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Epilogue
The point has been made, I think, that people who knew Linda had very strong and positive memories of her. (Even Blair Sabol, who savaged her in print twenty-five years ago, recanted - to some extent). Many who only knew of Linda also had astonishingly warm opinions of her, as evidenced by the thousands of 'tributes' posted on the Internet after her death.
Those friends and acquaintances of hers to whom I talked for this book gave me more wonderful quotes than I could ever use, or fit into the context of the story at all neatly and yet I would not want to see them left out, so here are some sentiments that didn't make it into the preceding chapters, but certainly stand on their own.
Chrissie Hynde: She always made you feel like everything was OK, and I thought, well, it made me feel like I wasn't so afraid to die because, when I cross over, she'll be there. I can just imagine dying and Linda saying, 'Oh, it's all right, come in. Don't worry about anything - you know you don't have to wipe your feet.'
Yoko Ono (in Rolling Stone, 11 June 1998): Linda and I did not meet up and have coffee and muffins in a corner cafe or anything like that. But we communicated. We communicated in deeds more than in words. When she was strong I felt strong.
Carolyn Jobson (Linda's masseuse at Roundhill, Jamaica): There are people who nurture everybody else more than themselves, they're always very giving. Linda was the most nurturing person. I was thinking about that, that she was like a sponge, really, and the whole family was in that special space. She wasn't somebody who worried about clothes and fixing herself up, she was really down to earth and I think that was it; she spent all her time looking after animals, looking after other people, that kind of thing. She was, to me, the ultimate earth mother. People who didn't know her might have been surprised that she wasn't like a fancy lady.
She never lost that way of dealing with people - whatever walk of life you were from, I think she just treated people the same. It didn't matter, nobody was any more special than anybody else because of where they came from or whatever. I would just thank her for what she has done for the animals and say that we're going to continue the cause. I'm raising my children vegetarian.
I have a friend who's an alternative doctor but who also practises intuitive medicine, and she's very 'sensitive', as they call it. I was taking her around Roundhill and I showed her the house where they stayed. The next day she said to me, 'I've been picking up Linda's presence very strongly, but it's a good feeling. I think she's OK. She feels very happy where she is.'
Eddie Pumer (producer of Paul's and Linda's radio shows): She just carried on telling the truth, loving her family, her husband, loving the music, being a musician, a photographer, being totally honest, being Linda; her strength as a woman won that battle, without a shadow of a doubt. She never went out there saying, 'You're all wrong, don't do this to me.' She never did. She just gave it time, and in time everybody understood the truth and she was the most truthful person; she never bullshitted in all of the years I knew her. She won because she was Linda McCartney and she did not sell, publicize, try to push; not at all. She won because of truth and the love of a family, the love of the music, and that's what makes her a remarkable woman; as far as I'm concerned she will remain a very prominent and loved figure. It's very rare - she was a wholly good and loving person and that's what won the day. She just carried on as Linda.
Eddie Kramer (record producer): She did something for me in a strange sort of way which I really appreciate now. I wasn't sure about it when it was happening, when I went to see them at the house and they were all vegetarian and she was trying to encourage me to go vegetarian. And in the vegetarian cookbook she gave me, she wrote, 'Go veggie, Eddie!' You know she does that to everybody, I guess, but it was so nice that she did that after I had heart surgery. I decided, 'I'm gonna change, that's it, no more meat for me.' I always appreciated that phrase, it always stuck with me: 'Go veggie, Eddie.' I've been vegetarian for four and a half years now.
She was very special, very, very special. I just loved her warmth and it's an interesting thing: how does a person be warm and tough at the same time? She was that. She was tough. You know she had to be, but what a wonderful, sensible person. The way she treated her kids, her love of art and photography and music, animals and the whole package; it was great. I think she just evolved into this. Do you remember how she was in '68 compared with how she was in '98? Look at that fantastic upward curve! It was brilliant; look what she evolved into, she just kept growing, each step of the way.
Dave Marsh (author): I think the key to a relationship that strong is kids, because at some point, whatever your differences are, if you have this big thing in the centre of your life, that's a bond. You know one thing that typically happens with couples is that the kids grow up, start to go off to college or whatever, and that's when the trouble happens in the marriage. That is a very stressful moment; it was for my wife Barbara and me. Paul and Linda seemed to have escaped even that. The other thing was that Paul and Linda both strike me as being people who had their adventures, and then they met each other.
Dan Mathews (animal rights activist): When I heard she had died, I went outside to the harbour at Norfolk and looked at the water and listened to the wind and I remember waving goodbye to the wind. I felt her in the wind, I sort of said my goodbyes then and there.
Ron Delsener (concert promoter): She was of another era. She was of the land. I could never see Linda McCartney wearing a fur coat, I could never see Linda or Paul McCartney using a cell phone, I could never see Linda McCartney taking garbage and burning it in the backyard or throwing it off a boat or out of the window of a car. They were trying to tell people, 'Become veggie, do this, do that,' and I wish that she had lived long enough because she would have had her own television show and got that message across to everyone.
Linda Stein (prominent New Yorker): Sadly, in her death she's separated from Paul: she's not Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney's wife; but Linda McCartney, the late, great Linda McCartney. And I think people were so jealous of her, especially women. Other people criticized her because they really didn't get it, they thought that all she wanted was to wave a tambourine and be onstage, but it was the last thing that she seemed to want. She was discussing the music of Wings, she was enthusiastic about organic vegetables, art, flowers, green tea, saving animals and certainly being a mother. I think that she was devoted to pleasing Paul and she fed his needs. She's nurturing and that nurturing was sometimes responding to 'Give me a little Scotch, honey,' or 'Hold my hand'; it was whatever he wanted. But not in a snap-your-fingers, here, 'Jump, honey' way. I could never call it subservient, because there was nothing subservient about her. If she gave him a glass of water, she was regal in giving it. She anticipated his needs and she met them, but not as if she was beneath him in any way or beneath anybody. That was part of the gracefulness and beauty of her personality, because she just was who she was.
Judy Collins: Nobody was warmer than Linda. That hug! Boy, when she hugged you, did you know you were being hugged!
Laurence Juber (guitarist with Wings): Linda really represented for me an epitome of a certain kind of womanhood and I think that the things I learned from her are probably the same things that Paul fell in love with: her strength of character, her artistic sensibility, her natural beauty and all the things that those of us who had any direct experience with Linda can really appreciate - her sense of humour, and then there was that kind of sceptical aspect to her personality. She had something that I'm never going to forget.
Denny Seiwell (drummer with Wings): The kids, the love; I mean, it was just a very genuine thing there. They were best friends and Linda had some incredibly intuitive ways about her that Paul really respected. I think the way Paul saw her was the way she looked at him, as the genius of the Beatles and the writer and the performer. I think that he looked at her and at her talents and that he believed she had as much going for her as he did. And that kind of mutual respect - I believe that was the thing.
Tim Treharne (managing director of Linda's food company): I'm not a big follower of newspapers but she always seemed to be Linda McCartney, wife of Paul. In the end, though, in the last few years, she became Linda McCartney, herself. And I think that was a tremendous achievement for her. She was her own person.
Denny Evans (in an Internet posting): Having lost my mother at a very young age, I was constantly searching for role models. The searching stopped when I got to know more about Linda. Besides being so extremely talented, she seemed to have the biggest heart. What lucky people her friends must have been to have known her personally. I wish I could have told her what an inspiration she has been to me. I have gone vegetarian because of her and I hope that others will follow her example. Even though she is not on earth any longer, I know she is somewhere watching over us, trying to guide us in the right direction. So, Lovely Linda, I hope you can hear me when I tell you that you were the most beautiful person inside and out. Your time with us was filled with happiness, but was much too short. You left us all so much love, you were one incredibly amazing person. I will remember you always.
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