Time That Was So Hard To Find

Jane Asher & Paul McCartney attend the premiere of How I Won The War at the London Pavilion in London, England | 18 October 1967

Paul McCartney & Jane Asher with a copy of the Daily Mail following the announcement of The Beatles' MBE Awards | 11 June 1965 © John Knoote

Jane Asher & Paul McCartney with Maureen Starkey & Ringo Starr at the Lakshman Jhula Bridge in Rishikesh, India | 20 February 1968

Jane Asher & Paul McCartney with Maureen Cox & Ringo Starr on holiday in Greece | September 1963

“One amusing instance of this occurred when Jane arranged to entertain a group of actor friends to dinner, unaware that Paul had simultaneously invited Sue and me to meet him at Cavendish Avenue. We were supposed to go on to Abbey Road with John Lennon, who was going to be there as well. Jane’s friends, six or seven people, were clearly nervous at having Paul and John hovering in the background, working out small details of one of their songs. Though they tried to concentrate on their own company, their attention kept drifting as John and Paul moved around the room and sometimes joined their table. John was in a difficult mood, unpredictable and snappy. All the same, Jane’s guests tried to draw him into the conversation and treat him like any other person. One of the women asked if he knew where the ashtray was. John dropped to his knees beside her and prised open his left nostril. ‘Put it here, lady, put it here.’ Everyone laughed, but a little nervously because John didn’t seem to be joining in the joke. He remained crouching until the woman blushed and Jane, seeing her discomfort, pushed John over with her foot. He rolled over on his back, his feet in the air.”

Paul McCartney & Jane Asher with a copy of the Daily Mail following the announcement of The Beatles' MBE Awards | 11 June 1965 © John Knoote

Every day in Klosters Paul and Jane started at 9:00 a.m. with their twenty-two-year-old ski instructor, John Christoffel, and were taught until 4:00 p.m. Their visit wasn’t announced, and so no journalists or photographers trailed them. Even Christoffel wasn’t told the identity of his new students and didn’t discover it until he casually asked Paul what he did for a living. At the time Paul was driving his Aston Martin to the ski lift, and he just put on a record and said, “This is what I do.” The record was “Michelle.” Christoffel wasn’t aware of any problems between Paul and Jane. As far as he could detect, they were a happy couple, both keen to learn as much as they could in the short time available. On some evenings the three of them remained together after the lessons to eat or drink. On one night Christoffel took them to a town hall dance in Saas where bands played traditional Swiss folk music on accordions, clarinets, and upright basses.

By the time they moved to Cavendish Avenue, Paul and Jane were growing increasingly apart. In October 1965 Jane had joined the Bristol Old Vic and was deeply involved in her career as an actress. She spent most of her time in Bristol, leaving Paul free to enjoy London as a single man. The majority of Jane’s friends were in the theatre. She did not take drugs and clearly felt increasingly alienated from Paul’s drug-taking friends. The relationship hung on, in part, because they were apart so often: if Jane was in a play, Paul would not see much of her unless he attended a performance, and Paul himself was often out of town, touring with the Beatles or at late-night recording sessions, television recordings, official receptions and other Beatles activities. They really only saw each other properly on special occasions like holidays—skiing in Klosters in March 1966 just before moving into Cavendish Avenue, and in November on safari together in Kenya—when they would reaffirm their relationship; but the underlying trend was apart. PAUL: “During that period with Jane Asher I learned a lot and she introduced me to a lot of things, but I think inevitably when I moved to Cavendish Avenue, I realised that she and I weren’t really going to be the thing we’d always thought we might be. Once or twice we talked about getting married, and plans were afoot but I don’t know, something really made me nervous about the whole thing. It just never settled with me, and as that’s very important for me, things must feel comfortable for me, I think it’s a pretty good gauge if you’re lucky enough. You’re not always lucky enough, but if they can feel comfortable then there’s something very special about that feeling. I hadn’t quite managed to be able to get it with Jane.”