(Although I stopped
posting to this blog every Sunday in order to concentrate on writing fiction,
apparently I cannot stop myself from posting from time to time.)
I’ve told this to lots of people over the past four
decades, so I should include it in my blog too.
A woman I worked with named Martha Bell told me in
1972 that she was Paul McCartney’s mother’s sister. Her daughter Michelle Bell was about 8 years old. They lived in Essex County somewhere near Maidstone,
Ontario.
That would make Martha Paul McCartney’s aunt and her
daughter, Michelle, Paul McCartney’s cousin.
I
was especially sceptical. Actually, I did not believe her, until the next week
when she brought a few black and white Brownie snapshots to work that showed her
and her older children with Paul, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They were
all relaxing around a living room with her family.
There was no doubt. It was the three Beatles circa
1964 in those little square photographs with the perforated edges.
Now you think I am making this up. But I am not. In
the words of my good friend Jennifer: “I swear to God!”
Let me set the scene. This happened at the office of The Essex Times, a weekly tabloid newspaper
owned and operated by a man named Woody Nicholson. The office was on the north
side of Talbot Road right next to the railway tracks. It’s not there anymore.
It blew up in 1980. I was living near Ottawa by then.
My job for The
Essex Times was to cover and write local news; take, develop and print
photographs; write heads and layout the pages; shoot the line shots on the
graphics camera; size and shoot my photographs to make half tones; take the
stripped line shots to the printer; and deliver the printed tabloids to local
stores. The venerable Evelyn Walker was the editor. A high school kid and a
young woman who typed my stories into a typesetting machine were the rest of
the staff.
Martha was the classifieds person working with Woody
on the ads. Michelle came into the office with her mom from time to time. After
seeing the photos, I remember thinking, “Michelle Bell, those are words that
go together well.”
“Martha my dear, don’t forget me,” popped into my head
too.
Martha said that the photos were taken when the three
Beatles stopped to see her when they first played in Toronto. Michelle was a
baby. I recall one of the pictures showed one of the Beatles holding baby
Michelle. Martha’s other kids were teenagers. Where in Toronto I do not know,
but I had the impression it was an attached home in the older part of the city.
Michelle would be about 50 years old now. I wonder
sometimes what happened to her and whether she ever connected with her cousin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifobQSP-b7E
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