New old photos from Paul

Paul with mother Mary.

Recently, a couple of photos of Paul McCartney we hadn’t seen before have shown up on social media. Yesterday, Paul posted the above photo with the caption: “Today is the anniversary of my lovely mum’s birth. Lets celebrate together. – Paul”

Paul in Paris, 1961. Photo by either John Lennon or Jürgen Vollmer.

The other photo that has been going the rounds is this one, from John and Paul’s hitch-hiking trip to Paris in late September 1961, where they bumped into a friend they knew from Hamburg, Jürgen Vollmer. French policeman behind Paul and the nearest car in the background is a Citroën DS. Paul was wearing regular shoes on other photos from the trip, and his leather jacket, but here it’s socks in sandals and a different jacket.
This is close to the Eiffel Tower, which is just to the right of the photo border. Here is a modern day capture of the same spot, taken from Google maps:

Photo: Google maps. Thanks to Phil Evans for pointing it out to us.

Here is a link to the street view. If you pan to the right, you will see how close to the Eiffel Tower this is. So, it’s likely Paul took one of John and John took this one of Paul when they were visiting the tower. Paul’s photo of John is of course more familiar.

Paul’s photo of John is more familiar.

It was sixty years ago today! John Lennon and Paul McCartney travelled to Paris by train on Saturday 30 September 1961. John Lennon had been gifted £100 from his Aunt Elizabeth (‘Mater’) in Edinburgh ahead of his 21st birthday, which was coming up on 9 October 1961. John and Paul abandoned the other guys in The Beatles on September 30th, and ditched several gigs the group had lined up, to spend John’s birthday money on this journey. The plan was to go to Spain for a holiday, planning to hitch-hike from Paris. In the end they enjoyed Paris so much, they stayed. Eventually, they returned home to Liverpool around October 14th and The Beatles played a gig the next day.

The appearance of these photos makes us think that they may have been found by Paul when looking for illustrations for his upcoming book, “Paul McCartney: The Lyrics” and the upcoming exhibition in British Library.