hitting him in the chest and said “where are you,” he gave her the glasses back and said “Here, I think you need these!”  Then JoAnn went over to him and leaned on the Aston and he then put his arm around her and pulled her over to him, he then pressed his body forward against her and did it repeatedly, she then knew what Linda meant.  After the picture was taken she hit him on the chest and said “Paul where are you?”   as he was smiling, for he had no answer, but looked as though he was trying to think of one. 

 He was getting into the car and Carol and Linda went over to him to ask him if we could kiss him goodbye.  He said “No, not here, it gets to be a thing once you do it you want o keep on doing it.”  Carol said “please, it won’t.”  He finally gave in and Carol kissed him.  Linda went by the door which was still open.  She started to bend down slow and kept staring into his eyes.  It was very hard not to.  The closer her face came to his, his eyes would start to slowly close and she kissed him part on the cheek and mouth, and it wasn’t easy to get up and move away.  JoAnn still stood in back of the car and realized what was going on said “Wait, I’m next.”  He then opened the car door, turned in his seat and watched as she came over ot the car. As he sat there looking at her she turned to look at Linda who was standing with her hand up to her mouth.  She then bent to kiss him and he smiled, as she kissed him she fell forward and Paul’s head went back, as she was kissing him, his head lifted slowly.  She then turned around to join the others, and Paul then looked at us and smiled.  He backed out and we went to him and he said have a nice flight home.  We said thank you and pathetically said goodbye to Paul.  He said “I’ll see you again.”  We asked him if he was coming to New York for the premiere of Yellow Submarine, he said “No, I’ve already seen it.”  We said “Wouldn’t you like to see it again?” Laughingly he said, “No, not really.”  We said goodbye to him again, he kept saying, “but I’ll see you again.”  As he pulled out of the one gate of EMI we went to the other gate and as he passed us on Abbey Road, we waved to him and he waved back and he kept staring at us until he finally had to look forward to see where he was going and we were getting nervous.  The girls congratulated us for kissing him and Margo was saying that whatever fell from his pocket was hers.  It turned out to be his guitar pick.

We then bid our farewells to the girls and EMI and to all the parts of London which had been a part of our lives for two weeks and to memories which we will always cherish.  But we have to go back after all.  We have to go back to Paul.