Penny Lane

Press, 14 August 1980, Page 14

Penny Lane

Liverpool city fathers have turned down a proposal to name streets after the Beatles, delivering the second snub in three years to the “Fab Four,” reports NZPA.

The proposal came from Beatles fans annoyed by a 1977 failure to have a statue erected in the group’s honour.

The housing committee of the city council rejected the fans’ proposal without discussion.

However, there was some consolation for Paul McCartney, aged 38. The committee decided to name a still-to-be-built people’s home after him.

The committee chairman, Richard Kemp, said “McCartney is the only one who keeps his Liverpool connection.” Other members of the Beatles, who have not played together since 1970, are Ringo Starr, aged 40, now living in California; George Harrison, aged 37; who lives near Oxford, and John Lennon, aged 39, now living in New York. The street names included “Beatles Boulevard,”

“Magical Mystery Way,” and “Sergeant Pepper’s Drive,” along with streets bearing the names of each group member. A model, for a statue of the Fab Four was approved by the council in 1978 but efforts to raise money to pay for it have failed.

The campaigners say that renaming streets would be an appropriate gesture to commemorate the Beatles’ contribution to pop music, until the cash for the statue is found.

The campaign leader, John Chambers, said “We want the city to act now to commemorate the most talented men ever to come out of here.”

But Mr Kemp said that he thought it would be inappropriate to name a main city street after the group. According to a report from London, Paul and Linda McCartney have not bothered to make wills, are not interested in becoming tax exiles, and have ruled out making long-term financial provision for their four children.

“Who wants to be involved in trust funds and be a tax exile?” Linda McCartney said. / “ you put aside a lot for kids when you die, they almost spend your entire old age looking toward to what they are going to get, and wish you dead. “So no trust funds for us. We don’t want them to be lumbered with all that,

and we have made no will.” The wife of the former Beatle also disclosed that she ran the home out of her own pocket. “Paul doesn’t give me an allowance,” she said in the latest issue of “Woman’s Own.” “I just pay for things as we go along. I have the same housekeeping problems as anyone else.”