Mike McCartney: “My dad told Paul that John Lennon was trouble!”

As the National Trust prepares to open Paul McCartney’s home for unsigned artists to write music and gain inspiration in, his brother Mike has reflected on some of his most memorable moments in the Liverpool property.

The Beatles legend grew up at 20 Forthlin Road, which was the site where he and John Lennon wrote early hits such as ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.

The property is now owned by the National Trust, and Mike has teamed up with them to launch The Forthlin Sessions, a scheme which will give young musicians the opportunity to write music in the same spot as the Fab Four.

But Mike, who is best known for his work with comedy trio The Scaffold, says his dad wasn’t too sure about Lennon when he first visited the house.

Speaking at Tuesday’s launch, he recalled the moment he first met a pre-fame Lennon when he knocked at the door of 20 Forthlin Road.

“I remember our kid saying this bloke John was going to come round, and the next thing I know I’m watching this Teddy Boy walking down the road with slicked back hair, a quiff and sideburns, or side-ys as we used to call them. “We weren’t allowed to have them and I don’t think we could have grown them!” he said.

“I remember him opening the gate and I could see he had drainpipe jeans so I thought ‘this guy is a rebel!’ It’s why my dad told Paul to be careful and thought he could be trouble.”

Mike went on to explain how the two bonded over personal trauma, with both experiencing the loss of their mothers at an early age in their lives.

“I always got on well with him, I always had time with him because he was an interesting bloke and never said two words when one would do,” Mike said.

“I always had an affinity with him because I’d been told his mum had been killed in a road accident by an off-duty policeman outside his Aunt Mimi’s house and we’d just lost our mum. I immediately got on with him because you don’t talk about it when you’ve experienced tragedies like that. Both of them were a shock to both our families. We had this rapport, always up to the very last time I saw him in New York.”

While the house provided the foundation for Lennon and McCartney’s legendary songwriting relationship, Mike also recalled living at Forthlin Road during the height of Beatlemania.

“I’d forgotten how well they were doing when we lived here. In fact, it’s because they were doing so bloody well that we had to leave!” he said.

“One of the photographs I took from my mum and dad’s bedroom was of a big posh car like the Queen’s Rolls Royce, but it had pulled up here to collect my scruffy brother!”

He added: “I also remember this carpet being full of letters from fans who had written from across the world. They’d be bags of letter and that’s why the fan club secretary Bobby Brown used to come here and help. We needed someone to help with the letters!”

You can find out more about the Forthlin Sessions here.