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May 2006

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May 31, 2006 -- Chicago Tribune

'Sources' dish dirt on Sir Paul

PEOPLE: You'd think that without actually talking to Heather Mills McCartney or Paul McCartney, it would be hard to produce a cover story explaining "Why Paul Left Heather."

Not for People-- what with its London bureau and crack staff of journalism school graduates, who unearthed a bevy of mysterious sources to bring readers the scoop. Here's who talked and what they said:

Phillip Goodhand-Tait: This inimitably named friend of Heather's said the two simply weren't compatible for the long haul, adding that Heather told him in January that the relationship was sinking.

"I don't think it's laughable to suggest she was bored," he told People, "but I also don't think it was a generational thing."

Thank you, Mr. Goodhand-Tait. You shed almost no light on the breakup, but we do enjoy whispering your name during dull moments at the office.

A "friend of McCartney's": Speaking only under a shroud of anonymity, the FOM noted the pair's outsize personalities and explained, "You can't have two like magnets pushing together."

Then, for People's science-challenged readers, he offered another analogy: "You don't have two frontmen in a band, but there were two frontmen in the marriage."

Do you see? We can only hope.

"One friend" I: This source said the couple argued about Sir Paul's penchant for pot-smoking. "Heather is quite conservative," the pal said. "She is not a trippy hippie and Paul is and has been for a long time."

"One friend" II: Another unidentified pal attributed the split to Heather's egocentric ways. "It was partly her energy and vitality that made her attractive to him," the person said. "But it was so egotistical and 'me, me, me' all the time that it just drove you mad."

Ah, but madder than reading a story based almost solely on anonymous sources and a man named Goodhand-Tait? Not likely.

The Beatles legend has been travelling in the back of a builder's van after his break-up from wife Heather Mills.

Sir Paul, 63, who's made £800 million ($1.6 billion) from hits like Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and She's Leaving Home, sneaks into the van behind closed gates at his London mansion to dodge fans and photographers. After a short Magical Mystery Tour he hops out and into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes.

But on Friday he was spotted making the switch at nearby Regent's Park.

Where can Macca slip off to now his secret's out? Obviously Nowhere Man.

Will Heather do a 'Diana' interview?

Heather Mills is said to be considering a Princess Diana-style television appearance which could reveal intimate details of her marriage rift with Sir Paul McCartney.

The former model is thinking of telling 'her side of the story' in an interview with ITV's Sir Trevor McDonald, it is believed.

Such an appearance, with a presenter known for his deferential style, would draw comparisons with Diana's explosiveinterview with Martin Bashir, in which she talked openly about her failed marriage to Prince Charles.

Miss Mills, 38, has already been accused of modeling herself on Diana, as the wronged partner whose marriage was overshadowed by her husband's public profile.

Like Diana, she has thrown herself into charitable work, traveling round the world to highlight the plight of slaughtered seal pups.

This has also led to comparisons with Sir Paul's first wife Linda, who died of breast cancer eight years ago.

Miss Mills also became patron of the Adopt-a-Minefield charity, saying she had an affinity with those who have lost a limb.

Diana had previously visited a minefield and amputees in Angola. She called for an international ban weeks before her death. An inter-view with Miss Mills would give a unique insight into life with 63-year-old Sir Paul.

Although he has been a household name for 40 years, he has kept his private life largely under wraps.

But the former Beatle's lawyers will be keen to make sure he is not blamed for the impending divorce, nor depicted as stingy as the couple discuss how his £800 million ($1.6 billion) fortune may be divided.

An interview with Miss Mills would be a coup for Sir Trevor, who has gained a reputation as a smooth operator who rarely gives his subjects too tough a time.

An ITV source was yesterday quoted as saying: 'Heather wants to give her side of the story and knows Sir Trevor and is a fan of his. She thinks he would give her a relatively smooth ride compared to other interviewers.'

Miss Mills has vowed to return to the catwalk and resume her career as a model when her marriage ends, even though her settlement will be enough to ensure she never has to work again.

She worked as a catalogue model before losing her leg when hit by a police motorcyclist 13 years ago.

She has since reinvented herself as an animal rights activist and/political campaigner. Miss Mills has now signed up to the little-known model agency Zone.

Yesterday, it was reported she has instructed her agent she wants to return to the catwalk later this summer.

Her actions have been described by some as further evidence she is a self promoter, who grew upset at living in Sir Paul's shadow.

As their marriage collapsed after four years, some of her friends hoped she might adopt a lower profile.

The latest development may reinforce Sir Paul's conviction that he made the right decision in seeking a divorce.

He was understood to have become increasingly fed up with his wife's determination to pursue a high-profile lifestyle despite his desire for a private, domestic existence at his Sussex estate.

The couple, who have a daughter Beatrice, two, announced their separation this month after it emerged they were living in separate houses 50 miles apart.

In a statement, they blamed the media, saying they found it 'increasingly difficult' to maintain a normal relationship in the public eye.

Despite speculation that Miss Mills could get up to £200 million ($375 million) of Sir Paul's fortune, recent reports suggest her settlement is likely to be closer to £25 million ($47 million).

Potential Mrs. McCartneys queue up

There are a few things you can count on in life: The sun rises in the east and sets in the west; what goes up will come down; and if there's a story about Paul McCartney in this newspaper, Linda Dana will check in.

Dana, 49, of west St. Louis County, is the consummate Paul girl. She's a former president of the St. Louis Beatles Fan Club, and she once paid $475 to sit in the 14th row at one of McCartney's Chicago concerts.

Dana and I first met in 1993 when the cute Beatle performed at the old Busch Stadium. We reconnected in 2002 before McCartney's concert at Savvis Center, at which time Dana made it clear that she was no fan of McCartney's then-new wife, Heather Mills. I believe Dana's exact words were, "She's a blond woman with a cause."

Last week, in the wake of McCartney's separation after four years from Mills, I asked readers who would be a good match for McCartney. A day or so later, an email arrived from Dana, reiterating her "blond woman" line, pointing out that she had been right about Mills.

"Heather has no clue what she is letting go of," wrote Dana, who went on to nominate herself as the next "Mrs. Paul McCartney." She figures in addition to being a diehard Beatles fan, specifically a Paul girl, her first name is the same as McCartney's first and beloved wife, Linda.

"Destiny," Dana declared.

Of course there is one tiny sticking point: Linda Dana has been married to Mark Dana for the past 28 years. Still, she assured me, that's no problem.

"This isn't anything Mark hasn't heard from me before," Dana said. "It's friggin' Paul McCartney. I think at this point, (Mark) would put me on the plane himself."

As it turns out, Dana isn't the only one who nominated herself. Her good friend Dawn Dunham of St. Louis thinks she'd be a better choice for McCartney because, among other things, she's single.

"I don't think Paul would be a good match for anyone who is already famous or aspires to be famous," Dunham wrote. "His legendary status alone is enough for any family to handle. He needs an easy-going, down-to-earth woman who desires to be a homemaker (and mother). It may sound a bit old-fashioned, but I think that is what Paul wants and needs.

"He also should consider a fan or at least someone who has a strong appreciation and knowledge of his music. ... Since all of my friends who fit the description above are already married, I will suggest myself."

Other readers don't see a problem with McCartney hooking up with someone famous. Richard Brantley of Brentwood offered two possibilities in the same well-known family.

"Paul's next wife? Priscilla and-or Lisa Marie Presley, obviously," he wrote.

"Priscilla, at 61, is the age-appropriate choice but, let's face it, the often-married Lisa Marie is the more likely pick."

Carla Garagnani of Ferguson thinks Sheryl Crow is a good choice because she and McCartney have music in common.

"Plus, it would be a trade-up for her after Lance Armstrong. It would be very cool, too, to have a Kennett, Mo., girl marry a Beatle," Garagnani said.

According to Scottie Freeman of St. Louis, Jane Fonda is the perfect mate for McCartney.

"They could exercise together, and he would be with someone his own age and intellect," she wrote.

Perhaps the best - or at least the most creative - suggestion comes from Carl Zey of Kirkwood, who nominates Queen of Clean Martha Stewart for Sir Paul.

"They could discuss their joint (Paul having served for pot possession in Japan) experiences at having done time in the big house," Zey said.

Hmm, maybe he's on to something. Paul did sing lead on the Beatles' "Martha, My Dear," which contains the lines: "Take a good look and you're bound to see/That you and me were meant to be for each other."

Perhaps the match isn't such a silly love song after all.

Heather Mills may give a TV interview about her split from Sir Paul McCartney.

The Washington-born former model, 38, is expected to give a full account of the break-up to Sir Trevor McDonald.

She is said to be mulling over an offer to appear on his ITV programme. An ITV source said: "Heather wants to give her side of the story and knows Sir Trevor and is a fan of his.

"She thinks he would give her a relatively smooth ride compared to other interviewers."

Heather and Sir Paul, married for four years, confirmed earlier this month they had agreed to split after finding it increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship in the glare of the public eye.

They said: "Having tried exceptionally hard to make our relationship work, given the daily pressures surrounding us, it is with sadness that we have decided to go our separate ways."

"Heather is still with Zone," they tell me. "Both parties intend that this remains such, although she will not be doing any work for a few weeks."

Mills is currently taking a break from media commitments, and has cancelled interviews relating to the launch of her new self-help book.

Her return to the front line is likely to be stage-managed to emphasise her voluntary work. Zone's publicist describes its star as: "Charity champion and animal rights activist Heather Mills-McCartney."

After days of headlines about his doomed marriage Sir Paul McCartney said today he was "thrilled" to be named as the UK's favourite celebrity vegetarian.

National charity the Vegetarian Society polled people across the nation during National Vegetarian Week 2006 and receiving the highest number of votes for the most popular male celebrity vegetarian was Sir Paul McCartney, followed closely by singer Morrissey.

Keeping it in the family, the most popular female vegetarian celebrity was Sir Paul's daughter, fashion designer Stella McCartney.

After adding the total votes, Sir Paul was named the outright winner across both sexes.

On hearing the result Sir Paul said: "I am really thrilled. People are becoming more aware of what they eat and where it comes from but many still don't make the connection between their own actions and the suffering and death of a real living creature.

"Once you truly understand the consequences of buying and eating meat, you can't claim to care without going vegetarian."

Voters were asked to select their favourite vegetarian through an online poll at the Vegetarian Society's website.

The list of 25 nominees included GMTV's Fiona Phillips, Big Brother's Chantelle Houghton, Lady Heather Mills-McCartney, actor Martin Shaw, singer Moby, actress Joanna Lumley, Big Brother's Russell Brand and US hunk Tobey McGuire.

Collette Walsh, press spokesperson at the Vegetarian Society, said: "It was level-pegging for Morrissey and Sir Paul McCartney at one point. Both are hugely influential individuals and great ambassadors for vegetarianism.

"Stella, however, was the outright winner in the female category. The vast majority of votes for her came from women. She's clearly the savvy, successful type of vegetarian that they like to look up to."

For more information about the work of the Vegetarian Society visit the charity's website at www.vegsoc.org.

It's Beatlemania all over again.

As LOVE, the newest Beatle phenomenon prepares to be unveiled in Vegas, the media is hot for any Beatle story. Even mine.

In my early radio days in Melbourne, I was the first DJ to play a Beatles record on air and to actually have a copy of their first record.

It was called Please Please Me and it was all thanks to Roger Henning, a roving reporter who used to send me interviews of recording stars from London.

Each week, he would include the ramblings of a group of lads rom Liverpool, who no one knew.

Then on one magic day, I opened the box and there was their first record.

It was Roger who had me on the roof of the Southern Cross with the Fab Four and in their hotel room doing a live broadcast across Australia before the press conference.

Heady days for a young DJ.

The radio station 3DB paid a royalty of, I believe, $10,000 to produce a million bumper stickers to promote a special program I created, called Beatle Beat, using all the tapes I had amassed.

The radio show aired on Thursday night and out-rated television.

The sticker featured the Beatles' heads and my name.

Roger had sent me dozens of tapes with greetings and even their version of `Happy Birthday to me', which I believe is on the internet.

Ken Brodziak, an entrepreneur known for firsts, booked the Beatles to tour Australia before they were famous or had even made a record.

He saw them in Liverpool and just liked their sound. They honoured the contract, played for a small fee and the rest is history.

I recall vividly my conversations over a few Fosters with the then mop-top teens, who were just having fun and could not believe what was happening.

I recall George being quiet and charming and stunned by all the adulation, Paul was hyped and excited at being in Australia, Ringo just wanted a beer and John was on a high enjoying every moment.

My pre-press conference interview was heard all over Australia.

This young DJ was pretty hyped as well.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving Beatles, must look back in amazement and some sadness that the other half of the group is no longer around to share this new event.

However, the shooting of John Lennon and the more recent passing of George Harrison from cancer, will not end the music legacy left by the Beatles.

Over the years, all four Beatles have created their own sound, but it will be the Beatle song book that will stand the test of time.

I feel somewhat nostalgic as I recall for the press and radio the magic moments I spent with the Fab Four on their first visit

Down Under.

It seems an act of fate that I am in the town, and will be in the audience, to see the new show when the Beatles are immortalised under the Cirque Du Soleil banner in Las Vegas.

LOVE, the new Beatles extravaganza, opens in June at the Mirage in the showroom, once occupied by the legendary Siegfried and Roy.

Over the past week, Yoko Ono and Julian Lennon along with Olivia Harrison and son Dhani, have been in town keeping an eye on the show that will immortalise all that was the Beatles.

The recent break-up of Paul McCartney's marriage will only add fuel to the fire.

Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney are scheduled to be present at the grand opening, along with their family members, as will media from all over the world.

Readers of this column will have a sneak preview, as I take you to next week's pre-opening media launch.

There are, it seems, two schools of thought regarding the national state of emergency that is the impending McCartney divorce: those who take Sir Paul's side and those who think it is Lady Heather who is to blame. (I know it should be Lady McCartney, but she prefers Lady Heather and at this sensitive time I think her wishes should be respected.) Only one thing is certain: it was staggeringly lazy of both of them to blame their bust up on press intrusion.

Disingenuous, too, on several counts. Firstly, if you are worth nearly a billion pounds you can buy all the privacy you want. You don't have to use public transport. You can live on an estate behind electric gates, like Madonna. Or you can buy your own private island, as Richard Branson did. Hell, you can probably even afford to have an annoying paparazzo killed and no one will touch you for it.

Second, you can employ PR people to keep the press at bay, manage your public image, and decline all requests for interviews. Celebrities tend not to decline such requests, of course, because they need the press as much as the press needs them. If they don't publicise their latest film, album or book, they won't be able to go on living in the manner to which they have grown accustomed. It is not quite a choice between starving and being eaten, but it is something close.

Third, there are advantages to being in the media spotlight. As Sir Paul noted in his recent documentary about the fur trade: "No one is Beatle-proof." When he wants to put a view across, he can pick up the phone and expect to be put straight through, not only to newspaper editors and proprietors but also to prime ministers. You can just hear that conversation he had. Tony Blair, in an excited whisper as he covers the mouthpiece: "Hey Cherie, it's Paul McCartney!" Then, in a normal voice: "Yes, Sir Paul Seals, you say mmm, that's terrible... tuh!... Sir Paul, can I stop you there a second? I just wanted to know, what was John Lennon really like?"

Actually, it's more hypocrisy that disingenuousness. Lady Heather is addicted to publicity - and Sir Paul isn't much better. Shortly before they married I did a long, in-depth interview with him in which I tried to get him to stick to the music but he insisted on boring on about his love life.

OK, that's not strictly true, but he didn't shy away from talking about it. He told me, for example, about how he had "cried for a year" after Linda died and that he was "lucky to have found a good woman who is strong like Linda and beautiful and positive and funny". With Heather, he added, it was "big attraction at first sight". Then, "I really started to fancy her".

Re-reading that interview now I find his words unexpectedly moving. He was clearly in love with Heather then. The simple truth is, he realised too late that he had married a publicity-crazed, fiery-tempered megalomaniac. His marriage was doomed with or without the media.

We live in a blame culture where no one will accept responsibility for their actions, be it tripping up on pavements or spilling hot coffee down themselves. Even ex-Beatles are not immune to this, it would appear.

He's not losing his hair, though color seems to be an issue.

He does have grandchildren, though no Vera, Chuck or Dave.

He has been known to do a little gardening work, "digging the weed," so to speak. In fact, one of his multiple marijuana busts was for growing the stuff on his Scotland farm back in the early '70s.

Given the recent upheaval in his personal life, it's unclear who'll feed him, though there's no doubt he'll be taken care of.

Yes, the cultural alarm clock that Paul McCartney set 39 years ago is ringing. The man who sang "When I'm Sixty-Four" in 1967 turns 64 June 18.

"I do remember that on the [song's recording] session, we all figured out it would be 2006 when Paul was 64," Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick recalled on the phone from Los Angeles, "and we had a good laugh about that and wondered what we'd be doing."

That McCartney is reaching the age that he whimsically imagined so long ago is an unavoidable milestone, a ready-made occasion for comparing snapshots, then and now, of the singer and his contemporaries. "You'll be older too," after all. It's also the inevitable moment when the words of the young man are shoved into the face of the old -- or let's just say older -- man.

At least McCartney's tongue-in-cheek portrait of his dotage was affectionate enough that it shouldn't be too tough for him to swallow. Fellow '60s icons Pete Townshend and Mick Jagger have had to choke on the strident, aging-averse declarations of their younger selves. Townshend has become a walking ironic counterpoint to the classic line he wrote for the Who's "My Generation": "I hope I die before I get old." As for the wiry Stones frontman, he once was famously quoted as sneering, "I'd rather be dead than singing 'Satisfaction' when I'm 45." Jagger was 62 when he sang it at this year's Super Bowl.

McCartney didn't equate old age with death in "When I'm Sixty-Four," but his song is nonetheless revealing in the way it views the autumn years from a spring chicken's perspective. The ex-Beatle has told interviewers he wrote the song when he was "about 16," placing it in the late-'50s, eight or so years before the Beatles finally recorded it for their landmark album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

The Beatles actually used to perform it in their earliest years when they were playing clubs in England and Hamburg, Germany. "When the power would go out and they didn't have anything to amplify their stuff, that's the song they would play on their acoustic guitars," said Gregory Alexander, a.k.a. "Professor Moptop" on WXRT-FM 93.1 Sunday morning "Breakfast With the Beatles" show. (Disclosure: My wife works for 'XRT.) There's no known recording of the Beatles performing the song back then, perhaps because they were always playing it with the power out.

"When I'm Sixty-Four" is a vaudeville-style toe-tapper in which the singer wonders whether his sweetheart will still be around to dote on him and to share a mundane life when he's "older, losing my hair, many years from now."

He'll mend fuses; she'll knit. "Doing the garden, digging the weeds/Who could ask for more?" he asks with a straight face, as if that prospect really excited young people back then. "Will you still need me/Will you still feed me/When I'm sixty-four."

You're singing along right now, aren't you?

In "Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now," Barry Miles' 1997 biography that takes its title from the song, McCartney says he made a point of putting "the tongue very firmly in cheek" so the song wouldn't come across as "too vaudevillian."

'Love song'

"Will you still need me?' is still a love song," he said. "`Will you still look after me?'-- OK -- but `Will you still feed me?' goes into 'Goon Show' humor." (That last part is a reference to the 1950s madcap British radio series featuring Peter Sellers.)

When the Beatles finally recorded this "rooty-tooty" song (as McCartney called it), it was an anomaly both on the "Sgt. Pepper" album, where it's easily the least psychedelic track, and in the larger rock world. You didn't hear other rock bands recording songs driven by multiple clarinets, though McCartney's fascination with the baroque arrangements on the Beach Boys' 1966 classic "Pet Sounds" is felt here.

Emerick, who details his experiences recording the Beatles in his new book "Here, There and Everywhere" (Gotham Books), recalled speeding up McCartney's voice to make it sound more youthful. The engineer said he thinks McCartney finally decided to record "When I'm Sixty-Four" for "Sgt. Pepper" after pulling off the glorious string arrangement of "Eleanor Rigby" on the Beatles' previous album, "Revolver." Another frequently cited theory is that McCartney was paying tribute to his father, Jim McCartney, who turned 64 in 1966.

"When I'm Sixty-Four" almost didn't wind up on "Sgt. Pepper." It was the second song recorded for the album, after "Strawberry Fields Forever," and when Capitol Records insisted on taking two songs to release as a single (single and album tracks often didn't overlap back then), "When I'm Sixty-Four" was targeted as the flip side to "Strawberry Fields." But "Penny Lane," which drew on McCartney's youth in a different way, became the choice instead.

Parents loved it

So while "Sgt. Pepper" was blowing the minds of young fans in the Summer of Love, the nostalgia-seeped, undeniably catchy "When I'm Sixty-Four" was wooing their parents, just as the McCartney-sung version of Meredith Willson's "Till There Was You" (from "The Music Man") had done when the Beatles played "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964.

"It's this instant acceptability," Tim Riley, author of the 1988 Beatles song-by-song analysis book "Tell Me Why," said of the impact of such songs. "It makes them OK for parents. The other three Beatles are laughing behind his back. They give him constant guff about that. But it delivers them a huge mainstream audience because it's irresistible."

At the same time, there was something audacious about the Beatles recording such a song at the height of their popularity. "When I'm Sixty-Four' stood out when it came out as a blatantly non-rock 'n' roll tune by the most famous rock 'n' roll band in the world," Boston-based rock critic Milo Miles said. "Also, the whole youth culture was so potent at that time that the idea of the Beatles singing about being 64 was part of the mind-blowing aspect of it."

"When I'm Sixty-Four" may actually be more popular among non-Beatles fans than Beatles die-hards. Looking back, some critics have derided the song for being a harbinger of the cloying, wink-wink quality that would infect some of McCartney's subsequent Beatles contributions and his solo career. Emerick said he didn't think John Lennon liked it at the time, a sentiment the late Beatle confirmed in his 1980 interview with Playboy: "I would never even dream of writing a song like that."

Even superfan Terri Hemmert, who hosts "Breakfast With the Beatles," called it "a novelty song. ... It's not one of their great songs, but it's a fun song."

"It's an English dance-hall song, music hall," Riley said. "It's the guy with the hat and the mustache and the cane doing a little dance. It's unbearable."

But, he added: "My kids love that song. It's a really delicate arrangement. The arrangement is just absolutely bull's-eye. There's not an instrument out of place. ... He understands how this stuff works, and you're forced to say even in spite of all that cuteness, he really does have all of that charm."

Since its release, "When I'm Sixty-Four" has become a standard, a song you routinely encounter and probably hum along to. A few years ago Julian Lennon, John's first son, even sang it on an insurance commercial.

Now the song has become a touchstone for Baby Boomers realizing they're catching up with an age that used to seem so distant. "When I was a kid, 64 was old," said Mark Lapidos, 58, founder of the Fest for Beatles Fans. "[Now] the Baby Boomers are in their late 50s or turning 60; we don't consider that old. Sixty-four was goodbye. Now it's just getting started."

Yes, 64 is the new 44. Since 1967 the average life expectancy in the U.S. has risen from 70.5 to 77.9 years. (The figures tend to be slightly higher in the U.K.) In the 1960s, rock was a young field populated by young people. Now sixtysomething performers such as McCartney, Bob Dylan and the Stones remain active, touring rock 'n' rollers.

Yet turning 64 still feels significant, particularly in the case of the Beatles given that Lennon and George Harrison are no longer around. "It's kind of poignant," Hemmert said, "because only two of the four got that far, and 64 isn't that old."

This may be a bittersweet birthday for McCartney for other reasons as well. "When I'm Sixty-Four" envisions growing old alongside your longtime sweetheart, a scenario that evaporated for McCartney when his first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998 after almost 30 years of marriage. He remarried a young activist named Heather Mills, but their separation was announced earlier this month.

McCartney's publicist said he has no plans for any public marking of this birthday. But his mind-set is no doubt in line with those never-say-old Boomers.

In fact, he has taken to repeating a story that's about, believe it or not, Hemmert's mom. When Betty Hemmert played "When I'm Sixty-Four" at a recital at her Cincinnati retirement community, she changed the lyric to "When I'm Eighty-Four" because 64 just didn't seem old to anyone there. Terri Hemmert related this anecdote to McCartney when he was in town in 2002, and, she said, "he just broke up. He was in hysterics."

McCartney subsequently told this story in a wire-service interview last year, adding: "I might be taking a hint from her next year."

Paul McCartney has discovered that legendary Beatles producer George Martin, 80, still has a wicked sense of humor.

During a meeting to go over music for the upcoming "Love" production with Cirque du Soleil, McCartney loved what he was hearing so much, he urged Martin to "take it further out."

The next time they met to consider the music, Martin played "Hey Jude" for McCartney, "which we started with a reggae (beat)."

"For a moment he was horrified," said Martin, before McCartney realized it was a joke.

Martin and his son Giles are music directors of "Love," which was previewed for the media Wednesday at The Mirage, where the show opens next month.

If I feel slightly revolted by both Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, it is not because I have any cause to dislike them. I have never met either of them, and I have always enjoyed the Beatles' music. No, it's because of intrusion by the media - intrusion into my life, that is, with tedious information about this celebrity couple.

I don't actually think any the worse of Heather for having made Paul dye his hair, or stop smoking cannabis, or spend his money on animal charities, if those are, in fact, things she has done. I don't even mind that her "trademark dish" is "a vegan chicken roast with sage and onion stuffing and lots of veg" or her favourite pudding is "a vegan Mexican chocolate brownie with coconut and chocolate chip soya ice cream". Multimillionaires are entitled to their irritating eccentricities. But I resent being made to know these futile things.

To be fair to the media, it is not their fault alone. Heather and Paul are quite capable of thrusting themselves on my attention if it happens to suit them: if they give concert tours, say, or write books called Life Balance, or want to interest us in the fate of Canadian baby seals.

Still, it is they at the moment who are complaining about media intrusion. But what is this intrusion? If you have £825 million ($1.5 billion), give hugely successful concerts all over the world and are married to a former model half your age with an amputated leg, you have to expect a bit of media interest. And I am sure the media would have no scruples about intruding on the couple's privacy if they knew how to, but it's quite difficult to intrude on the privacy of people who have so much money to protect them. Admittedly, the Queen once found a strange man sitting on her bed in Buckingham Palace, but I have never heard of such a misfortune befalling Paul or Heather. They claim nevertheless that media intrusion is responsible for the break-up of their marriage. But I ask you: when has media intrusion ever been responsible for the break-up of any relationship? Maybe there have been cases of it - if so, I would like to hear about them.

To take an example of the opposite effect, no couple can have had to endure more media scrutiny than Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, formerly Camilla Parker Bowles. The media have been hounding them for decades. But despite that, they have grown closer and closer, until now they are united in what appears to be a very happy marriage. It seems likely that the media have helped bring about this splendid situation, for there is nothing like a common enemy to make people unite.

When, on the other hand, media attention is directed at a relationship that is already in trouble, it can have deleterious effects. It is quite natural that a couple should want to solve their personal problems privately. It is also quite natural that, while struggling to do so, they should want to pretend to the outside world that everything is fine. The last thing they need is for the media to publish the truth.

Ooooh, he's free.

Well, hey, the last time the world had a single McCartney (other than teen idol Jesse) was briefly in 1998, after the former Beatle's wife and muse, Linda, died. By the next year, he'd met Mills, a former model who'd lost a leg in a motorcycle accident, through her work campaigning against land mines.

Despite a fiery courtship (in 1999 Mills allegedly flung her sapphire and diamond engagement ring off the balcony of a Florida hotel), McCartney, now 63, and Mills, now 38, wed in 2002 to the alleged consternation of his three children by Linda, especially fashion designer Stella McCartney.

It probably didn't help family relations that the bride did not wear a Stella McCartney original wedding gown, but designed her own.

The couple laid the blame for their split squarely on the press. In Britain, the tabloids had been agog for days with news that Heather and Paul had been living apart.

In a joint statement, the McCartneys said they "found it increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship with constant intrusion into our private lives."

Interestingly, there was no mention of trying to work things out, or divorce.

McCartney issued an additional statement on his Web site, paulmccartney.com, in which he further lambasted the press for suggesting that Mills had married him for his money.

"She is a very generous person who spends most of her time trying to help those in greater need than herself. All the work she does is unpaid, so these stories are ridiculous and unfounded."

Heather McCartney has been teeing off on the press for some time.

Just last week she posted on her Web site that the news of trouble in the McCartney marriage was "rubbish," and that paparazzi were just trying to get a photo of her in a wheelchair after recent surgery on her leg.

Late last year, the former model did win a case against a British newspaper that reported that she'd suffered a miscarriage. (The McCartneys are the parents of a daughter, Beatrice, born in 2003.)

McCartney's first wife, Linda, also suffered repeated slings and arrows from the press over the years, but she cannily ignored most of it.

Once, promoting her frozen veggie food line, she admitted to a reporter that she knew she was getting publicity because she was McCartney's wife, so she decided to do good works with that attention.

But journalists found her to be earthy and natural, preferring the background to the limelight, which isn't the latest Mrs. McCartney's reputation.

Judging from his past, don't expect McCartney to stay single for long. In his almost 30-year marriage to Linda, they were only apart for a week when he was in jail in Japan after being busted for marijuana.

And it was a brief year between Linda's death and his love-at-first-sight meeting with Heather Mills.

Longtime Hollywood observer/fashion author Sandy Schreier believes a smart woman will know how to handle him, as Linda did.

"He needed to be married, and Linda took care of him. But I think Heather's got too many problems. Watch, he'll get married in 30 days. Now if some woman was really smart . . . Paul McCartney has a boatload of money. But I don't think (Heather) is smart. She's got to be the dumbest woman alive."

Still, Schreier has hopeful words for the world's eligible women: "It would be pretty easy to get him now, because he's very vulnerable."

We Can't Work It Out

Amid charges of 'fame-digging' and family hostility, friends reveal that Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather, were on the rocks months before the official announcement. What happens now with his $1.6 billion fortune and their toddler daughter?

It has been a truly awful few weeks for Heather Mills McCartney. First, the May 17 announcement of her split from Paul McCartney after nearly four years of marriage incited a smug chorus of Knew-It-Wouldn't-Lasts. At the same time, she suffered a painful setback following an April "revision amputation" ­ a surgery to refit her left leg for the prosthetic she has worn since being struck by a motorcycle in '93 ­ that rendered her wheelchair-bound and exhausted.

Then things got worse: In a scathing open letter to Britain's Sunday Times on May 21, her ex-fiancé Chris Terrill addressed her soon-to-be-ex-husband. "I should probably thank you for having taken my seat on a plane that was doomed to crash in flames," Terrill wrote to Sir Paul. "We have both been 'Heathered' ­ and that is something a chap never forgets. . . . I think she is someone who desperately wants recognition and is frustrated when it does not come the way she wants it. Her men suffer because of it, but then so does she."

The letter was but the latest and most personal attack yet on the second Mrs. McCartney, 38, whose marriage to Sir Paul, who turns the titular age of 64 on June 18, has long been held in contempt by much of the British press. Branded everything from a "fame-digger" by one McCartney pal to a control freak who forced her husband to dye his gray hair (yes, he does it; no, she doesn't make him, he has said), the model turned activist with the attention-grabbing past always seemed an unlikely match for the beloved ex-Beatle. And though friends say McCartney had finally had enough of their differences, the pop icon defended her against charges that she was merely after his estimated $1.6 billion fortune. In a May 17 posting on his Web site, McCartney blasted such "vicious rumors," declaring, "It's been suggested that she married me for the money, and there is not an ounce of truth in this."

The truth, say those who know them, is that the pair were just not compatible for the long haul. "I don't think it's laughable to suggest she was bored, but I also don't think it was a generational thing," says Heather's friend Phillip Goodhand-Tait, who adds that Heather told him as early as January that the relationship was on the rocks. "You've got two people who've both got tremendous interests that are going to take them in opposite directions."

A friend of McCartney's is even more blunt. "It is quite simple: It was never going to work," says the pal, noting that the two share strong, outsized personalities. Although the couple cited media scrutiny as the root of their breakup, "you can't have two like magnets pushing together," says the source. "You don't have two frontmen in a band, but there were two frontmen in the marriage." Adds someone who recently worked with the couple: "She has a real temper and he can be a bit stubborn, and it is maybe not the best mix."

The public fallout has taken its toll on Heather, who "has been in floods of tears," says one friend. "She is at a very low ebb both emotionally and physically." Amid intense speculation about the potential divorce payout, both parents are now concentrating on protecting their 2 1/2-year-old daughter Beatrice. "They are very sad," says Heather's friend Wendy Walker, senior executive producer at Larry King Live. "They speak every day and their focus is on Beatrice."

Despite simmering tensions, publicly, at least, the pair had seemed to be focusing on making their family life work. In an interview with Britain's The Guardian, published May 20 but conducted before the split, Heather painted a picture of their homebody marriage. Her last cry, she said, was "watching the film Dreamer with my husband asleep on my knee."

That kind of cozy scene stands in stark contrast to the frosty impression that Mills McCartney could make on others. At a November gala in Beverly Hills for her longtime cause Adopt-a-Minefield, the evening's hostess and her husband barely interacted. "I remember thinking they were very businesslike and stiff together, quite cold," says an attendee. Later, before a crowd that included Jay Leno, Alec Baldwin and Ray Romano, Mills McCartney struck a hostile note, according to several guests who were there. "She said, 'If any of you are here to hear my husband play, shame on you,' " says one attendee. "It was so uncalled for." By the end of the night, says another guest, "all anyone could talk about was what an angry person Heather seemed to be."

Friends of Mills McCartney express dismay at such a description. "Every time I talk to her, it's always about someone else she is trying to help," says one pal. In fact, it was Mills McCartney's philanthropy ­ and unmistakable chutzpah ­ that first drew the divorced ex-model and the legendary ex-Beatle together. After hearing her speak at a charity function in 1999, a little more than a year after the death of his wife Linda, McCartney told the Daily Mail, "I was very impressed . . . so I found out her telephone number, like you do, and rang her up." Almost immediately, Mills called off her wedding to her then-fiancé Terrill, though she and McCartney didn't come out as a couple for almost a year. However, there was no escaping the long shadow cast by McCartney's 29-year marriage to Linda, who had died of breast cancer at age 56.

The couple's four adult children greeted their future stepmother with skepticism, but when the pair tied the knot in an extravagant wedding in Ireland in June 2002, the family put on a united front. It wasn't long, however, before many longtime members of McCartney's inner circle began to chafe at the relationship. "It was partly her energy and vitality that made her attractive to him," says one friend, "but it was so egotistical and 'me, me, me' all the time that it just drove you mad." Still, the friend counters the popular perception that McCartney was whipped. "Paul is tougher than most people think," says the friend. "He's no pussycat and like everybody he has an angry side. He has got his way for 40 years, but then she came along and tried to out-boss him."

Certainly marriage to the erstwhile Cute Beatle comes with its own unique pressures. "Everything I've worked for in my life, tried to do and overcome, it's all just been forgotten," Heather told interviewer Michael Parkinson in '03. "It's all just, 'She's the bird of Paul McCartney,' and it's just knock, knock, knock. That's affected me really badly."

Others say tension stemmed from Mills McCartney's disapproval of her husband's public pro-marijuana stand. "Heather is quite conservative," says one friend. "She is not a trippy hippie and Paul is and has been for a long time. She hated that sort of thing." For his part, the more subdued McCartney often seemed uncomfortable with the promotional zeal his wife directs at her various causes. At one point in a recent BBC documentary on the couple's anti-fur activism, Mills McCartney storms the headquarters of the Jennifer Lopez design house Sweetface to protest its use of fur. "I'm Lady Heather Mills McCartney, Paul McCartney's wife!" she declares when asked to leave.

"She was always wanting him to use his celebrity [to promote hercauses], and he just looked so utterly miserable when she asked," says a source who knows them. "He wouldn't say no to her, but he'd try to put her off a bit." Furthermore, "their styles of dealing with people were so different. He would listen to people and she keeps interrupting with statistics. It's very hard to get a word in when she gets started. You got the feeling he would have been happy with his music and his kids and his farm."

Sure, "he likes the farm," counters another friend, "but he is far more cosmopolitan and much more of a doer. It is so wrong to picture him in a rocking-chair kind of scene." In March he and Heather teamed up for a trip to Canada's Prince Edward Island to draw attention to the killing of baby seals for their skins. Though by some accounts they had already been shaky for months, on their way to a television interview, "they just started singing, 'All We Are Saying Is Give Seals a Chance,'" recalls Rebecca Aldworth of the Humane Society of the U.S. "They both sang together the whole way into the studio. It was very sweet."

As the pair now go their separate ways ­ he's at home after a vacation to France; she returned to England after a two-day visit to Slovenia, where she has friends from her activist work ­ they are focused on their little girl. "This separation will not stop Paul from being a good father, as he has always been," says May Pang, a longtime friend of McCartney's and former girlfriend of John Lennon. As for Heather, "She is a very strong person," says her friend Wendy Walker. "There is a lot of caring on both sides here. They are just hoping to have some time, like everyone who goes through this, to move on."

The milk industry has rubbished claims by Heather Mills McCartney, who is divorcing ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, that dairy products are damaging people's health.

Her comments were attached to a report from the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation delivered to the Department of Health on Wednesday (24 May).

Animal rights campaigner Ms Mills McCartney, who is a patron of VVP, said: "The more I discover about dairy, the more I know being vegan is the right choice.

"Dairy is far from being a wonder food but is, in fact, a contributor to many diseases, which horrifies me."

The report, White Lies, calls on the government to end its support for dairy farming, stop subsidised school milk and promote plant-based alternatives.

Dr Justine Butler, the author of White Lies, said that cow's milk and other dairy products were behind an array of illnesses, including cancers, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis and obesity.

Juliet Gellatley, director of the VVP, said: "This report places dairy where it belongs ­ at the heart of a worsening public health crisis."

Professor Jane Plant, another supporter of the report, said "The evidence shows that milk is a complex biochemical cocktail that sends all the wrong messages to our bodies I believe that dumping the dairy from my diet saved my life."

Milk is "healthy"

But Dr Judith Bryans, director of The Dairy Council, said the claims were irresponsible, biased and inaccurate.

Removing all dairy products from the diet could have serious health implications, she said.

It was important to remember that Ms Mills McCartney and Professor Plant were not qualified dieticians or nutritionists and their views were based on personal experiences, she added.

"While we appreciate that eating an alternative, elimination diet has helped some people to deal with their health problems, it is important not to over emphasise the individual experience of one person to the detriment of balanced, scientific opinion.

"Milk and dairy foods form part of the government healthy eating guidelines, known as The Balance of Good Health.

"Most nutritionists agree that these foods are an important source of calcium in the diet as well as providing other nutrients such as proteins, B vitamins, magnesium, potassium and zinc."

McCartney divorce

Ms Mills McCartney was due to appear in person when the report was handed over and to participate in a public talk Why you Don't Need Dairy.

However, she decided not to attend following publicity surrounding her recently announced split from pop star Paul McCartney.

A spokesman said: "Heather fears that there is a great danger that the conference will be about her and obscure entirely the important message that the White Lies report needs to communicate."

It was reported that subsequent attendance at the event was poor, following Ms Mills McCartney's decision to pull out.

The former Beatle, worth an estimated £825 million ($1.5 billion), could lose a quarter of his fortune following yesterday's landmark rulings by the Law Lords.

But Sir Paul, 63, who has a home in the Mull of Kintyre, could save himself tens of millions of pounds if his divorce is heard in Scotland, it emerged yesterday.

Rachael Kelsey of Scotland's Family Law Association said: "As lawyers, we find it very difficult to explain to our female clients why the law in Scotland is so different to the law in England."

In England and Wales, judgments in favour of Melissa Miller and Julia McFarlane will have far reaching implications for super-wealthy husbands such as Sir Paul, warn family law experts.

According to Ms Kelsey: "A wife such as Julia McFarlane would have been lucky to achieve limited support if her case was heard in Scotland."

But it is the case of Mrs Miller that solicitors for both Sir Paul and Lady McCartney, 38, will be examining most closely.

Last night Mr Miller warned Sir Paul not to get involved in a lengthy court battle.

"My advice is that he should try to come to a reasoned and fair outcome before he has to go through the lengthy and public court process, he said."

Experts say the Miller settlement will entitle Heather Mills to claim at least a sixth of her husband's fortune. And because they have a daughter, Beatrice, two, her award could be even higher.

Alan Kaufman, head of family law at Finers, Stephens, Innocent, said: "If you apply the same formula then Lady McCartney would be entitled to expect somewhere in the region of £140 million ($262 million).

"But in addition to that you have to take into account that the McCartneys were married double the length of time that the Millers were and there is also a child to consider, so the final settlement could be considerably more."

Heather Mills' chances of a juicy divorce payoff from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney got a lot better yesterday thanks to legal rulings in favor of two ex-wives of wealthy men.

Both Mills and McCartney denied a report they were close to a settlement that would give Mills $47 million but have their 2-year-old daughter, Beatrice, living mainly with Sir Paul, 63.

The Daily Mail reported that former model Mills, 38, would have unlimited access to Bea, but the child would have "residency" with her father while her mother traveled around the world doing charity work.

"It's utter nonsense," said Anya Noakes, a spokeswoman for Mills, while McCartney spokesman Stuart Bell called the story "complete rubbish."

The couple announced last week they were splitting after four years of marriage. That sparked a frenzy of speculation as to how much of McCartney's estimated $1.6 billion fortune Mills would get.

Her position in negotiations will be bolstered by the two rulings in the Law Lords, Britain's highest court, in particular one in favor of Melissa Miller, 36, the American ex-wife of financial manager Alan Miller.

The Millers were married for less than three years and had no children, but the judges ruled Alan should pay Melissa $9.5 million out of his $33 million net worth - the equivalent of $9,400 for every day of their marriage.

Alan Miller had called his wife "a spendthrift termagant," but the court said that "although the marriage was short, the matrimonial property was of great value" - words that could send a chill down McCartney's spine.

The most telling words about the McCartney split came from Chris Terrill, the fiance Heather jilted for multi-millionaire Paul.

Terrill says Heather told everyone she split from him because he was a gay MI6 agent, paid by the British arms industry to sabotage her anti-landmine work. Even though he's a heterosexual, freelance film-maker.

The story took me back three years to a job trailing McCartney around the Barcelona leg of his world tour.

Everything backstage was relaxed, except on the two occasions I strayed near a room set aside for Heather and her staff. When an American woman, built like a brick outhouse with a Lorena Bobbitt snarl, yelled at me as though I was a Guantanamo Bay inmate, demanding to know who I was and what I wanted.

When I asked who she was, I was told: "Lady Mills McCartney's personal security officer." Longhand for bodyguard.

Why I wondered would a woman need a bodyguard (not to mention an office and a personal assistant) when she's turned up in some foreign, aircraft-hangar style arena to watch her old fella bang out a few old songs.

And now it's clear. This incurable fantasist believed the stadium wasn't full of middleaged romantics turning up to clock her hubby sing Hey Jude before he died, but spies, working for Dr Evil hellbent on destroying her anti-landmine work. Even though I was only looking for the loo.

Heather Mills: Mission Impossible.

Heather's Intrusion

Heather Mills joined her husband, Sir Paul McCartney, in blaming the break-up of their marriage on the constant media "intrusion" that they had to endure during the four years that they were together.

Mandrake can well imagine how difficult it must have been for them to cope with the personal attacks that were made on them by newspaper columnists. Appallingly one of these wretches even saw fit to pass comment on the death of Sir Paul's mother, Mary.

I have in mind an item in the Newcastle Journal on August 16, 1995 that read: "Paul McCartney's 'Yesterday' was apparently a homage to the mother who died when he was a child. At the time, Paul did not grieve and admitted his only concern was how the family would survive without the nurse's pay packet of his mum. Now where could all that stuff about Paul being the cool, clinical, hardheaded Beatle come from?"

The name of the columnist was Heather Mills. Surely not the same one? Afraid so, but she did write it before she married Sir Paul.

Sneering at an amputee is as low as you can go

And so, the fairytale marriage of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills McCartney bites the dust.

Or, to put it another way, loaded old bloke seeking to retire marries ambitious blonde half his age and finds they have irreconcilable differences.

It happens.

Call me a silly old romantic, but what has shocked me quite a bit about reports of the Mills McCartney split has been the media obsession about how much she'll get.

Anywhere up to 200 mill is the current betting.

What ever happened to all you need is love?

What shocks me even more than the focus on finance, however, has been the constant derisory references to the fact that Heather is an amputee.

What was once (rightly) seen as her courageous fight back after a terrible road accident, is now cruelly turned around as a reason to snigger at her.

The fact that she lost a leg is used to take cheap shots at Heather to the extent that, in the immediate aftermath of the marriage separation announcement, some smart Alec is reported to have left a prosthetic leg outside her house. Hilarious, eh?

Personally, I couldn't give a toss about either Sir Paul or his soon-to-be ex-missus.

They're both public figures and big enough to handle personal abuse.

Sneering at a woman on the grounds that she is an amputee is, however, something else.

It's really about as low as you can go.

Heather Mills McCartney has provoked controversy after calling on the Government to issue "health warnings" on milk and dairy products.

She believes they play a part in diseases such as diabetes and some cancers.

The vocal campaigner pulled out of a conference to publicise the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation's anti-dairy report following the collapse of her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney.

But in a letter to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, Lady McCartney wants the Department of Health to stop subsidising milk for primary schools.

Parents should be advised to replace cow's milk formula for babies with soya milk formula, her letter says.

'Scare tactics'

However, nutritionist Rebecca Foster from the British Nutrition Foundation was critical of Heather McCartney's stance. "Anti-milk campaigns using scare tactics can lead to consumer confusion," she said.

"Milk and dairy products provide a number of essential nutrients, including protein, calcium, zinc and magnesium, vitamin B12 and riboflavin.

"Although they can be high in saturated fat, the consensus of scientific evidence is that they can be eaten in moderation as part of a healthy balanced diet and are not dangerous to health."

The 38-year-old, who is taking refuge with a friend in Slovenia, is patron of the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, which has published an anti-dairy "White Lies" report. It claims that every litre of milk can contain up to 400 million pus cells.

The report accuses dairy products of playing a part in diseases such as diabetes, some cancers, heart disease and strokes. Every sip of milk contains 11 different growth factors and 35 different hormones because two-thirds is sourced from pregnant animals or those which have recently given birth, it adds.

Lady McCartney said the Government should ensure milk cartons are labelled with their pus content.

"No one could drink pus and call it pure and no other mammal drinks milk after weaning - and certainly not the milk of another species. Would you drink the milk of a cat, dog or elephant?" she asked.

Dairy products 'are killing us'

She goes on to say that dairy products contain saturated animal fat, cholesterol and animal protein which are "at the heart" of the nation's health crisis.

"The public is being deceived and the Government is complicit in this, continuing to provide generous subsidies for a food which is killing us."

Juliet Gellatley, director of the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, is presenting a copy of the report along with her friend Lady McCartney's letter to the Department of Health.

He has told friends he is close to reaching a deal with Miss Mills, even though they only announced their separation a week ago.

Under the deal, the couple's two-year-old daughter Beatrice will have "residency" with 63-year-old Sir Paul, although they will officially share custody of her.

And although there has been speculation that Miss Mills, 38, could get up to £200 million ($375 million) of Sir Paul's £800 million ($1.5 billion) fortune after being married for four years, her settlement is likelier to be closer to £25million.

"Paul has offered Heather these terms and he has told friends he believes a deal is close to being made," said a source close to the musician. "It might seem very quick as they only announced their separation last week but they have actually been discussing this for many months.

"Beatrice will live mainly with Paul but Heather will have access to her whenever she wants. The term is 'unlimited access'. They want to try to protect her from their break-up as much as possible and are determined not to argue over custody or money. They really do not want things to get bitter.

"Bea mainly living with Paul makes sense because Heather is planning to throw herself into her charity work and will have to do a lot of flying all over the world.

"Although people were talking telephone numbers about how much Heather could potentially get, that was when it looked like Beatrice would be living with her.

"At the same time, Paul still has a lot of love for Heather and he wants to see her set up for the rest of her life."

Charity

Miss Mills's publicist has already indicated that she will give a large proportion of her settlement to her anti-landmines charity.

"The way she sees it is that there is no point the money sitting in a bank account gathering dust. It had to be working," she said. "The more acres of minefield she can clear, the happier she will be."

Both Miss Mills and Sir Paul have denied allegations that she is a "gold-digger".

The announcement of their separation followed weeks of speculation after it emerged that they were living in separate houses 50 miles apart.

They said in their statement that they had found it "increasingly difficult" to maintain a normal relationship in the public eye.

Miss Mills, a former model who lost a leg when she was hit by a police motorcyclist in West London 13 years ago, is visiting friends in Slovenia.

She also sought refuge there when her first marriage to dishwasher salesman Alfie Karmal broke down.

Sir Paul, who has been recording new music since his marriage broke up, has returned to the couple's main home at Peasmarsh in East Sussex. Beatrice is believed to be with him.

Spokesmen for Sir Paul and Miss Mills refused to comment on a divorce deal.

BY BILL ZWECKER

The press has been chock-full of reports that Paul McCartney may have to pay estranged wife Heather Mills as much as one-fourth of his estimated $1.5 billion fortune -- because the couple don't have a prenuptial agreement.

Not necessarily true, says veteran Chicago divorce lawyer Herb Glieberman -- an author of key Illinois family law legislation and an expert on foreign divorce laws. According to Glieberman, British law specifies that if McCartney and Mills end up divorcing, anything Sir Paul acquired prior to the couple's 2002 wedding need not be shared with his wife.

''Without a prenuptial agreement, she only has rights to assets and income he made over the past four years,'' says Glieberman. ''Of course, her ace-in-the-hole is the child the couple shares.'' Thanks to the birth of Beatrice, 2, Lady McCartney is in a significantly stronger negotiating position, since "the courts will rule that the child should be maintained in the same fashion and lifestyle she would enjoy if there was no divorce."

*Meanwhile, Heather has jetted off to Slovenia to escape the intense press glare that has hounded her since the couple announced their separation last week. According to the London Daily Mirror, the Balkan country earlier served as a refuge for the ex-model as she divorced first husband, Alfie Karmal, 15 years ago.

Ringo, together with wife Barbara Bach, was officially opening the 4Head Garden, one of the main exhibits which featured the sculpture of a giant naked woman covered in grass and reclining by a pool.

Ringo was also asked about what he thought of Paul McCartney's split with Heather, but he remained tight lipped, only saying with a smile: "She's a lovely girl."

Shattered Sir Paul McCartney returned to his family home alone yesterday - for the first time since his marriage collapsed.

The ex-Beatle, 63, arrived by helicopter at the £4 million (7.5 million) estate in Peasmarsh, East Sussex.

Macca is thought to have jetted in to Britain from abroad before hopping into a £2,400 ($4,500)-an-hour Harrods chopper.

His wife Heather Mills, 38, is in Slovenia, being comforted by fellow anti-mine crusader Renata Matijasevic, 42.

Heather Mills Pulls Out Of Public Appearance

Troubled Heather Mills has cancelled a public appearance tomorrow because of 'press coverage' of the break up of her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney.

The high profile couple officially confirmed they had split after four years of marriage last week following days of rumours and speculation about bitter rows.

Campaigner Heather was due to speak at a press conference in London tomorrow as patron of the charity the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation, which is launching a report claiming milk and dairy produce are bad for health.

However she has pulled out of the event citing continued speculation about her love life.

An official spokesman said today that she "fears there is a great danger thatthe conference and public talk will be about her and her private life" rather than the report.

Instead a letter of support from her will be read out at the conference.

The spokesman said on Heather's behalf: "In view of recent press coverage, Heather knows that any public appearance at the moment will almost certainly be misconstrued and presented negatively.

"Heather fears that there is a great danger that the conference and public talk will be about her and her private life and obscure entirely the important message that the White Lies report needs to communicate.

"The Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation and the White Lies campaign has Heather's full and continuing support and she will be issuing a statement to be read at the conference."

Juliet Gellatley, founder and director of the VVF, said: "I understand it fully and wish Heather well at this difficult time. There are other disturbing aspects of dairy which are not covered in this report and as the campaign progresses we will be exposing them. I know that Heather will want to be a part of this important work."

The VVF is calling on the Government to stop giving free milk to schoolkids.

Q & A

Heather Mills McCartney, 38, was born in Tyne and Wear. She was working as a model when, in 1993, she was involved in an accident with a police motorcycle and lost her left leg below the knee. She campaigns against landmines and the fur trade, and is a UN Goodwill Ambassador. Married with a daughter, she lives in London and Sussex. Her book, Life Balance, is this next week.

Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

HEATHER: Cuddling and kissing my baby or skiing.

Q: What is your greatest fear?

H: Upsetting anybody.

Q: Which living person do you most admire?

H: My sister Fiona for being loyal and kind.

Q: What is your greatest extravagance?

H: Buying Fiona a pair of diamond earrings.

Q: What has been your most embarrassing moment?

H: Walking down the street with a pair of knickers round my artificial leg.

Q: Who would play you in a movie?

H: Michelle Pfeiffer. Judi Dench later in life.

Q: What is your most treasured possession?

H: I wouldn't be much use without my leg!

Q: What is your favourite smell?

H: The McCartney rose.

Q: What is your favourite word?

H: 'Articulate' - I never knew I was until others started to call me that.

Q: What is your favourite book?

H: Gorbachev's autobiography.

Q: What do you owe your parents?

H: Not a lot but some pretty good genes.

Q: What or who is the greatest love of your life?

H: My husband, my baby daughter and my sister.

Q: Which living person do you most despise and why?

H: Cruella de Wintour, editor of US Vogue, who has brought fur back into fashion.

Q: When did you last cry, and why?

H: Watching the film Dreamer with my husband asleep on my knee when the horse was going to be put down and the young girl saved him.

Q: How often do you have sex?

H: Every day. Doesn't everyone say that?

Q: Have you ever had a same-sex experience?

H: No - they haven't got the right bits.

Q: What is your greatest achievement?

H: Helping to market Adopt-A-Minefield.

Q: What keeps you awake at night?

H: Images of animals being skinned alive.

Q: What song would you like played at your funeral?

H: ELO's Mr Blue Sky.

Q: What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

H: That everybody's capable of change.

HEATHER MILLS - ALONE

Forlorn Heather Mills leans heavily on a crutch as she struggles through an airport after the break-up of her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney.

It was the first time she had been pictured since the Mirror broke the story on Wednesday.

Heather, 38, who went into hiding when the news was revealed, emerged to catch a flight from Gatwick to Slovenia. The ex-model, who lost a leg in a road accident before she met Macca, hauled her own large case behind her and refused the offer of a wheelchair.

A fellow passenger said: "She was pale and gaunt, with barely enough strength to hold herself upright." There was no sign of her wedding ring.

In Slovenia, where Heather once worked, she again refused offers of help. She was met by a friend and driven away in a rusting old Fiat.

Brave Heather Mills refused all offers of help as she fled abroad to a old bolthole after her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney collapsed.

She caught a plane from Gatwick to Slovenia, where 15 years ago she sought refuge when her first marriage to dishwasher salesman Alfie Karmal broke down.

Heather, 38, who is still recovering from an operation on her amputated leg, looked a sad figure at the airport on Saturday.

She was seen limping through the concourse before buying a £280 ($525) ticket to Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia - part of the old Yugoslavia.

A fellow passenger said: "She was pale and gaunt, with barely enough strength to hold herself upright.

"There was no one there to help as she struggled along with one crutch, pulling a heavy suitcase.

"It took me a while to recognise her as she normally looks stunning and full of life. But she appeared weak and thin with bags under her eyes."

The passenger added: "She seemed determined to make the journey herself, refusing offers of help and a courtesy wheelchair provided at the airport.

"At times it was obvious the physical pain of her leg was making her grimace."

Heather spent most of the two-hour flight dozing. She didn't eat and avoided all eye contact with other passengers as he curled up under her large puffa jacket on the Adria Airways plane.

The passenger said ex-model Heather made every effort to look plain and stay anonymous on the journey.

He added: "She wore blue jeans and a cream-coloured top to fit in with the rest of us. Her hair with tied back with a band, revealing subtle ear studs, but she wore no other jewellery, with no sign of her wedding ring."

In Slovenia she was met by a female friend but still refused help.

The passenger said: "She almost collapsed on to the luggage carousel as she strained to heave her suitcase on to a trolley before being driven away by her pal."

They left Ljubljana airport in a rusting old Fiat Panda.

Slovenia will hold bitter-sweet memories for Heather.

She went there on holiday just a year after her wedding to Alfie Karmal in 1989 to recover from an ectopic pregnancy.

She moved there after her divorce to start a new life and worked as a ski instructor in the Slovenian alps, falling in love with a fellow worker, known only as Milos. They travelled between Ljubljana and the UK for several months before their on-off relationship ended.

Heather saw the outbreak of civil war in Yugoslavia and launched her charity crusade against landmines after witnessing the tragic plight of an 11-year-old bomb victim called Zeynab.

She also worked with governments and military agencies to establish refugee crisis centres, hospitals and housing for the homeless.

Earlier this year, she said: "It was outside Bihac that I heard an explosion and saw a child running towards me screaming, with an arm blasted off and blood pouring out of the socket like a petrol pump. I was in such shock that I couldn't make out if it was a boy or a girl. Ironically, I didn't lose my leg in the war, although I spent the best part of two years in towns surrounded by landmines.

"I am convinced that I lost my leg for a reason: so that I could help men, women and especially children claim their lives back.

"Life is not about what we can do for ourselves. Making a difference while we are here is all that matters, especially for those who have the power to make real changes."

For the next two years Heather modelled to raise funds to help the refugees and commuted between Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and England.

After a road accident in 1993, which led to the amputation of part of her left leg, she arranged for unwanted artificial limbs to be sent from the UK to the war-torn country.

Slovenia will also hold strong memories of her time with Macca, who turns 64 next month, as the pair campaigned to have the area cleared of landmines.

She gained a Nobel Prize nomination for her work in the area.

She and Paul helped bring to the UK the Adopt-A-Minefield charity, where donors pay to have an area cleared.

Ironically, it was the charity work that contributed towards the breakdown of their marriage. Macca is said to have urged her to cut back while she wanted to do more.

He has not seen his wife since they split more than two weeks ago.

But he is said to be "extremely concerned" about her health and has been calling her regularly.

The couple are also said to have discussed their two-year-old daughter Bea, who is staying with the former Beatle.

Before leaving for Slovenia, Heather cancelled the launch party for her new book, Life Balance, which gives guidance on how to improve your life.

Film-maker Chris Terrill, who Heather dumped for Macca just six days before they were due to wed, has written to Sir Paul revealing intimate details of his relationship.

He says he fell madly in love with Heather and proposed just 12 days after meeting on a film set in Cambodia.

He adds: "To cement our commitment, we joined the mile-high club on the way back to Britain."

Terrill says that they "fell in love with same woman. More than that - we loved her at the same time."

He goes on: "Maybe one day we could have a beer together and compare notes because we have both been 'Heathered' - and that is something a chap never forgets.

"I hope you are OK."

In a PS, he says: "Don't know what you are going to settle on with her, but please make sure it is enough that she can pay me back for that damned wedding."

How did the former Heather Mills contrive to become the Yoko Ono of the new century?

Here is a woman who fought back from a life-rending accident that would have had many of us sticking our head in the oven. And yet the world seems to despise her.

When it would have been very easy to spend the next 50 years wallowing in self-pity, Heather confronted the loss of a leg and constant pain by devoting herself to others even less fortunate than herself.

Talk about the Queen of Hearts! Heather Mills devoted her life to charity after losing a limb with the true grit that Princess Diana may have struggled to muster if she lost her Harrods charge card.

Yet in the McCartney divorce, Heather is cast as the gold digger, the wicked stepmother and the calculating minx while Macca plays the part of the doe-eyed wronged party. Why?

Because from a distance Lady McCartney gives the impression of being hard as nails. While close-up and in person, she gives the impression of - you guessed it - being as hard as nails.

This is no Linda McCartney, fretting about our furry friends while rustling up a tofu burger for Paul and the kids, no dippy hippy chick who has no trouble at all rebranding herself as a hairy-legged earth mother.

No question, Heather is a tough nut. But perhaps that is what it takes to survive what she was forced to survive. Perhaps you need insides of stainless steel to carry on with your life when a policeman on a motorbike removes your leg - and this girl was a struggling model, someone whose entire existence was predicated on the way she looked.

Crippled in an insane accident. And then carrying on alone. Whatever you think of Heather, you can't deny her raw courage.

But she is not likeable. Heather is admirable, but she is hard to warm to.

I remember that Pride of Britain lunch where Paul met Heather. As the stories of tragedy and bravery moved across the stage, the star-studded audience was overcome with emotion.

It was the very first Pride of Britain and nobody in that room was prepared to have their heart mangled by these true-life stories of heroism - many of them small children who had confronted illness and tragedy.

The presenter, my mate Carol Vorderman, was wiping away the tears when Heather Mills went up on stage to present an award to a woman who had lost all four limbs.

Dry-eyed, Heather snatched up a napkin from our table and, as she stepped up to the podium, chucked it at Carol. I don't know how many people saw that vignette - not many, as most of them were sobbing into their buffalo mozzarella - but I remember thinking that it was the most brutally unsentimental gesture I had ever seen.

Heather is not a sentimental woman. And on that fateful day, she met the most sentimental man in the world.

Paul was the soft, tuneful underbelly of the Beatles. While John gave the band its northern grit and social conscience, and George gave it a touch of hippy mysticism, and Ringo gave the band its aura of bighootered slapstick comedy, Paul wrote the songs that made the young girls cry.

But there is no way that Heather Mills could play the pining lover of Michelle or Yesterday or The Long and Winding Road.

Seen too much. Endured too much. Too hard, too cold - too in touch with the brutal realities of the world.

The trouble with sentimental men like Paul McCartney is that real life usually disappoints them. Few marriages can live up to the romantic aspirations of love's first flush.

Perhaps Paul's first marriage did. Certainly his second marriage didn't.

But Paul McCartney was the one who did the chasing. The one who used his fame and his millions to woo a woman young enough to be his daughter.

Now it hasn't worked out. Now the unblushing bride is not content to play his adoring shadow. Now the hot young lover turns out to be hard work, more hard work than a millionaire in his sixties will put up with.

Now, no doubt urged on by his grown-up, resentful, Heather-loathing children, McCartney decides it was a mistake all along.

And drops his trophy wife like a red-hot coal even as she is recovering from surgery on her amputated limb.

I am sure that life with Lady McCartney was far from a walk in the park, but I fail to see how dear old thumbs-up Macca emerges from the melodrama with any credit.

A little girl will grow up without both her parents around. And why - because our kid misses spliffing up?

So riddle me this - how did Paul McCartney become the good guy?

'Paul was the one who did the chasing, using his fame and millions to woo her.

They travelled to Scotland's Mull of Kintyre two months before they announced to the world they were to separate.

Locals reckon it was the couple's final heart-to-heart as they fought in vain to resolve their differences.

One said last night: "Paul and Heather came a couple of months ago and spent a few days at his farm. It was all very low-key and secret."

The picturesque retreat was made famous by ex-Beatle Macca's 1977 hit Mull Of Kintyre, which he released with the band Wings.

Sir Paul, 63, has told how it is his special sanctuary when times are tough. He said: "It has been like a little hideaway. It is a lovely place. I love it. I love the people up there. It's one of those places that's very special. I can sort of breathe when I get up there - pure air."

Meanwhile Heather's former lover yesterday said he was delighted she dumped him for Sir Paul.

Chris Terrill, 54, said Heather dumped him just six days before they were due to tie the knot.

He admitted he had been "under her spell" but revealed that when he told his father the marriage was off, his dad replied: "I've never been so relieved in all my life."

In an open letter in the Sunday Times, Chris told Macca: "I should probably thank you for having taken my seat on a plane that was doomed to crash in flames.

"Maybe one day we could have a beer together and compare notes because we have both been 'Heathered' - and that is something a chap never forgets."

He added: "When I met Heather, I almost immediately fell under her spell. I soon realised that Heather had a somewhat elastic sort of relationship with the truth."

Chris went on: "So Macca, I hope you are OK.

"We have both experienced the same feelings towards the same extraordinary woman and both been wounded by those feelings."

One of Sir Paul's pals - former Ritz magazine editor David Litchfield - said yesterday that Heather had not understood how much Macca's family meant to him and had tried to change him.

Sir Paul's Girls Quiet Over 'Love Split'

Sir Paul McCartney's daughters have refused to reveal whether their dad had talked to them about his decision to split from second wife Heather Mills.

Leaving her home in Maida Vale, north west London, photographer Mary McCartney, 36, refused to comment after Sir Paul and Heather confirmed they were to formally separate by "mutual agreement" after four years of marriage.

Taking her dog for a walk this lunchtime, stony-faced Mary, Paul's first daughter with first wife Linda, said: "I don't want to talk about this. I've nothing to say."

Hair swept back into a ponytail and dressed in a dark jacket and jeans, Mary refused to answer any further questions as she left her smart Victorian red-brick flat.

Macca's four-year marriage to former model Heather has collapsed after reports of bitter rows and they confirmed their split earlier.

Meanwhile Sir Paul's fashion designer daughter Stella also remained tight-lipped following the announcement that her 63-year-old dad has separated from Heather.

Emerging from her four-storey multi-million pound townhouse on Westbourne Park Road in London's trendy Notting Hill, Stella looked distraught as she shielded her face from photographers.

Flanked by her husband Alasdhair Willis, and wearing dark designer sunglasses, diamond drop earrings, a revealing all-in-one grey jump suit, silver strappy heels and carrying a leather handbag, she refused to comment on her father's separation.

The couple stepped into a black people carrier and were driven off speedily shortly after their nanny had taken their baby out in their blacked-out Range Rover.

Stella is reported to have had major concerns before her dad tied the knot with Heather, 38, in a lavish ceremony at an Irish castle in 2002.

They had met in 1999, just a year after Stella's mum Linda died of cancer. Alasdhair also declined to comment on the split.

'LADY' MAC TO GO FOR BROKE

Paul McCartney is adamant Heather Mills is no gold digger. But then he has to say that, because to admit otherwise would make him a silly old fool who, instead of listening to the people who loved him, followed his todger and married a woman everyone loathed.

And it's interesting to note that the day the split was announced and Macca was praising his wife to the high heavens on his website, Heather omitted to even mention on hers that her marriage was over. Instead, this voracious self-publicist devoted the entire news section to plugging her new self-help book - a tome that might come in handy in the coming months when all those doors she used to barge through as Lady McCartney are slammed in her face.

Of course Heather is telling everyone she's a broken woman and that being called a gold-digger is worse than losing her leg - something which will be proven - or not, when we see how much money she demands in the divorce settlement. Still, as devastated as she is, we're told that she's rallied sufficiently to insist that even after the divorce, she still wants to be addressed as Lady Heather.

Am I the only person who doesn't buy this "broken woman" stuff? You can't treat your husband like a doormat, scream at him, ridicule him and then tell everyone you are "broken" when he dumps you. And it became obvious the end was nigh recently when we heard this self-obsessed fantasist was moaning that her charity work and her career were receiving less acclaim than Sir Paul's.

Er.. what career? To my knowledge her main careers were as a topless model and an escort girl and although she was very good at both, it nowhere near compares to the status of a Beatle.

However, being dumped has still come as a shock to this control freak who, until now, has always been the one to do the dumping. "Up until last weekend Heather was begging to be given another chance," says a friend.

Yeah, I'll bet she was, because she suddenly realised that even if she does get £50 million ($94 million) - which is £49.5 million more than she deserves - she will go back to being a gigantic nobody which, for this egoist, is a fate worse than' death. She'll no longer ' be able to walk haughtily into rooms and say "I'm Paul McCartney's wife" like she does now. She'll no longer be welcome at glitzy showbiz parties where people fawn over her because of who she's married to. She'll no longer be able to treat people like dirt and get away with it because, quite frankly, she just won't matter any more.

Predictably, Mills is blaming the media for the break-up. Never mind that her marriage might have failed because she's a screaming harridan who must have made McCartney's life a misery. And isn't this the woman who has shamelessly used the media to sell tacky kiss-and-tell stories and to promote whatever charity she happens to be favouring? When McCartney was married to Linda, there was no question of media intrusion because they chose to live quiet lives away from the spotlight. But that was never Heather's game plan. Her desperation for fame and their habit of turning up at the opening of an envelope has managed to make the icon that is Sir Paul look like some Z-list celebrity desperate to get his name in the paper.

When he was with Linda, McCartney was seen as a man of charm and dignity who engendered only respect. But marriage to Heather Mills has demeaned him, made him look like some sad, henpecked old man who dyes his hair orange and wears silly clothes to please his wife because she's embarrassed at having married a bloke 30 years older. As for Stella McCartney - I suspect that even though she'll be upset that her father is hurting, it won't stop her cracking open the Bolly to celebrate getting shot of the woman who changed him out of all recognition.

And in a final act of manipulation, Heather's friends are now trying to make Macca look like a heel by putting out stories that stress has put her back in a wheelchair and she hasn't slept for two weeks.

But worry not - in a few months Heather will have dried her tears and will be hunting down her next husband. Because while she's fond of telling everyone it was McCartney who pursued HER, anyone who knows her will know SHE'S the hunter. She might have been a very average-looking topless model with no career to speak of, but she DOES know about men.

And if her past is anything to go by, her talent was attracting the rich, vulnerable ones.

What has Heather Mills McCartney done to deserve the vicious public tirade against her?

So Heather and Sir Paul McCartney have split up. It's sad, but so do thousands of other couples, every day.

And I'm sure like all these other couples they are going through a very hard emotional time.

So why pick on this lovely young woman, who it should be remembered lost her leg in a horrific accident.

But she fought back and made something positive out of this tragedy. She was making a real impact on the public with this bravery long before she met and married Sir Paul.

She had also been an avid campaigner for the landmine cause long before they wed.

And since then has done a huge amount of good work for this cause.

I think it's time we all remembered this and left the poor woman alone.

Don't blame media for marriage failure

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney, have separated, and they say it's in part the media's fault.

McCartney, soon to be 64, and his wife, just 38 and accused by some of being no more than a gold-digger, have a 3-year-old daughter.

The McCartneys issued a joint statement saying their split was amicable, but that intrusions by the media made it difficult to sustain their relationship.

"Having tried exceptionally hard to make our relationship work given the daily pressures surrounding us, it is with sadness that we have decided to go our separate ways," the couple said.

Forgive us, as one small voice, for refusing on behalf of the behemoth that is the global media to accept any blame in the divorce. Paul McCartney was married to his first wife, Linda, for close to 30 years when she died in 1998. Theirs appeared to be a virtually idyllic relationship, and certainly one that thrived despite all the hustle, bustle and media attention inherent in the music business. So it would seem Paul McCartney knows how to stay married when both parties are not just in love, but completely committed.

It's also clear that if McCartney and his present bride wanted to avoid the media spotlight, they certainly could. McCartney is said to have a fortune of $1.5 billion. That buys a lot of privacy - a whole small nation of it, practically.

Instead, Paul and Heather Mills McCartney remained movers and shakers in the music business, jetted around the globe to play prominent roles as activists in fields ranging from animal rights to outlawing land mines, and maintained Web sites to promote their activities.

We certainly don't wish the McCartneys ill, but we do wish that they'd refrain from scapegoating the media for their breakup.

There are plenty of reasons offered for getting divorced - too many reasons and too many divorces, these days, it seems. But media meddling has to be one of the weakest we've heard, especially coming from a couple so sophisticated and media-savvy.

Sir Paul McCartney confessed his marriage to Heather Mills was "doomed" - less than a year after their wedding.

He told a pal: "I just can't live like this, she's always fighting - either me, someone else or for an issue - it's just never going to work."

Paul, 63, confided in an associate over drinks and said he feared the marriage would NEVER work out. He made the anguished admission just before Heather, 38, became pregnant with their daughter Beatrice, now two.

At the time, the pair, who wed in a £2 million ($3.75) ceremony in June 2002, had been married only a matter of months.

Now the romance is officially over, although Heather's friends say she is in denial and believes she can still win the ex-Beatle back. The associate said: "Paul confided in me way back before the baby was born.

"He was clearly concerned - he'd been with Heather about three years by then and the first flutter of love had passed and he was waking up to what life was going to be like.

"He said, 'She'll never change. She is constantly looking for something to fight, something to push against, a new cause or charity campaign. She can never just enjoy life and chill out'.

"It was becoming clear even that this pretty young woman he had fallen for was just totally incompatible for him. He said, 'I just can't see how this marriage can survive'.

The associate said Sir Paul went on: "There is always a do to go to, people to see, something planned for us to I do. I just cannot live like I this. It's not what I do. I actually feel quite sorry I for her."

When it was put to Paul I that she was young and I trying to make her mark in life and he perhaps should compromise, he rolled his eyes upwards and groaned: "You think I don't compromise already? That's what I do ALL the time."

The associate said: "Heather never wanted to socialise with Paul's band, never wanted to go to concerts - it's all about what she wants to do."

However, it is not all one-sided. The source added: "When Paul was wooing Heather he'd write songs for her and sing them down the phone. He made life seem so exciting and loving - but as soon as they were married he just wanted them to go and have a quiet life in Sussex. Heather was only 34 and it was tough."

Another nail in the marriage coffin came in March this year when the couple rowed while on a luxury skiing holiday in Verbier, Switzerland.

A friend said Heather "completely lost it with Paul. She was raging at him in their chalet.

"It was just a week before she went into hospital to have a revised amputation op on her leg." Friends of Heather later said she felt he was not giving her enough support over the op.

But Heather was so confident of Paul's adoration, she never believed he would push for a separation. She firmly believed the "domestic" they were having would wash over and he'd be back - and has been hit hard by his decision to draw a line under the relationship. Divorce experts say Heather could claim up to £200 million ($375 million) of Sir Paul's £800 million ($1.5 billion) fortune in a divorce settlement.

Paul met Heather, who lost a leg in a road accident, at the Daily Mirror's Pride Of Britain awards in 1999 where she made an impassioned speech about landmines.

The associate said: "Sir Paul was swept off his feet. It was lust at first sight. He was smitten with her sexiness and the passion with which she went about her campaigning. He thought she was another strong, independent woman in the manner of Linda. But he came to realise he was mistaken.

Unlike Linda, Heather was dominant, bossy and rather insecure. "Everything had to be done her way - and whatever the subject, she was always right.

"Because Sir Paul was so obviously smitten with her, she started rather taking him for granted. Some friends found her attitude to him rather sneery and patronising.

"After all, he was a man who has spent 40 years at the top of the showbiz world. She's a very self-centered person."

Meanwhile, Linda's brother-in-law has spoken to the Sunday Mirror about the tensions which broke the marriage. Donald Malcolm, married to Linda's sister Laura, 60, said: "Like Linda, Heather is a strong, independent person. The difference was that Linda had much more of a modest, quiet confidence about her - something Heather doesn't have." Donald, who lives with Laura in Tuscany, Italy, where Heather and Paul have visited several times, painted a vivid portrait of a profoundly unsuited couple. He said: "Heather had a particular personality. She was very different to Linda.

"Whereas Linda was chilled-out and mellow, Heather was into publicity and getting attention. She has a special personality and isn't going to change for anyone. Church worker Donald, 59, added: "Paul has always been very close to his family. He and Linda had a special bond. They tried to live as normal a life as possible. They lived on a farm and placed emphasis on family values. "When Linda died, Paul was devastated. And as a result he became even closer to his children."

Donald insisted reports that Paul's daughter Stella loathed Heather ARE true. He said: "Any stories of them being friends are untrue. Stella refused to acknowledge her stepmother."

Heather will on face the public on Wednesday for the first time since her marriage split was announced. She has a longstanding date to campaign for the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation. Director Juliet Gellatley said: "Heather Mills McCartney cares - and I wish to God there were more like her."

This weekend, Heather Mills McCartney should have been preparing for the kind of week she enjoys most: bouncing from party to party, TV studio to TV studio, with Paul by her side, and all to promote the launch on Thursday of her new book. Instead, she is back in a wheelchair, at an undisclosed location, feeling "very low" and still reeling from not just the break-up of her marriage, but also the kind of press coverage normally meted out to serial killers.

She may still be Lady McCartney but she could hardly have attracted more hostility this past week if her name were Lady Macbeth. The coverage that followed the announcement of her split from one of the most famous and revered men on the planet painted her variously as a nag, wicked step-mother, foul-tempered harridan, exploiter of her partner's fame, fomenter of rows and gold-digger. No one actually accused her of supplying him with a dagger and urging him to murder a house guest, but at times it was a close-run thing.

But whatever happened inside the marriage (and only two people know that), little in the couple's eventful lives could ever have prepared them for the torrid press coverage of their split. It was nothing short of The Hounding of Heather, and yet, in investigating it, The Independent on Sunday has discovered another side to this woman. Colleagues, friends and associates have come forward to tell of a secret Heather, one very different from her public image. And unlike the anonymous "friends" quoted in the stories on the couple's split, they are prepared to go on the record.

What has moved them to come forward was the trauma for Heather and Paul that broke surface three weeks ago with a story in the News of the World about the couple living apart. There then followed 15 days of denials, plus various "friends" chipping in their twopenn'orth. She resented his fame; he wanted her at home more; she was in hiding from prying press photographers; they've had their most ferocious row to date ...

He flew off to the south of France; a few days later he flew back again for "crisis talks" with his wife. Even as these talks were (or were not) taking place, another unnamed "friend" (a description increasingly difficult to sustain) was telling the Sunday Mirror: "McCartney fled wife after becoming fed up with being a doormat." Then the separation was formally announced: "It is with sadness that we have decided to go our separate ways."

It was the cue for the "friends" to spill their dubious beans: she made him dye his hair or have a facelift; she wanted to give her "hippie husband" a style makeover; she was always putting him down; they rowed so often they used separate hotels; she insisted he give up his beloved spliffs, and was always trying to drag him out to parties.

McCartney was moved to condemn the "100 per cent untrue" coverage, but, given that they were ending their four-year marriage, there must have been substance to some of it. But what? To the reader, consuming the anonymously sourced coverage was like playing Chinese whispers with earplugs in.

What stung the couple most was the charge that she was a manipulative gold-digger. With headlines such as The Sun's "Grabby Road - Nagging Heather could get £400 million ($750 million) from Macca", or "Now we'll find out, once and for all, if she's the gold-digger we always suspected" (Daily Mail), Paul twice had to issue statements urging fans to ignore the allegation that Heather married him only for his money. Yet even as he did so, papers were tracking down lawyers prepared to give blood-curdling assessments of how many cleaners she could take him to before hanging him out to dry. The knocking copy was contagious. An insider at Popbitch, the internet gossip board, said: "The general opinion is that she is a gold-digging, hard-faced bitch. As for Paul, they think he's been a silly old fool."

So what is the truth about Heather? There seems little doubt that whatever personal magnetism she possessed did not work its ju-ju on everyone, especially female columnists. To a woman, and without a trace of irony, they criticised her for being in-your-face, bossy and opinionated. And the reports of the problems caused by a 25-year age gap and differing social agendas (she a networker, he a stay-at-home) are sufficiently widespread to have the ring of authenticity in a story not overburdened with such things.

But those who really know Heather say there is another, largely hidden side to her. People such as Jo DeBruycker, the mother of Meghan, a 19-year-old American college kid diagnosed in 2000 with bone cancer so severe that she faced an operation to amputate at the hip. She says: "A family friend emailed Heather's website for advice. The next thing I know, Heather had found us in Willmar, Minnesota, called, and made herself available 24 hours a day. She even gave Meghan her personal cell phone and told her to call any time. She gave her very accurate counselling, and, after the operation, when Paul was touring the US in 2002, she got her to the concert and spent a lot of time with her. She talked to Meghan about girl things, about boys and clothes, and made her feel like a normal girl again."

Meghan died in 2003. Heather sent flowers and also tracked down a video so her mother could hear her daughter's voice again. Ms DeBruycker added: "It was the darkest time of our lives and this person gave us hope. She saved this drowning girl and mother. Meghan never forgot it. It breaks my heart to read what's been written about Heather. She is a remarkable person."

Her friend and co-author of her forthcoming self-help book Life Balance, Ben Noakes, said: "The coverage is a gross injustice. The person I have read about has no bearing on the Heather I know. She is an extremely kind and wonderful friend. Four years ago my business collapsed with significant losses and I lost my home and marriage. Heather came straight round and offered practical and emotional help. She even offered to pay all my bills until I was back on my feet again. And it was all done in a spirit of friendship. There really aren't many people like that."

Keith Kelly, director of Adopt-a-Minefield UK, of which Paul and Heather are patrons, agrees. "They have helped 400,000 directly and helped to clear 21 million square metres of land. Heather has given her money, her time to counsel amputees, and the royalties from her books, out-of-court settlements, proceeds from photographs of her wedding and Beatrice's birth have all been donated to us. She has made an enormous difference to thousands of people's lives."

Seven years ago, Heather's public image was very different. When she had the accident she was, to the general public, unknown. But the story of a model who loses a leg was too good to resist, and no detail of her recovery too small to warrant a story. Some of it was mawkish (telling the story of her abusive childhood), some racy ("We sneaked into my hospital room and made love all night" - the result of her selling her story to The Sun), but all of it was admiring. "Model of courage" (Evening Standard); "Brave model Heather" (People); "Heather is just a walking miracle" (Today); "Wedding bells for campaigning model who fought back from losing leg (The Mail on Sunday) ... the media lapped her up, running adoring story after adoring story.

Until, that is, one day in 1999, she met Paul McCartney at a Daily Mirror awards lunch. Within days of the first story reporting their friendship, the press worm began to turn. "Big mouth Heather has blown it with Macca now," said the Sunday Mirror after she spoke of her friendship with Paul. By April 2000, with marriage to the world's favourite Beatle in prospect, the hounding of Heather had begun. "Heather can never live up to Linda's legend" (People); and "Heather Mills' secret past with Khashoggi's pleasure wife set" (The Mail on Sunday). For "beautiful, charity-working model of courage" now read "dodgy, gold-digging good-time girl".

In keeping the publicity pot on the boil, Heather was sometimes complicit: "Heather wants Paul to propose" (Daily Record), "Being a saint's girlfriend can be bad for you" (The Sunday Times), and, most recently, "It's the cannabis or me, Heather tells McCartney" (Daily Mail). Former husbands, lovers, stepfathers were brought out of obscurity: "Buyer beware should be stamped on her forehead" (People); "Macca's love stole my £20,000 jewels" (News of the World); and "My stepdaughter Heather is just a confused fantasist" (The Mail on Sunday). On it went, after the couple married in 2002, and beyond. "I kept Heather in the lap of luxury for two years before she left and broke my heart" (Sunday Mirror); and many a story of the rift between Paul's designer daughter Stella and her new stepmother. These, and the attendant denials, turned up so regularly that even a Heather supporter must have begun to wonder if there was more to them than Stella's enduring regard for her late mother.

It was, even by the capricious standards of the British tabloids, a remarkable transformation, attributable, in part, to the fact that she had had the temerity to marry Paul. Cynthia Lennon and Yoko Ono could have told her what it can mean to come between a Beatle and his public, and Paul's late wife, Linda Eastman, endured press sneering and hostility for many years.

This weekend, the latest object of this relentless and uniformly antagonistic reporting is with her daughter, in a wheelchair after her recent operation in the US, and being cared for by her sister Fiona. Paul is in supportive contact "several times a day", no lawyers have yet been consulted, and it seems on the surface, as break-ups go, strikingly free of recrimination.

Mr Noakes says: "They are talking supportively to each other and with a lot of mutual concern. There's no such thing as Heather's camp and Paul's camp. Both are very concerned about the welfare of each other. She's feeling extremely hurt and very raw. She's going through a lot of pain. She's pulled down the shutters and no one can blame her for that."

THE McCARTNEY MILLIONS

Though secretive about the exact size of his fortune, Sir Paul is estimated to be worth some £825 million ($1.5 million). With no prenuptial agreement, Heather Mills McCartney could be entitled to 25 per cent of that. Here are some of the assets that the lawyers will be arguing over.

MUSIC RIGHTS, PUBLISHING AND ROYALTIES £400 million ($750 million)

Sir Paul's company MPL is one of the world's biggest privately owned music publishers and owns the rights to 3,000-plus songs by artists such as Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash, as well as all of Paul's solo tracks. He also owns the rights to musical shows such as Guys and Dolls and Grease. The rights are believed to generate more than £20 million ($37 million) a year. Also benefits from a quarter stake in the Beatles' firm Apple Corps.

INHERITANCE £138 million ($247 million)

When his first wife Linda died in 1998, Sir Paul inherited the £138 million ($258 million) she had amassed from the vegetarian food firm she built up.

ART INVESTMENTS £100 million ($187 million)

Sir Paul owns work by the surrealist painter Henri Magritte, but also loves pre-Raphaelites. He was a beneficiary of the sale at Christie's in New York last year of Linda's father Lee Eastman's collection, which held works by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, including Picasso, Matisse, de Kooning, Rothko and Giacometti, earning him about £4 million ($7.5 million).

INCOME FROM ALBUM SALES AND TOURING IN 2005 £48.5 million ($90 million)

The critically well-received album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard and a sell-out North American tour were a major boost to his finances. Like many arena performers Sir Paul can make a fortune from every tour. The £82 million ($153 million) generated by his Driving USA dates in 2002 made it the highest-grossing American tour that year.

PROPERTY £32 million ($60 million)

His substantial property holdings include the 160-acre Peasmarsh estate in East Sussex valued at about £8 million ($15 million); a £5 million ($9 million) townhouse in St John's Wood, north London; a £5 million ($9 million) Soho flat; the £4 million ($7.5 million) Wycliffe Hall; a £3 million ($5.6 million) Beverly Hills mansion (bought from Courtney Love); a £3 million ($5.6 million) Arizona ranch; a £2 million ($3.75) beachfront house in Hove; a £1.5 million ($2.8 million) farm on the Mull of Kintyre; and a £500,000 ($937,900) Wirral home.

Heather Mills McCartney plans to become the new Queen Of Hearts after her marriage break-up.

In an exclusive interview, her best friend, former TV executive Ben Noakes, says she intends to set up a "humanitarian organisation" with her divorce settlement, which is expected to be up to as much as £200 million ($375 million).

He said: "Heather can adapt to anything. That is one of the things I most admire about her. If she ever were to come into some money, you can be certain she would use it constructively. By which I mean she will probably set up some sort of humanitarian organisation."

Ben has co-written Heather's new book Life Balance. They became friends 11 years ago when they worked together on a series of films for BBC Pebble Mill.

That relationship was cemented four years ago when Ben's wife walked out on him and she stepped in to support him - now he has been a shoulder to cry on for Heather since her marriage to Sir Paul McCartney collapsed.

Ben revealed: "My main role now is to be the best friend I can be. Heather's doing remarkably well given the circumstances. She's hurting a lot but told me yesterday she's reading through Life Balance again. I'm pleased to see she has as much faith in it as I do." Life Balance is published this week. Following Sir Paul and Heather's separation, TV and radio interviews were scrapped. But Ben is convinced the well-being of Heather will continue to be the couple's number one consideration.

He continued: "Both Heather and Paul must be hurting at the moment, but they will both find their feet, and life will go on.

"When my marriage broke up, Heather was kind enough not to give advice. But she offered support and allowed me time to find my feet again. She also encouraged me to get my finances in order."

He added: "To my mind, there are two Heathers - the one her friends know and love, and the one you read about in the papers. "I hope the media will leave both her and Paul alone for a while now - so that they can grieve in peace and start to rebuild their lives.

"But we will hear more of Heather Mills: she's a remarkable woman, capable of great warmth and humanity and I'm confident in time the Press will come to realise this."

Henpecked Paul McCartney hid away in Death Valley with daughter Beatrice as his marriage to domineering wife Heather disintegrated.

The besieged ex-Beatle fled to a fort in the Californian desert with the two-year-old while he decided whether to split from the former model, the News of the World can reveal.

And today-in the wake of the sensational break-up that we predicted a fortnight ago-we lift the lid on how harridan Heather, 38:

*HUMILIATED 63-year-old Sir Paul in front of her pals
*ORDERED him out of the house and made him take Beatrice with him so she could enjoy girlie nights in, and
*FLEW into jealous rages over his friendship with George Michael-urging her husband to stop seeing his pal.

Their constant warring finally drove Sir Paul to flee to a hideaway near Scotty's Castle (First reported here exclusively on the Macca Report last month) a Spanish fort in Death Valley in April-while he was recording in the US as Heather had treatment on her amputated leg.

"Paul went so he and Heather wouldn't kill each other. It was crunch time," said a source close to Sir Paul.

"He felt he didn't have much choice because they were at each other's throats. He wanted space to think- Heather needed the space too and agreed to it. But he seems to have made up his mind there was no going back."

The source revealed how Sir Paul had been growing frustrated at the way he was treated by his stroppy missus. "Heather was always having girlie nights in with friends and would send Paul packing with Beatrice," said the source.

"He feels she tried to belittle him in front of her pals so they could see she was in charge. She'd tell him, 'You are not here tonight'.

"Paul felt he was not much more than her babysitter in the end." During their four-year marriage, pals say Heather held the whip hand over the star-but rows broke out when she tried to pick and choose his friends. Our source revealed: "A few months ago Paul and George Michael were very pally and spent time in the studio together. Heather was furious.

"She was jealous of their friendship -and hated it because she knew George was a drug user. She made Paul take Beatrice along to the studio with him just to be obstructive."

Rose

Hints of the impending split came when Paul sent a gift to his old friend and publicist Geoff Baker-believed to have been fired at Heather's insistence.

"Paul sent Geoff a rose last month," said the source. "It was his way of letting Geoff know he had made a grave error of judgement."

Another insider told us how frustrated Sir Paul had a phone bust-up with Heather while working on a Beatles DVD release because he wasn't at her beck and call. He was heard to say: "Look, sweetheart, I've got my own career, I can't split myself into two."

The couple blamed the press for intruding into their lives-yet in an interview just before the split, publicity-seeking Heather-who has a book out next week-was only too willing to talk openly about their intimate secrets.

When asked about her sex life with Sir Paul, she said: "I have sex every day. Doesn't everyone say that?"

Sir Paul is expected to turn to the brother of his late first wife Linda, high-flying New York lawyer John Eastman, for advice if it ends in divorce.

"John knows all Paul's affairs," said our source. "He will be there for him."

All you need is love?

As the McCartneys split up, we ask whether marriages on the rebound can work

It is an accepted premise in medicine that few marriages are perfect - but fortunately many may be happy. Doctors believe it is possible to divide marriages into three categories. One is the child/parent relationship, in which one partner takes the dominant role; another is the child/child marriage, in which two "inadequate" people struggle together. These marriages may be successful if the partners in them have adequate money or other abilities that society wants.

The third type is the brother/sister relationship, where two people are united by their mutual interests and have what usually turns out to be a long and successful, but almost asexual, union.

Paul McCartney is reputed to have had an exceptionally happy first marriage, although doubtless it had some minor problems. When someone is left bereaved after a successful marriage there is a good chance that they will want to repeat the experience as soon as possible. But they are unlikely to have analysed the qualities in both partners that made the first marriage outstanding, and to have questioned whether these qualities will exist in the next one.

Paul McCartney married Linda when they were both young. They both made fortunes early and both cocked a snook at the Establishment even as the money rolled in. This was the archetypal successful child/child relationship in which money and ability insulate a couple against the world. Yet McCartney's second marriage was almost certainly, in medical terms, a parent/child relationship.

The age gap between the partners, and the difference in their national and international profiles, meant that Paul would have expected to become the dominant figure and Heather the dependent partner. This arrangement usually works well for a time but inevitably, sooner or later, resentments arise. The provider becomes irritated at having always to look after someone else's needs, and the partner receiving this largesse comes to resent their dependent position.

These marriages often last if both partners are tolerant, understanding and accept the difficulties - and especially if the dominant partner has a need to be a carer. This is unlikely to have been the case with Paul McCartney. Nor is there anything in Heather Mills's history - at least, as it has been reported in the Press - that would lead one to suppose that she would want to play second fiddle to a dominant husband.

Sir Paul has shown no previous evidence of having a co-dependent personality - ie, of being the type of person who thrives in a parent/child marriage despite the irritations of it - for he is one of the best-known people in the world and the concept of him enjoying old age in the role of an all-indulgent sugar daddy, prepared to fetch and carry and provide a one-man cabaret show to keep the child half of the parent/child marriage happy, is unlikely.

This was a marriage that wasn't made in Heaven and wouldn't even have been dreamt up in Hollywood. For those reasons, the odds were stacked against it.

DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD

There will be many commentators who dance on the grave of the McCartney's marriage. Didn't we all say it didn't stand a chance? But it is time to be kind, urges Denise Robertson, who has for many years dispensed emotional wisdom as a television agony aunt and through her books.

Robertson immediately dispenses with the idea that Paul McCartney married too soon after the death of his first and much-loved wife, Linda. The four-year gap between the two is long enough, she points out, and she should know: she has herself remarried twice within a year of being widowed and both these mariages have been successful.

So what did go wrong? Robertson believes that the answer is simple: Linda McCartney was almost impossible to follow. "She was an extraordinary person," Robertson says. "She wasn't beautiful, though she wasn't ugly, but what does it say about her that Paul was besotted with her when he could have had the choice of so many other beautiful women? He settled for her because she had that quality of strength. She had great presence: she could get things done without raising her voice. I don't think Heather ever stood a chance."

Both Robertson and Heather McCartney come from the North-East and they have met. "I'm not pretending she's a saint," says Robertson. "But I think she's brave. I think he saw that and thought that here was another exceptional woman. The problem was that Heather was more mortal than exceptional. I'm desperately sorry for both of them but I'm not at all surprised that this marriage is failing

how do you step into the shoes of a legend?" Again Robertson refers to her own experience of marrying a widower. "I'm really quite a sensible woman and I was driven to the edge of madness by stepping into the shoes of two women who were both very beautiful. If you're not extremely good-looking, that's hard. I'll never forget that feeling. You wake up with it. You come round from making love and you think, 'Was it as good as with her?' If you are following an extraordinary woman, that feeling stays with you."

From Heather McCartney's determination to put herself on a world stage through her humanitarian and charity work, it seems that she was trying to turn herself into a woman as extraordinary as her precessesor, Robertson believes.

"She was trying to devote hereself to being the same kind of wife. She wanted to be more, so she sent the false limbs to Africa. She was competing with Linda and she didn't make it. There was something very special about Linda - she didn't need to make a fuss. Heather spent four years making a fuss.

"She was saying: 'I'm here, I'm not in her shadow. I'm Mrs McCartney now.' But Linda was captured in iconic photograph, smiling, because that is what the photographs you keep do: they show people when they were happy. How much more difficult that was for Heather, when the pictures were on television, in glossy magazines. Linda never went away."

What about their baby?

CHRISTINE NORTHAM
Senior Relate counsellor

Paul and Linda famously said that they spent only one night apart in 30 years of marriage - so Heather has very much been living in Linda's shadow. I was struck by the way she took on many of Linda's personal causes, such as animal rights.

There are many issues that could have affected this marriage badly: he had children from a happy earlier marriage, and it is never easy to be a step-mother, especially when the children resent you, as has been reported in the media. Also, they are both at different life stages - he is a father and grandfather, and now has a new baby, which is her first - that's an upheaval for both of them, and they will approach it very differently. Their ages of course are very different: he married a woman the same age as his own children, and that's hard to accommodate for all of them.

Then there's the issue of emotional health - he came from a long and happy relationship, very supportive and family-based, whereas her relationship background is probably quite different.

Paul may be a world-famous star, but women today are no longer content to play a supportive role - she's a young woman who wants her shot at life and her own fame and success. There may have been conflict there. There's also the major issue of her disability - that's a huge part of her emotional and physical make-up and it may have been deeply destabilising for her, no matter how much cash she has at her disposal to make her life easier.

Finally, and I think most importantly, the adults need to stop focusing on themselves and think of their child. The fate of the child is extremely sad. It's a reflection of today's society that every one talks about the split but no one says "What about the baby?". They should sort this out and make parenting their child their priority.

Focus: Heathered - by the former 'Mr Mills'

In a knockabout letter to Sir Paul, Chris Terrill, the man Heather left for the former Beatle, says all is forgiven (just) and that he's playing Sgt Pepper again.

We have never met. There has been no reason for us to meet. We are from different worlds and have very little in common.

The differences between us are many and obvious. You are one quarter of the most famous combo the world has ever seen and have written some of the best-known and loved songs in history. I know four chords on the guitar and can only sing off-key (a talent I am quite proud of).

You are globally famous. I am quite well known in my office. You are fabulously wealthy. I am a freelance filmmaker - so say no more! You have a knighthood. I have a certificate confirming I completed the London marathon. You like tofu. I don't.

Yet, we do have something that connects us. We fell in love with the same woman. More than that - we loved her at the same time.

I am the bloke Heather left in the lurch for you five years ago. No hard feelings now. All is fair in love and war and all that. And, in any case, as things have turned out, I should probably thank you for having taken my seat on a plane that was doomed to crash in flames.

But I didn't always feel that way. For years, I have to admit I felt antipathy towards you. No one likes being cuckolded but usually it's possible to move on, find new love and forget the past. This was difficult in my case - actually impossible in the case of forgetting the past. Wherever I looked, I saw pictures in papers, magazines, on television of my ex-fiancée arm in arm with you - one of the world's favourite and most photographed icons.

It would have been easier to stomach if you had been an arse, but sadly you are a nice guy and I had to accept that I had not lost her to a cad and blackguard. Worse than that, though, I found it difficult to listen to your music any more. My extensive Beatles collection was banished to a cupboard and stayed there until this morning actually. Got Sergeant Pepper on right now! So, despite our manifest differences, I do feel a certain connection with you. Maybe, one day we could have a beer together and compare notes because we have both been "Heathered" - and that is something a chap never forgets.

For the record, though, now that I feel I can talk to you, there are a couple of things I would like to clear up.

When I met Heather, I almost immediately fell under her spell. She does cast a spell, doesn't she? After only 12 days of knowing her, I went out to Cambodia to make a film with her about landmines and there, on a fishing boat in the Mekong Delta, I proposed to her. Madness! Talk about whirlwind.

I remember phoning my family to tell them. To say they were shocked would be an understatement. I think they thought, oh God, what is Christopher up to now? They know that I have a tendency to get embroiled in rather outlandish adventures sometimes or, in this case, as it turned out, a total misadventure.

I was for a brief period of time completely happy. I thought Heather was too. We shared many romantic meals together in Cambodia (I seem to remember that quite a lot of animal flesh was consumed - sorry) and we planned our future together. I was struck by her amazing life and all her incredible accomplishments. How could someone so young have done so much and achieved so much? An unbelievable woman.

I was struck by the fact that she did not want a fancy engagement ring. She just wanted a simple bamboo ring we bought in a local market. A true romantic, I thought. This was a union made in heaven. To cement our commitment, we joined the mile-high club on our way back to Britain. Sorry. Probably too much information there.

For about three months, life seemed perfect. But, then, I was under a spell. My family, I now know, were having crisis meetings to try to decide what on earth to do about what they assumed was an attack of complete insanity on my part.

My father had read her "autobiography" and found, to his distress, that she collected fiancés and what she called soulmates like other people collect stamps. Actually, butterflies would be a better simile. Poor little buggers - netted and then spread-eagled on a board with a sodding great pin through their thorax.

Anyway, then came that fateful day my parents met her. I took Heather home to introduce her. I was still in a trance, of course, with wide unblinking eyes and a sort of mad fixed grin. So while I provided the idiotic face, my family did their best to provide a brave one. They knew instinctively she was wrong for me but couldn't say anything for fear of losing me. You see, I was a complete goner. It was a mighty powerful spell.

I soon realised that Heather had a somewhat elastic sort of relationship with the truth, which she was able to stretch quite impressively sometimes. But, under her spell as I was, I simply accepted these jaunty exaggerations as part of her eccentric charm. She pampered me, massaged my ego and fed me all my favourite dishes. Her speciality was Lancashire hot pot (oops!).

Not long after this, something happened that will amuse you. We were sitting on her sofa at home watching the box. The film I made of her in Cambodia was about to come on when the phone went. I answered it and a voice said: "Is Heather there please?" I was sure I recognised your voice and said to Heather "It's for you - I think it's Paul McCartney!" I then handed the phone over to her so technically I suppose I introduced her to you. What a fateful moment that was, eh? Anyway, that was the start of something big, wasn't it? You offered her £150,000 ($281,370) for her charity, saying you wanted to help her cause. You rascal! In fact, as I understand it, you came over to my flat one night to hand over the cheque to her. I wasn't there but my neighbours saw you and thought I must know all the best people. It did my street cred no end of good, although that was all to come crashing down soon enough.

Our wedding approached. We did a deal with Hello! magazine and arranged for an open-air, humanist ceremony down in the New Forest. The marquee (tent) went up. Wedding presents arrived from John Lewis. I got my fancy suit sorted out (complete with leopardskin waistcoat) and Heather got her dress (can't tell you about that. Never saw it). The honeymoon was booked (one week in the Seychelles and one week in Zimbabwe).

And then six days before the wedding, I had my stag night. I returned in the early hours the worse for wear, as you do, and collapsed into bed beside Heather.

The next morning I woke up to find Heather already dressed. "I'm just off to the airport to collect Fiona," she said. Her sister was coming in from Greece for the wedding, you see. "Okay," I murmured, holding my sore head. "Bye." "Bye," she replied.

And that was the last time I saw her.

She phoned a couple of hours later to say simply:

"It's off!" "But, but . . ." I gurgled.

"It's off," she repeated. "One hundred per cent off!" Well, the spell was broken in a heartbeat and I was now in a very different sort of trance. I was devastated and also humiliated. I phoned my father. "The wedding is off," I said. There was a pause. "Christopher," he said finally, "I have never been so relieved in all my life."

I did my best to get through that time, but it was not easy. The wedding arrangements had to be unarranged. Guests informed. Presents returned. But also, of course, caterers had to be paid as did the marquee people. Nightmare.

But worse was to come.

I then found out, though I will never be completely sure of the timing involved, that you had become a significant figure in her life. That was not easy to handle.

"What's Paul McCartney got that I haven't?" I bleated to my friends. My friends said nothing. They just looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

"No, no," I said, realising what they were implying. "Heather might be a bit of a fantasist, but she is not driven by money. Look at the bamboo ring she wanted from Cambodia." I still wanted to believe the best about her - even then. But it got more and more difficult.

Now, I don't know what she told you about me but I have my suspicions. You see, it wasn't long before friends of mine in the media were phoning me to tell me that Heather was going around telling everyone the reason she had left me was that I was gay.

Well, Macca, I have to tell you, gay is one thing I am not. Out of respect to my gay friends I will not call it a slur, but it was a king-size porky. So to hear she was spreading this rumour was not pleasant. But it was an effective smokescreen for her to hide behind, I suppose. Suddenly, her ability to reinvent the truth was not quite so endearing.

If that was not enough, I then heard something even more bizarre. You see, once I had confided to her that I had, in a previous incarnation, had a brief brush with the intelligence services when I was contemplating a career with the Foreign Office. What a mistake that was. I then heard that she had inflated this into the idea that I was an MI6 agent whose mission was to infiltrate her world and sabotage her anti-landmine work in order to protect the British arms industry. So, she had me down as James Bond. In fact a gay James Bond. What would Judi Dench say about that?

Anyway, life moved on. I did find it quite difficult to make subsequent relationships work, to be honest. I went through quite a few girlfriends and just could not give those relationships the attention they deserved. I was, for a while, quite untrusting and unable to commit. Poor girls. A bloke that has been "Heathered" is not always a good bet. Well, I wasn't anyway.

Gradually, the clouds lifted. My life returned to some sort of normality. In fact, after a while, I could hardly believe what had happened, but it provided me with a great line for cocktail parties - almost Pythonesque: "Yes, I was once six days away from marrying a one-legged, ex-glamour model who is now married to a Beatle!" Some of my more outlandish exes were very excited as they felt they could now claim to be related to you. You gotta laugh, haven't you? Life's too short not to.

So, Macca. I hope you are okay. Time heals all, as they say. We have both experienced the same feelings towards the same extraordinary woman and both, to a greater or lesser extent, been wounded by those feelings. But I have to say this. I totally agree with you that Heather is not a gold digger. I think she is someone who desperately wants recognition and is frustrated when it does not come the way she wants it. Her men suffer because of it, but then so does she.

The irony is she has so many authentic qualities that could provide her with the recognition she craves that she really doesn't need to reinvent herself the way she does. I have seen for myself her remarkable ability to counsel those who have lost limbs and her astonishing determination to get something done. Her motives? I am not always sure about those. But she is a force to be reckoned with and no mistake.

I was considering writing to Heather but I think I will leave it. But, for what it's worth, I hope both you and she find some peace now. Thanks for reading this letter, Macca, if you have. Just wanted to get a few things off my chest and to say hi really.

Must go now. Sergeant Pepper has finished. I think I will listen to Revolver now and then A Hard Day's Night and then Help! Glad to have you back in my life, mate.

PS Don't know what you are going to settle on with her, but please make sure it is enough that she can pay me back for the damned wedding.

PPS If you ever want that beer, give me a bell.

Celebrity divorces always provoke a national hunt for the guilty party. But sometimes it really is nobody's fault

So who's to blame for the collapse of the McCartney marriage? Is it Heather, a suspected Klondyker among bridal gold-diggers, or her put-upon husband? That loaded question has been refocused by Paul, who cites media scrutiny, quite forgetting that the McCartneys are collusive in this game. No noble gesture, however trivial, ever goes unpublicised in Maccaland.

Here, for example, is a recent item from Paul's website, featuring a picture of the clog and pixie boots that are going to help rid the world of landmines. 'Paul and Heather,' the caption notes, 'have both recently kindly donated a pair of shoes each to a celebrity shoe auction.' And here, on Lady Macca's site, is a note on the fate of the Cruellas who spurn her crusade against dog and cat fur in fashion. These people 'will reap their rewards for their actions in this and future lives,' she warns with grim omniscience.

Together, the McCartneys have been pictured everywhere in Arctic survival gear, united in their war on seal-culling but clearly rivals on a par with Scott and Amundsen when it comes to harmonious relationships. Heather has been painted as an ambitious arriviste who ensnared a hero and forced him to give up spliffs and dye his hair a funny shade of marmalade. The intrusive media ensured, however, that McCartney cannot have thought he was marrying Miss Moneypenny.

So what? Some people wish the obsequies for yet another defunct celebrity marriage were left to the Maccologists of Hello! magazine. But the story reveals much more about the British mood than it does about the anatagonists. As ever in such scripts, Heather is cast as the wicked pretender. Think Victoria Beckham, or Camilla Parker Bowles in the days when people were still throwing bread rolls at her in Gloucestershire supermarkets.

The role of Heather's critics, though, is more sinister. In an age when famous strangers seem as intimate as family and friends, people mistake prurience for kinship. She sounds a curious woman with a variable grasp on fact. McCartney may have demonstrated the prescience of a lentil in choosing a second wife, but that does not merit odium from commentators who sound more like disapproving mothers-in-law than people whose sole bond with him might be a copy of Abbey Road on vinyl.

Celebrity does odd things to society. Anyone doubting its power should wonder why Prince Charles, a man who makes Macca look cooler than King Creosote, has just given a keynote interview to Ant and Dec. Norman Mailer argued long ago that Americans led two lives, one predicated on the dull drone of politics and the other on 'untapped, ferocious, lonely and romantic desires'. He called this sub-current, equally applicable to Britain, 'the dream life of the nation'.

A culture of illusion demands icons, but these are hard to find in an age bereft of Homeric or Arthurian figures. The New Statesman's quest for heroes last week produced a mostly lacklustre top 50, featuring George Galloway, Margaret Thatcher and the Queen. The dreariness of this pantheon partly explains why Britons are so fascinated by celebrity.

The social consequences of the relationship between the famous and the unfamous are often potent and occasionally deadly. John Lennon's murderer, MDC, was said to have influenced a fellow Beatles fan, John Hinckley, who went on to try and assassinate Ronald Reagan. McCartney's influence, though never part of the pathology of fame, was more powerful than people remember.

Think back to Linda McCartney. She seemed a nice woman, if imperious. I had lunch with her once in a Chinese restaurant, and she announced that 'we' were eating vegetarian in tones calculated to turn any neighbouring carnivore with a chopstick poised above a battered prawn into an evangelist for bean sprouts.

Her death, at 56, from breast cancer provoked scenes rivalling the mourning for Diana. Remember the angels' wings over Trafalgar Square, as thousands lit candles and held placards reading 'Viva! Saint Linda'. Even those failing to worship at the shrine of Our Lady of the Veggieburger could not deny something of vague cultural significance was going on.

So you would expect a McCartney divorce to have a broader message, too. And by a quirk of legal timing, it does. On Wednesday, the Law Lords will rule on whether Melissa Miller should be able to keep the £5 million ($9 million) awarded to her following the breakdown of her short and childless marriage to Alan, a fund manager worth £30million ($56 million).

Commentators have seized on parallels with the McCartneys. If Mrs Miller wins, the way is open for Heather to acquire around £200 million ($375 million) of her husband's £830 million (1.5 billion) fortune. The money has sparked a debate not only on the alleged cupidity of Lady Macca, which she denies, but on the grasping nature of rich wives in general. Affluent men may, some lawyers warn, stay single, insist on prenuptial contracts or move to the Mull of Kintyre because Scottish divorce is cheaper.

Maybe. But a second, more important thread links the McCartneys to Wednesday's judgment. The Law Lords must decide on blame. The Court of Appeal held Alan Miller responsible for the breakdown of his marriage because of his adultery. As James Stewart, of the law firm Manches, says, this shatters more than 20 years of case law.

If the Law Lords conclude that conduct matters, then England can expect a move back to private eyes sifting through crumpled bedlinen and to bitter break-ups in which aberrations are paraded through the courts and children's lives made hellish. The money settled on rich women has no effect at all on poorer ones, who end up on average 18 per cent worse off after their marriage ends. But the revival of fault-based divorce would damage everyone.

Though infidelity is not a factor in the McCartney case, this is a story imbued with blame. Heather's potential slice of the money is no one's business, unless it sets some general precedent, which it won't. But that is barely mentioned. Is he too gullible? commentators keep asking. Is she too grasping? The row feeds into a national obsession with guilt and a cult of fault that goes much wider than marriage.

Blame is embedded in the modern British DNA. It is what makes government so febrile, cabinet ministers so expendable, jails so full and fear so rampant. Comforting and punitive, it hints at easy remedies where none exists. British life risks becoming a litany of accusation. An accident happens; a terrible crime takes place; a marriage ends. Blame the Human Rights Act, blame the Home Secretary, blame the media, blame a rock star's estranged wife. Some individual, the theory goes, could have prevented these catastrophes.

He or she must be singled out and punished. Lessons must be learnt. If only officials were more responsible, laws more draconian and people less prone to marry foolishly, then grim outcomes might all, supposedly, be averted. In a post-religious age, we are fixated by celebrity and a sin-based culture. Gods may be diminished and heroes B-listed, but we can still construct a modern Iliad around an ageing rock star's wartorn marriage.

Celebrities are not supposed to be Relate counsellors. They are meant to reflect or illuminate society. The story of the McCartney divorce fulfils that modest criterion. Stuff happens, in marriage as in life. And often there is no moral to be drawn, no villain to be crucified, no blame to be dispensed.

Slur is like losing leg

Troubled Heather Mills has said being branded a gold-digger is worse than "losing my leg".

Heather - who could get £400 million ($750 million) from her marriage split with Sir Paul McCartney - blamed the media for the label.

But despite the hurt feelings, pals yesterday revealed she STILL wants to be called Lady McCartney - and enjoy the title's trappings of power.

Heather, 38, tells of her misery at the gold-digger label in her new self-help book Life Balance, which is published next week.

She says: "I've been in the public eye ever since I lost my leg, but I had no problems with my relationship with the media until I got married.

"The Press made me out to be a gold-digger and I decided to keep my mouth shut and say nothing. Looking back I think that was a mistake.

"That period turned out to be the darkest and most difficult in my life - worse than losing my leg."

She also writes that money "is not the key to happiness".

And the former model adds: "I have learnt that peace of mind has very little to do with luxury or leisure."

Macca, 63, personally defended Heather from the accusation hours after the couple announced the end of their four-year marriage on Wednesday.

The disability campaigner - who lost her leg in 1993 after being hit by a police motorbike - is set to come out of hiding for her book's launch.

She has told close friends she will host a dinner at a London restaurant next Tuesday.

One said: "Heather considered delaying the publication of the book and cancelling the launch. But she wants to carry on with her life as before.

"So she is prepared to face criticism for a self-help book when her own personal life is in disarray."

Sir Paul, who is worth £800 million ($1.5 billion), has not been seen since leaving his Sussex estate at the weekend.

Posh people's bible Debrett's last night said Heather would only lose her title if she remarried.

A pal said: "She loves the power it gives. She can drop the name anywhere in the world and people jump."

Friend attacks 'outpourings of spite' since McCartney split

A campaigning friend of Heather Mills McCartney today defended her against accusations that she was a "self publicist".

Juliet Gellatley said the ex-model had been subjected to "outpourings of spite" since the announcement of her split from husband Paul McCartney.

Mrs Gellatley, director of Vegetarian International Voice For Animals (Viva) and the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation (VVF), paid tribute to her campaigning work.

Such was Heather Mills McCartney's "professionalism and dedication" that she is to attend a VVF campaign press launch on Wednesday despite the "media feeding frenzy".

"One of the most laughable accusations made against Heather is that she is a self publicist," Mrs Gellatley said.

"As far as I can see, she has no time for self publicity as her days are almost fully occupied with championing the causes of others ­ both human and non-human."

In the last few weeks she had focused attention on the slaughter of seals in Canada and the "barbarically cruel" fur trade while she has also campaigned for the disabled and victims of land mines.

She is to attend the launch of the VVF's anti-dairy product campaign because she felt the message that "dairy is damaging the nation's health might not be given the prominence it deserved if she failed to attend".

Both Heather Mills McCartney, a patron of Viva and the VVF, and Paul McCartney were "loyal friends" of both organisations.

Mrs Gellatley, who has known her for several years, said she read with "anger and disbelief" the "outpourings of spite" against her in newspapers.

"I have known Heather for some time and instinctively liked her on first meeting," she said.

"I immediately recognised in her the unmistakable attributes of an experienced campaigner ­ passionate, dedicated, unbelievably energetic and caring ­ endlessly caring."

She added: "It seems that if you use your celebrity to posture and pout in front of the cameras, to fill your life with trivia and ephemera and flaunt your wealth to obscure your lack of talent, that is fine as far as some of the media is concerned.

"If, on the other hand, you use your position to try and eradicate disadvantage and focus attention on the appalling cruelty handed out to animals - cruelty that most people like to pretend doesn't exist ­ then that is suspect and makes you fair game for attempted character assassination."

Heather Mills McCartney had "never missed an opportunity" to gain publicity for the VVF and Viva and to "give her time generously".

Mrs Gellatley added: "Heather Mills McCartney cares and I wish to God there were more like her."

She also paid tribute to McCartney for his "warmth, friendship and encouragement" for Viva over 12 years but said she wanted to "set the record straight" about Heather who had been "cast as the villain".

The best help people can be to us is to not believe these stories and ignore the painful articles that we are having to endure. Our colleagues are doing their best to help us. We are all finding this aspect of these very difficult times most disturbing.

Your support in this would be much appreciated.

Alan Weston talks to Mike McCartney about Sir Paul's marriage split

Mike McCartney last night said he would be "fully supportive" of his brother after it was confirmed that Sir Paul and his wife Heather Mills are to separate after four years of marriage.

In a joint statement, the couple said they had "with sadness" agreed to split after finding it "increasingly difficult" to maintain a normal relationship in the glare of the public eye.

Sir Paul and Mills, a former model, married in June 2002. They had a daughter, Beatrice, a year later.

The statement said: "Having tried exceptionally hard to make our relationship work given the daily pressures surrounding us, it is with sadness that we have decided to go our separate ways.

"Our parting is amicable and both of us still care about each other very much but have found it increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship with constant intrusion into our private lives, and we have actively tried to protect the privacy of our child.''

They also said they would find the split "immensely stressful".

"Separation for any couple is difficult enough, but to have to go through this so publicly, especially with a small daughter is immensely stressful.

"We hope, for the sake of our baby daughter, that we will be given some space and time to get through this difficult period."

Sir Paul put a separate statement on his personal website, criticising the media's coverage of the breakup.

"It's been suggested that she [Mills] married me for the money and there is not an ounce of truth in this," he wrote.

"I'm very sad to see that some insensitive people would choose a moment like this to spread these vicious rumours."

Speaking from his home in Heswall, Wirral, yesterday, Mike McCartney, 62, said: "I naturally support him as he's my one and only brother."

Referring to his own ordeal earlier this year, in which he was cleared of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old waitress at a family party, Mr McCartney said: "I will be fully supportive of him, just like he was supportive of me."

The ex-Beatle's marriage to the charity campaigner and former model has been under strain in recent weeks.

Reports have suggested the couple were already living at separate addresses after a series of blazing rows.

Sir Paul, who is 64 next month, was said to be living on the family farm in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, about 50 miles away from his wife, 38, who was at the couple's home in Hove.

Pictures also recently showed Sir Paul on holiday alone in the south of France.

Mark Featherstone-Witty, who with Sir Paul set up the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) 10 years ago, said: "I last saw Sir Paul and Heather when they both came up for our 10th anniversary gala at the end of January.

"The announcement that they are to separate came as a surprise. My impression of Paul is that he's a deeply family man, and I'm sure this will be hard for him.

"He comes to Liverpool on a regular basis to see members of his family and to participate in things we do here. He is very rooted in Liverpool, and that's what impressed me with him."

Sir Paul's spokesman would not be drawn on the prospects of the marriage ending in divorce, insisting that the couple had merely agreed on a separation. But a lawyer said that, if the break-up went through the courts, it could end up being the biggest divorce case in British history.

Only last week Heather denied rumours the marriage was on the rocks.

She put stories of a split down to her hiding from photographers who wanted a picture of her on crutches after a recent operation on her leg.

At the time she said: "It's hilarious. Of course we are together.

"Paul and I are still very much together. Paul and I are together 100%."

The couple have continued to appear together at public engagements this year, mostly in connection with their animal rights campaigning.

In March they flew to Canada to protest ahead of the annual slaughter of young harp seal pups.

The couple stood side-by-side against the backdrop of the pristine white ice to issue an impassioned plea to hunters to end the activity.

Then in a BBC documentary broadcast last month they spoke out on the fur trade.

Sir Paul already has three children from his marriage to Linda - musician James, photographer Mary, and fashion designer Stella.

He also has a stepdaughter, Heather, from Linda's first marriage.

For someone who has spent the vast majority of his life in the glare of publicity, Sir Paul's love life has, until now, proved remarkably stable.

Unlike so many superstars who have a string of high-profile affairs and father numerous children by different women - the name of Mick Jagger springs instantly to mind - Sir Paul lived up to his "nice guy" image by staying married to the same woman for nearly 30 years.

During the height of Beatlemania in the 1960s, Jane Asher was McCartney's regular girlfriend. He met professional photographer Linda Eastman while she was taking photographs of the Beatles in America, and they married in 1969. It is said that they only spent one night apart during their marriage.

A year after Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998, Sir Paul first met Heather Mills at a charity event for people who had lost limbs in war zones.

Initially, the ex-Beatle and the former model - who had her leg amputated after she was involved in a collision with a police motorbike in 1993 - denied having a love affair, saying their relationship was purely professional.

When they finally confirmed they were a couple, in October 2000, they chose the rather public arena of a television programme to make the announcement. The couple tied the knot in June, 2002, in a lavish ceremony held at a remote castle in the Republic of Ireland.

Mills has endured repeated press criticism, including claims that she influenced her husband's decisions on everything from his appearance to his work.

In the past, Sir Paul has refuted claims of a rift between his wife and his children.

May 20, 2006 -- The Sun

Macca air dash to Stella

Anguished Sir Paul McCartney dashed to daughter Stella's side as his marriage broke up, it emerged yesterday.

He flew by helicopter to her country estate to pour out his feelings before his split from Heather Mills, 38, was announced.

Ex-Beatle Sir Paul, 63, took off from his own vast spread in Sussex and touched down near Stella's 250-acre pile near Pershore, Worcestershire.

A source said: "Paul landed on the Sunday afternoon.

"He looked very tired and drawn and deep in thought.

"Obviously he wanted to break the news of his split with Heather to Stella in person before it became public knowledge."

Sir Paul is believed to have flown out again the following day.

He has not been seen publicly since.

Fashion designer Stella, 34, also has a home in London with husband Alasdhair Willis.

She bought the three-storey farmhouse in Worcestershire for £1.3 million ($2.4 million) three years ago and has spent a fortune on renovation.

Macca's close pals believe he will head for his farmhouse on the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland.

A friend on the island said: "Paul always turns to his farm on Kintyre at low points in his life and that is where he will be heading. He is talking about going in the summer. It is a real place of healing."

Stella's pad ... Macca flew into his daughter's 250-acre pile in Pershore, Worcestershire

Ironically Sir Paul took Heather there last year as their marriage began to crumble. A spokesman for the star said yesterday: "Paul is recording at the moment."

The real reason Macca snapped

Although Heather Mills had been discontented in her marriage for a long time and spent happy hours bitching about Sir Paul McCartney's shortcomings it seems she saw the end coming.

Heather, 38, established a pattern of mutual antagonism in the relationship and was happy to exist in an atmosphere of conflict, according to a confidante.

Almost right up until the end, she boasted about her "terrific" sex life with McCartney and did not believe the 63-year-old former Beatle could possibly want to end their marriage. No wonder, then, that she is so very shocked and devastated by his decision to make a clean break after a two-week separation. Particularly considering her fragile physical state after complicated surgery called 'revision amputation' to her leg.

It is even possible to feel a bit sorry for Heather although one of her friends conceded this personality So, then, why did they part? It is already well-known that Heather resented McCartney's fame, feeling angry that she was not taken seriously in her own right. Apparently she was often frustrated at having her "important" charity work eclipsed by him.

But while that may be true, it is not the whole story. Speaking this week to a friend in whom Heather has confided, it becomes clear that, from the start, the union was a complete mismatch of age, temperament, inclination and ambition.

Heather even exclaimed during one conversation: "Oh God, he's such a boring old f* rt!" It is a wonder that the relationship lasted as long as it did. At the beginning, it seems that they were overwhelmed by a racy sex life, and perhaps McCartney, ever the romantic, was rather swept away.

Maybe he failed to consider what a sixty-something grandfather would have to do to make his ambitious, dynamic, somewhat self-absorbed new bride happy. By last year, even before their daughter Beatrice had reached her second birthday, the problems in the marriage were too profound to be ignored.

"Heather complained about her marriage quite a lot," the friend said. "Her tone, when she talked about him, was exasperated, and kind of superior. She would groan: 'Oh, Paul does this' and 'Oh, he's that'."

The behaviour which irritated her most was what she regarded as his reclusive ways. 'Why won't Paul have a social life?' she would moan. 'He's got no friends and it's driving me mad.'

Heather made it clear from the early days of their marriage that she did not much care for the charming little farmhouse in Peasmarsh, Sussex, which Paul had shared with his first wife, Linda.

She preferred the grandeur of the large house in London's St John's Wood, and also bought a more fashionable Art Deco home on the South Coast in Hove.

Although these domestic arrangements were a fresh start, the problem was not simply a question of escaping from Linda's influence.

Heather's tastes were younger and more cosmopolitan than McCartney's. She wanted to entertain their famous and powerful friends and thought that once they were ensconced in a new home, her husband could be persuaded to enjoy a very different kind of lifestyle.

But while she enjoyed her elevation to the world of celebrity she appeared on BBC1's Question Time and GMTV, and conducted numerous interviews McCartney preferred to remain secluded.

Despite persuading him to go on a charity edition of ITV's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, she had more of a struggle getting him enthused about her obsession with social networking. He found it hard to understand her enthusiasm for going out. Linda had never wanted to.

The friend said: "Heather complained to me, 'Paul has not got any friends. He doesn't trust anyone because he's a former Beatle. He thinks everyone wants to take him for a ride because he is Paul McCartney. He is really anti-social. The only thing he ever does is occasionally go to the pub with his roadie. We never have parties or do fun things.'"

The friend adds: "Heather realised Paul had lived in his own little world with Linda, spending every single day together and smoking a lot of dope.

"Heather didn't want that because she said it wasn't healthy. But Paul did want her to be like that although she had things to do, places to be, people to see. It was an irritant to him."

It seems Heather may have suffered by this constant implied comparison theirs was a romance allied with companionship, a bond so strong that they were never separated and were happily engaged in growing old together before her death from cancer in 1998.

After McCartney married Linda in 1969, neither felt the need to have any other friends or any stimulation beyond the bounds of each other and their children.

Heather, though, is a more modern woman with different interests and values. Whereas Linda didn't even shave her legs, Heather is obsessively interested in her appearance and does long daily work-outs.

She has her own entourage, which includes her sister Fiona (described as a nicer, shorter, plumper version of Heather) and a publicist, Anya Noakes. She knows her own mind.

She insists on what she calls "me time" and that everyone respects the importance of her charity work. Put simply, she had no intention of trailing in McCartney's wake.

Her friend said: "She has a theory that when Paul performed on stage with Wings, he wanted Linda up there with him because they everything else together in life.

"Heather said: 'He wants to share his life totally with one person only,' and she told me she did not want to do that. She was not willing to be his Linda."

That account is certainly backed by Heather's remarks in her new self-help book Life Balance, which outlines her belief that a modern woman like herself needs and deserves to have it all.

She writes: "When our daughter was born, I recognised that if I was going to continue to do the things that I enjoy, such as seeing my friends, having time with my husband, going to the gym and focusing on my work, I would have to learn to balance all these different elements of my life."

How fascinating that "having time with my husband" is ranked second in her list of pastimes.

Indeed, it is not surprising this formidably focused former model would ultimately grow impatient with McCartney, a man who is still, in part, a gentle hippie but who has also spent decades being idolised, pampered and set in his ways.

One great source of arguments when he went back on the road last year was that he returned to his old pot-smoking habits.

Above all, Heather simply didn't like it when he was on tour. While Linda had famously just packed up their young family and followed him around, Heather had other plans which did not include hanging around waiting for her husband to be free.

She refused to take Beatrice on tour because it would have meant constant travel. Instead, she chose to base herself mostly in New York and Los Angeles, which meant McCartney had to travel hundreds of miles to spend time with them.

While Linda loved life on the road making huge vegetarian snacks in a mobile home and playing mother to the roadies Heather was "honestly not very interested in him being a former Beatle and in the music business", according to her friend.

"To her credit, she did buy a saxophone and try to get involved, but I never heard her play it. I don't doubt they were in love, but when that fades, you have two people who don't want to do the same things."

Small domestic differences which had not seemed to matter started to seriously irritate them both. She is no cook, and was not interested in baking for and nurturing his grown-up children.

She required a nanny for Beatrice. Linda had never contemplated such a thing. There were arguments all the time. "Heather has done it all before, she is so sure of herself," said the confidante. "She has a rather dominant personality."

One level, though, on which the marriage always worked very well was sex. Sources close to the couple said they had a very hot sex life, particularly between their engagement in July 2001 and their wedding a year later.

Heather was happy to tell others how very desirable McCartney found her. The way she told it, he could not believe his luck.

"Certainly their sex life was very active," said the friend. "I was really surprised by the way that Heather used to boast about it. She mentioned things which I honestly can't repeat about how they were together."

With such comments, it's no wonder his children are said to have disliked her so heartily although, even in private, she always insisted she didn't have a problem with them and that stories of rifts were just invented by the media.

"She told me: 'I've got no problem with Stella, I've got a discount card for her store,'" the friend recounts Heather saying about claims she had fallen out with McCartney's fashion designer daughter.

Yet Heather implied that her stepchildren had a complicated relationship with their father and that the problems lay in that direction. Whatever the truth, theirs was certainly not one big happy family.

One of the more telling stories came when she sprang a surprise Indian-themed birthday party in London for McCartney's 61st birthday and didn't invite his children. This decision spoke volumes about her priorities and preferences.

Another, perhaps unexpected, source of friction was money. Heather complained that McCartney, who is worth an estimated £800 million ($1.5 billion), was miserly.

"She complained that he was tight with his money," says the friend. "She said that he had never given a penny to charity before he met her. I guess that must be an exaggeration, but I was stunned to hear her say it."

Yet, astonishing as many will find it, Heather's friend said she is not the kind of woman who cares about money. 'She is very generous and I know she very upset to be considered a gold-digger.

"Money is not what motivates her at all she is probably the only woman in the world who could marry Paul McCartney and not realise how wealthy he is."

Bizarrely, Heather had a certain lack of respect for her husband. She seems to have treated him like a recalcitrant teenager.

She hated how people treated him like a god and to be fair to Heather there are those who say McCartney can be arrogant and unpleasant about his status.

Ultimately, it must have been a colossal shock to Heather, who believed she had the whip hand in their relationship, that McCartney was prepared to cut his losses.

Of course, it is sad they have not been able to make their marriage work and it is clear from McCartney's protective statement about Heather not being a gold-digger that he still loves and admires her.

Unfortunately, the final reckoning was that he was just not able to live with his critical spouse. After all, he and Linda had barely said a cross word in four decades.

"Heather is an amazing, strong, interesting woman," said the confidante. "The trouble is that she always knows best."

And at the court of Sir Paul McCartney, there is only room for one monarch.

Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills face a long road ahead as they wind up their marriage and look to the future.

Friends believe Paul, 63, will throw himself into his music and 38-year-old Heather may be tempted by a TV career in America.

The former Beatle will have to face the pity of all those who said "I told you so" when he married a woman 26 years his junior.

There is also the challenge of rebuilding relationships with friends and family which became strained during the four years he was with Heather.

But above all, he will strive to continue to play a full and meaningful role in the life of his two-year-old daughter Beatrice.

Sir Paul dotes on Bea who brought the joy of fatherhood back into his life in his 60s - long after his own children had grown up.

This weekend his thoughts must surely be overshadowed by worries that Heather's new life might mean a permanent move to the United States, taking little Bea with her.

One old friend said last night: "Heather is not about to hide away but it will be easier in America." Few could blame the former model for trying to escape the attention she has come to hate so much as Paul's wife. And if being the wife of a Beatle was tough - being the former wife of a Beatle must surely be even tougher.

She must fear that Paul's popularity could mean she will be vilified for the split - however amicable in reality it may have been.

In America, she could make a new start, possibly pursuing the media career she had dabbled in.

Now an international celebrity in her own right - the name Lady McCartney will open countless doors.

She only has to look at the examples of Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson and Mick Jagger's ex Bianca Jagger who both carved out successful careers in the US.

However, she is said to be in no fit state to consider a move at the moment.

The friend said: "She will need to time to regroup, this has hit her incredibly hard, but she's a tough cookie who's not about to fade into the background like a wallflower.

"She enjoyed presenting Larry King's talk show and she is confident she can resurrect her career once this has all blown over. The nation has a huge affection for Paul and she knows she will never win the public over."

While both are determined to share custody of Beatrice, friends fear it could spark clashes. Paul has always resisted a permanent move to the US and educated his children at state schools.

The friend said: "Both will have their own views on how Beatrice should be raised and despite their best intentions to keep it amicable, it is much harder in practice."

Heather, patron of Adopt-A-Minefield and an animal rights campaigner, will now have more time for her charity work.

One said: "She found it difficult to balance her work commitments with Paul's desire to have her by his side."

But what does the future hold for Macca himself? Free of Heather's chiding that he needs to make himself look younger by dying his hair and wearing designer suits, Macca will feel more comfortable back in his old jeans and T-shirts.

A long-time mate revealed: "Paul's an old hippy at heart. Of course he is gutted that it didn't work with Heather but he knows that he needs to draw a line under it and start over.

"Heather will still be a big part of life - she'll always be Bea's mum - but he's calling friends he's lost touch with and renewing ties with his old life."

The friend added: "Expect to see him loosening up a bit more.

"He was never as concerned with his appearance as Heather was and he'll start dressing down again.

"Everyone knows he used to smoke a spliff or two, and I'm not suggesting he's going back to that, but he'll finally be able to start relaxing again.

"While he is upset it's over, he feels generally happier in himself that the decision has now been made and he can start to move on."

The Mirror exclusively revealed this week how the couple, who wed at a castle in Ireland in 2002, had split after 18 months of anguish. The final straw came when Heather accused him of not caring about her recent leg operation.

She could now net up to £200 million ($3.75 million) of his £825 million ($1.5 billion) fortune but is expected to settle for £50 million ($94 million) in a quickie divorce.

Like in all times of emotional stress, Macca will find solace in his music.

He is busy working to put the finishing touches to a classical album.

"Music has always been an escape for Paul," said one associate.

"He will keep his head down and spend time with trusted family and friends." They will no doubt include his daughters Stella, 34, and Mary, 36, and son James, 28, who are privately relieved his ill-fated marriage is over.

For both Paul and Heather there must now be a period of mourning.

The Mirror told yesterday how Heather had been forced back into a wheelchair after a post-operation relapse following their split.

But while the public adulation Sir Paul enjoys will continue unabated, do not underestimate Lady McCartney.

A victim of abuse who lost her leg in a motorbike crash, fighter Heather is not about to stop battling now.

The Mirror told yesterday how Heather had been forced back into a wheelchair after a post-operation relapse following their split.

But while the public adulation Sir Paul enjoys will continue unabated, do not underestimate Lady McCartney.

A victim of abuse who lost her leg in a motorbike crash, fighter Heather is not about to stop battling now.

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