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| Carol, Linda, Paul and JoAnn |
In the Autumn of 1968
Linda Rabe & JoAnn Defilippe
On our first day in London, we took the underground tube to
St. John’s Wood, and by some miracle we walked in the right direction and found
ourselves in front of the street sign which read, “Cavendish Avenue.” Looking down the block, we saw a mob of girls
standing outside THE HOUSE! We walked up
and they told us that they were waiting for Paul to come out and sign
autographs. As we were standing out
there, we heard a noise inside the gate and crossed the street so that we could
see over the wall. There, in the
doorway, stood Paul. He looked over and
waved and made signs with his hands which seemed to mean, “Wait, one minute,
ok?” Two girls came out of the yard and
went around to the stores with Martha and Eddie. We stayed around until the cops came and then
decided to go back to the hotel and eat.
We went back the next night and two girls from Scotland told us that he
was not home. We all decided to go for a
drink, and then decided to go back to Paul’s house, even though it was after
midnight. When we arrived there, the
gates were wide open, and there was a white car in the yard. One of the Scottish girls told us that it
belonged to Paul’s friend, Ivan Vaughn.
She went into the garage and came out with a pair of Paul’s overalls
that had a name of a petrol station on it.
We tried to get the buttons off, but it was quite difficult as they were
rubber. Feeling guilty, we decided to put
them back. We all creeped further into
the yard, and JoAnn went up the steps to try and peek into the front window. Then, Camena made a noise in the garage as
she was trying to put the overalls back, and we all flew out of the yard
in a bit of a hurry.
Two minutes later, a car came speeding up the
block, and a green mini appeared in front of us. Paul was in the car with Miss Eastman (at the
time, we didn’t know who she was). Since
we weren’t able to think straight, all we could say was “Hi Paul,” he looked at
us and said, “Hi luv”. A light went on
in the car, and he said something to her.
EH got out of the car and started walking over towards us. She turned and said in a long drawn out nasal
voice, “come on, Martha!” Even Paul
looked at her with a confused look on his face.
Trying to remain calm, we told him that we were from New York and asked if we could talk to him for a
minute. He said sure.
JoAnn: Can I take a picture
with you?
Paul: Sure, come over
here.
Carol: Can we take a
picture with you?
Paul: Yeah
We gave the camera to Camena so she could take the picture of
us with him. (see photo) Carol went over
and took his arm and Joann walked over to him and slipped her hand through his
left arm. Joann’s hands being cold,
found a nice warm spot. Paul said, “no
luv, like this.” He took JoAnn’s hand
and put it over his arm. He said “Ohhhh”
and started to rub her hand to make it warm.
Being that Paul only had two arms Linda (fellow fan from the U.S. not
Linda Eastman) didn’t know where to stand.
Linda: Where do I
stand?
Carol: Sit on the
Ground.
Paul: No, stand
here. (Point in front of himself) As
Linda stood in front of him he put his hands on her shoulders. Swaying back and forth he looked up to the
sky and said, “ohh there’s a moon out tonight” and sang “I only have yes for
you.” As we all looked up at him we gave
him looks as if to say “forget it, you can’t sing.” We were forgetting who he was and that hey
Jude was then at #1.
Camena went to take
the picture and the flash wouldn’t go off, and trying a second time, still no
luck. JoAnn said “Oh the flash won’t go
off!” Paul said, “Don’t worry, it will.” As Linda was standing in front of him, she
could feel his body pressing forward and his knees bending into hers. The third time the flash finally went off.
Paul: The family
portrait taken right after the football game.
We really beat them at that one, didn’t we? What part of New York are you from – Brooklyn?
We told him what part, and he said that he had never heard
of it. Little does he know that the
location just happened to be the same places were Kennedy Airport is and Shea
Stadium.
JoAnn: We went to a
club tonight, and couldn’t get in, you had to be a member.
Paul: What club was
that?
JoAnn: The Speakeasy
Club.
Paul: Couldn’t be.
JoAnn: It was.
Paul: But it couldn’t
be.
JoAnn: don’t tell me,
I was there, and I saw the sign and it said “Speakeasy.”
Paul: But you don’t
understand, it burnt to the ground.
There’s nothing left. You have to
be an angel to get in.
JoAnn: Girls, tell
him what the name of the club was.
Linda: Blaiser’s Speakeasy
Paul: Oh yeah, I know
the one. It’s different. There are a few clubs that you have to be a member
to in. There’s a good one call The Bag.”
Us: The Bag?
Paul: Yeah, the Bag O’Nails
– you don’t’ have to be a member to get in and it’s cheap.
Linda: Is it nice?
Paul: Yeah, but it’s ‘ruff
(makes a fist and squints his nose)
Linda: Thanks a lot!
Paul: Yeah, but it’s
a good club.
JoAnn: Where is it?
Paul: Near Regent
Street
Joann: Oh, Regent Street.
Where’s that?
Paul: Near Carnaby
Street.
Us: Oh…Carnaby
Street.
Paul: (making a funny
gesture) Oh Carnaby Street! We’ll just
have to go there, and after that we’ll just have to go to the Palace!
Linda: Did you know
that we had a Magical Mystery Tour of our own? (A bus load of girls had gone on
a ride around NY, and then up to Bear Mountain, NY)
Paul (looking pathetic) No.
Nobody told me. Did you know
where you were going?
Linda: Yeah, we had
to hire a bus to Bear Mountin.
JoAnn: you know Mr.
Weiss?
Paul: Yeah (smiling)
JoAnn: We’re the
girls who gave Mr. Weiss the pictures of John’s car, and of a convention we
had. Did you see them when you were
there?
Paul: Yeah, you’re
the girls, those were your pictures?
All of a sudden a little brown and black Yorkshire terrier
appeared.
JoAnn: Hi Eddie!
Linda: Edgar!
Paul: Eddie
JoAnn: Can I pick him
up?
Paul: Sure
JoAnn: Does he…
Paul: No, he doesn’t
bite. He just might try and get down.
JoAnn was talking and playing with Eddie and he didn’t get
down. Paul came over and took Eddie’s
head in his hands (JoAnn’s hair was in Paul’s fingers) and ruffled his fur and
kissed him on the mouth. Martha was
walking around and we asked him if Martha and Eddie fought, and he said that
they didn’t.
JoAnn: Can I have your autograph?
Paul: Sure
JoAnn: My name is
JoAnn. As she gave him a pen and he was signing it. He shook his head yes, and she said could you
please write that down. He said “Oh
JoAnn, Joann, I thought you were telling me what your name was. Hi JoAnn, I’m
Paul. But that’s silly, you know I’m Paul.
Then Linda said her name to put on the autograph, and Paul just gave her
a strange look, and we didn’t know why.
Later, we found out why.
Linda: Can I take a
picture of you and Eddie?
Paul: Yeah, wait a
minute.
He had to pick Eddie up and then he stood there so tall and
proud. And the flash wouldn’t’ go off
again. So Paul decided he was going to
fix that problem and just pulled the flash cube off and tried top push another
one on, but it still didn’t work. So, we
tried switching the flash cubes again, and Paul posed again, and we finally got
the picture (see photo) He then put
Eddie down and he bent down and made noises of a dog barking and Eddie looked
at Paul moving his head from side and side and we all went “ahhh.”
Linda: We have a
present for you, but we didn’t bring it with us because we didn’t know we were
going to see you.
Paul: Come back
tomorrow. It’s better to come at night,
because during the day I don’t answer the bell.
I change moods rapidly. He
started to shut one gate and Linda went over to him and whispered in his ear,
while his hair tickled her nose, “can I kiss you goodnight?”
Paul: No, not here.
As Linda was backing up, he still held her hand as we said
goodnight to him again and told him to say hello to the other boys for us. Back at the hotel, we had talked about what
happened, but Linda couldn’t put into words how it felt when Paul pressed
against her.
Even though Paul had told
us to come back at night, we decided to go around to his house that afternoon
to see what was going on. It’s so hard
to stay away. As usual, there were a lot
of girls there and they were asking us questions about what time Paul had come
home the night before (don’t know how they found out).
While we were there, Miss Eastman had come
out to go around to the store. With her
nose high in the air, she just passed everyone right by without a glance. A half hour later the groceries arrived and they
rang the bell which Paul answered and they told him his groceries were here and
he said OK and sent Rosie out to collect them.
After a while, a meat truck came and Rosie came out to open the gates
for the truck to pull in the yard and send in the meat. When the groceries had arrived we looked in
the box and then stuck in a few notes that our friends from New York had given
us to give him. We were peeking through
the crack in the gate and were taking turns standing on the milk crate looking
over the wall. We saw Paul come bopping
down the stairs in the house and he had on a yellow shirt and dark
trousers.
Later in the afternoon, Ivan
came and rang the bell which Paul wouldn’t’ answer. Therefore, Ivan decided to climb the gate, he
took a few steps backwards and jumped over the gate (a trick John use to
pull). About an hour later, Paul came
rushing out of the house and we ran into the yard next door (#9) to try and see
what he was doing.
We saw him get into his Mini and we went back to his
gate. Ivan opened the gates and Paul
pulled out making noises like a racing car.
Martha was in the back seat and Paul had Eddie on his lap. We knew that he was taking them up to Regents
Park as he had done very day then.
Everyone started to snap pictures.
JoAnn took a picture of him and the flash was very bright and hurt his
eyes and Paul went “ooh!” JoAnn felt
guilty and wanted to apologize. When we
went back that night, JoAnn asked Linda to remind her.
Linda had looked and Paul and pointed to the
camera and he nodded that it was ok to take a picture. Paul waited for Miss Eastman and Ivan to get
into the car and then he pulled off. We
decided not to wait around until he came back and went home. We came back at 11 pm to give Paul his
present. When we arrived there, the
gates were closed and we walked over to EMI.
On our way back to Paul’s we saw tow English girls (Anne and Suzanne) standing
there. The gates were open and Paul was
standing there with Eddie in his arms and talking to Ivan, who was seated in the
car with Miss Eastman next to him. As Ivan
pulled out, we started to walk over to Paul and Ivan said “Goodnight” and we
made sure that we said Goodnight to him and we waved. They pulled off down the block and we stood
there with Mr. McCartney himself and again he was making his dog noises.
Paul: Did you meet
Eddie? Oh yeah, you met Eddie last
night. Then he said to Carol, “You didn’t
meet Eddie.”
Carol: I did too.
Paul: Oh, you were
here last night? You look different.
JoAnn to Carol: Oh,
you had your hair back last night and tonight you have it down.
Paul: Oh, you let
your hair down so you could swing (swaying his hips from side to side.) We were standing in front of him and we were watching
him as he put his yellow shirt into his trousers with a silly grin on his face.
We looked down to see his orange socks. He
was standing directly in front of a puddle and he curled his toes up and went “ekkk!” All of a sudden there was a noise from the
top of the wall and Paul said, “shhh! Do you hear that noise?” He moved closer towards us.
Paul: Is that one of
the fans up there? Oh no. It’s that tom cat again. He scared us last night. Oh (he looks at the 2 English girls) – have
you met these three girls? These three
girls are from New York and they’re alright.
Paul to us: These two
girls are from Hamstead and they’re alright too.
Suzanne to us: You
know you’re alright, he said you’re alright, so that means you’re alright.
Paul stood there smiling with his head down.
Linda: Can we take a
picture?
Paul: Yes sure.
He was still talking, but we didn’t know what he was talking
about, and we were trying to get the cameras out.
Paul: come on girls,
you’re slow (hitting JoAnn on the hand) Every night when we were small my
brother and I used to get a bisquit before we went to bed, and we used to
nibble on it very very slowly (with his hand up to his mouth to imitate) to
stall for time. By the way, where did
you girls go today?
JoAnn: We were here
all day.
Paul: You were here
all day?!
Linda: Yeah, we had
nothing better to do (jokingly)
As we were getting ready to take the picture Paul said, “Never
mind, I’m not in the mood now. You have
to be in a mood to take pictures.”
Meanwhile Eddie kept running around.
Linda: Does Eddie run
in the street?
Paul: Yes, he does,
sometimes.
And with that Eddie ran into the street. All Paul had to do was whistle and Eddie came
running back. It didn’t take him long to
get back into the street though. Paul
was still talking and talking and suddenly a car came speeding down the black
and Paul turned around and called “Eddie.”
Eddie panicked and didn’t know which way to turn. Thank God the car stopped in time. Paul turned around and had his hand over his
heart. “I shouldn’t have called him like
that because I scared him and he probably would have made it across the street
ok. It’s the same as if a person was
crossing the street and a car was coming the person would have noticed the car,
but if someone had yelled out the person would have panicked.”
JoAnn: You’re smart.
The guy that almost hit Eddie was still sitting there in his
car, smiling and watching. Again
forgetting who we were with, we said, “Who’s that guy staring at?” Paul put his head down.
Linda to JoAnn: You
wanted to apologize.
JoAnn: Oh yeah, I
have to apologize.
Paul: Apologize? What for?
As JoAnn looked up into his eyes she noticed oen of his
veins in the left eye and it left a strange effect on her and she couldn’t say
what.
Paul: So, where’s my
present?
Linda: First we have
a couple notes from our friends.
We gave them to him and he said in a pathetic voice, “Is
this my present?”
Linda: No stupid (she
said this innocently).
Paul opened the notes and started to read, but he couldn’t
as it was too dark and he said he’d finish reading them inside, and put them in
his pocket. Linda then took out the
bottle of wine, slowly, to give him. He
popped her in the chest and said, “Hurry up!”
His eyes just lite up when he saw that bottle. He held it in his hand and put his arm up in the
air and said, “Let’s celebrate!” He
said, “Who wants the first swig?” We
told him he should have some first because it was his bottle. He started to tear the stuff off the top and
dropped it on the ground. He said to
Linda, “Want some?” and she said, “No thank you, I don’t like wine.” He then took a great big gulp and made a face
and shook his head in pleasure and said, “Good stuff, this American wine.” He
then went to pass the bottle and Linda suddenly decided she liked wine and took
the bottle from him. She was putting it
up to her mouth and he pushed it, hitting her front teeth with the bottle as
she drank it. Linda then gave the bottle
to JoAnn and when she was drinking it Paul kept staring at her and the bottle
made a funny noise when she took it away from her mouth and the wine swished
out of the bottle. The other girls had a
swig and gave the bottle back to Paul.
Paul: Oh, when I used
to work in the mill they used to wake me for my meals, but that was a long time
ago, when I was 55.
Suzanne: Now you’re
80.
Paul: And these
tin-pan groups today, they don’t make music, just noise.
Suzanne: Like the Beatles.
Paul: oh them…
Paul started to go towards the gates and close them and he
said “Hey well, I’ll see you anyway.
Goodnight.”
We said goodnight and went to get a taxi home.
