“Our house was an escape for him,” says Iris.  “My mother was so easy to get along with. So he’d escape back to our place and eat cheese sandwiches and drink tea, talking all night.  He’d idolised his own mother. It was like losing a limb when she died, and he’d had to rebuild himself.

He felt he had a responsibility to his mother’s memory, to say to her ‘I’m still me’.  He had to show her he was a survivor.  He couldn’t let his mum or dad or brother see him going to pieces.  He had to block her death out as a matter of self-preservation. It had been a bad age for him to lose her, because it’s a transition period: suddenly you are given responsibility, you realise there’s more to life than you thought and that the world is not a very nice place.  But you still need the reassurance of those parental figures in the background.

He hadn’t been able to put any pressure on his dad - in fact, his dad, for all his exuberance, was leaning on him.  So Paul had had to prove that he was strong.

I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. I know how much he liked Stuart. But what Paul had got was ambition; he wouldn’t have approved of Stuart going off with a girl and troubling their potential. Who wants to settle down with Astrid when there’s a world to conquer?  I don’t know of Paul ever stepping on anyone. The only person he was ruthless with was himself.  Even in the Pete Best situation, it was because Ringo was a better drummer.

He was terribly distressed by Stuart’s death - it was another ending of the life of someone near in spirit to him.  Why should he have to prove he’s very upset?  You live with yourself.

The difference between Paul and my brother was his total dedication, which all the beatles had: they lived it, they deserved everything they got.  And Paul and John were very talented boys.

Paul was so determined, with a total belief in himself to an extent that some would think he was self-centred and in love with himself. But he wasn’t - it was just that he wasn’t ordinary, and knew that he wasn’t.  He wasn’t thinking ‘I’m getting ten pounds a week for being in a band - better than working’.

He wouldn’t run with the crowd. If he liked a record or a group you weren’t supposed to like, he’d say so.  If he wouldn’t join in for a whipround in the pub, or go off pulling birds all the time, maybe it was because he had other things to do instead; he had to get on with it. He was very correct and liked people around him to be correct.  He never swore, he never told a dirty joke. Paul was the whole driving force in the group, he was the clever one. And he was all right, Paul, he worked for everything he got.”