Blog

Meeting Paul, Waterstone's, Piccadilly, London

14th December 2005

Wow, that was just the best thing ever. Totally awesome. I met Paul McCartney! And shook his hand. And got a signed book. And, you know, I must be the happiest woman alive.

Left home as soon as the cheap day returns kicked in and arrived at Piccadilly Circus at about 11 o'clock. There was already a fair queue outside the store but it was (unsurprisingly) mainly formed of the reserve wristband holders. Grabbed a coffee from over the road, was found by my friend Richard and his daughter Ilona (my resident under-16-year-old) and went to stand in the queue, where it promptly began raining.

The whole event was remarkably tightly choreographed and there were plenty of McCartney security buzzing around the place. They showed us inside a few at a time and took us to buy our copies of High in the clouds (the only mistake -- it turned out they were all pre-signed so they had to take our unsigned books away from us again) then ushered us to the second floor where we dropped off coats and bags and had our pockets checked. Then up to the third floor to wait for an hour until the signing. Ilona kept me entertained with tales of school and imaginary lands and we watched the queue of people growing, eventually snaking around the entire floor.

12.30 eventually came and before the masses were allowed in Paul gave a reading from the book to a class of primary school children. Then the queues started moving. I wasn't nervous until getting pretty near to the signing area -- we could tell where it was happening because we could see the press photographing and filming the event before we could see Paul himself -- but then there he was. Oh - my - god - it's Paul McCartney. I could've nearly died.

The whole thing was over too quickly; the security guys spoke to us in line and told us not to say too much to Paul, to keep the line moving as quickly as possible as there were a lot of people to get through. He was awesome though -- shook hands, presented me with the book, said thank you for coming and for waiting out in the cold, that he hoped I'd enjoy the book and happy Christmas. Very much the conveyor-belt affair -- no photos allowed, no dedications in the books and no chance to say much but he made it feel so wonderful and personal all the same.

After the signing I met up with Vicki and others we'd spoken to in the queue on Sunday. Two guys had got Paul to sign their arms and were heading off to get it tattooed over. Apparently Paul had been uneasy about it at first but did anyway, and another guy had managed to sneak a CD of his own music through and had given it to Paul, who said he'd give it a listen.

We went to the back of the bookshop where Paul's car was waiting, and hung around nattering until he came out. There were maybe 20 of us hanging around and when Paul finally emerged it was mad, people clammering to take his photo and calling hello to him. He was in the car and off in no time, and that was that. Got speaking to some people who I recognised from Joe & Marty gigs and we went back into the bookshop to see if there were any spare signed books left. There weren't, but the shop staff gave us some of the promotional bumpf that they didn't need any more -- posters and cardboard mobiles and cut-outs.

It's slightly depressing to see that some of the signed books are already popping up on eBay, but I suppose it was always going to happen.

Best day ever.

[Sign]
A sign in Waterstone's
[Paul]
Sir Paul leaves the building and greets us all
[Paul]
Paul makes a hasty get-away

Photos © urban-spaceman.org