Long and winding road

For Paul McCartney, that birthday came in 2006 and, ironically, not long after his split from second wife Heather Mills.

Now, six years on and we are at a yet more definitive milestone still — Paul ‘Macca’ McCartney, legendary former Beatle, one half of one of the world’s greatest, most enduring songwriting partnerships, the most successful and richest man in pop music, the knight who insists he has never lost his working class roots, will be 70-years-old on Jun 18.

The way McCartney tells it, he’s still the same old cheery chap, nipping down to B&Q for the odd bag of nails. Sometimes that self-protective image has served him well, other times, less so: While plenty of rockstar drug habits have caused all manner of moral apoplexy, Macca was always benignly dismissed as a harmless old hippie who favoured the odd toke, despite extensive dabbling in LSD and cocaine and a lifelong cannabis habit only recently ditched at the request of his latest wife.