TODAY IN Music HISTORY: By TBU Editor - Frank Gercas. James Jim McCartney (7 July 1902 – 18 March 1976) and Mary Patricia McCartney (née Mohin) (29 September 1909 – 31 October 1956) were the parents of musician, author and artist Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Wings, and photographer and musician Mike McCartney, who worked with the Scaffold. Like many families in Liverpool, the McCartney and Mohin families are of Irish descent. Jim worked for most of his life in the cotton trade, as well as playing in ragtime and jazz bands in Liverpool, while Mary was a trained nurse and midwife. The McCartney family lived in council houses during Marys life, but Paul later bought his father a house called Rembrandt, in Heswall, Cheshire. Jim encouraged his two sons to take up music by buying instruments for them to learn, as well as improving their education. Mary was Pauls inspiration for the song, Let It Be. After Marys death, Jim married Angela Williams and adopted her daughter from a previous marriage, Ruth McCartney. Jim was born at 8 Fishguard Street, Everton, Liverpool and was the third eldest of seven children. The McCartney children were John (Jack), Edith, James (Jim), Ann, Millie, Jane (Jin) and Joe (who was named after a brother who died in infancy). Joe and Florrie McCartney moved shortly after Jims birth to 3 Solva Street in Everton, which was a run-down terraced house about three-quarters of a mile from the Liverpool city centre, where Jim attended the Steers Street Primary School off Everton Road. After leaving school at 14, Jim found work for six shillings a week as a cotton sample boy, at A. Hanney & Co.; a cotton broker in Chapel Street, Liverpool. Jims job entailed running up and down Old Hall Street with large bundles of cotton that had to be delivered to cotton brokers or merchants in various salesrooms. He worked ten-hour days, five days a week, although he received a bonus at Christmas that was almost double his annual salary. When World War II started Jim was too old to be called up for active service, as well as having previously been disqualified on medical grounds after falling from a wall and smashing his left eardrum when 10 years old. After the cotton exchange closed for the duration of the war, Jim worked as an inspector at Napiers engineering works, which made shell cases that were later filled with explosives. He volunteered to be a fireman at night and often watched Liverpool burning from his rooftop observers position. Between 1940 and 1942, Liverpool endured 68 air-raids, which killed or injured more than 4,500 of the population and destroyed more than 10,000 homes. After the war he worked as an inspector for Liverpool Corporations Cleansing Department before returning to the cotton trade in 1946. Jim avidly read the Liverpool Echo or Express, liked solving crosswords and instigated discussions about varied subjects. His attitude to life was based upon self-respect, perseverance, fairness and a strong work ethic. His political views were far from left-wing, as he insisted that there was nothing anyone could do about the situation the working classes were in at the time, and nothing would ever change. 62-year-old Jim was earning £10 a week in 1964, but Paul suggested that his father should retire, and bought Rembrandt; a detached mock-Tudor house in Baskervyle Road, Heswall, Cheshire, for £8,750. He bought his father a horse called Drakes Drum, and a couple of years later, the horse won the race immediately preceding the Grand National. Jim died of bronchial pneumonia on 18 March 1976.[21] His second wife, Angela McCartney (née Williams) said that his last words were Ill be with Mary soon.[22] Jim died two days before a Wings European tour; his eldest son was unable to attend the funeral. Jim was cremated at Landican Cemetery, near Heswall, on 22 March 1976.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 10:16:42 +0000
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