Late November 1940
Mary Mohin is thirty years old, and still unmarried. Mary’s mother died in 1919, while giving birth to her fifth child, who also died. At the time, Mary was ten years old. Perhaps influenced by this early tragedy, Mary set her heart on becoming a midwife. She achieved her ambition, and more: she is now not only a midwife, but a ward sister.
Jim McCartney is thirty-eight years old, and still unmarried. He was his mother’s fifth child, but only the third to live beyond the age of two. He left school just before his fourteenth birthday, and got a good job at a cotton brokers. He is now a cotton salesman, on a decent wage. His main love, though, is playing trumpet with his own six-to-eight-piece ensemble – Jim Mac’s Band. They perform all the latest dance tunes; Jim’s favourite is ‘I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise’.
Excused wartime service because he is deaf in one ear, Jim is attached to the Fazakerley Fire Unit. German bombs have been falling on Liverpool since August; London is the only city to have suffered more devastation.1 Somehow, the deadpan Liverpudlian humour sees them through. Over in Arnold Grove, the Harrison family have had their windows blown out, and their leather sofa, which they reserved for special occasions, was shredded by the flying glass. ‘If I’d known that was going to happen we could have been sitting on it all these years,’ observes Mrs Harrison.
Mary lodges with Jim’s sister Gin. Mary and Jim have known each other quite well for some years now, though they have never thought of each other in terms of romance.
(a)
Tonight the Nazi bombers fly overhead. Gin and Mary are visiting Jim’s mum in Scargreen Avenue when the sirens sound, so they have to stay over. As the bombs fall, Jim and Mary sit and chat for hours. By the time the all-clear is sounded, they feel they are meant for one another. After a brief engagement, they marry on 15 April 1941; just over a year later, Mary gives birth to their first child, a boy. They christen him James Paul McCartney.
(b)
Tonight is quiet. The sirens never sound. As it happens, they will tomorrow night, when Gin and Mary are planning on staying home. So Jim and Mary fail to have their heart-to-heart, and go their separate ways. James Paul McCartney is never born.
1 Over four thousand Liverpudlians were killed in the Blitz.