Services for Linda McCartney Reunite the Beatles

For the first time in three decades, the three surviving members of the Beatles appeared in public together Monday to grieve over the death in April of Paul McCartney’s wife, Linda.

George Harrison and Ringo Starr joined McCartney and 700 other family members and friends at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, the venerable church in central London whose usually severe pale stone walls and wrought-iron railings were softened for the occasion with white lilies and bouquets of lily of the valley.

McCartney turned to acknowledge the cheering crowds as he arrived with his family. Bearded Ringo Starr waved his umbrella. George Harrison bowed his head and strode into the church in a hooded raincoat.

Among other guests at the service were Elton John, Sting, actress Joanna Lumley, fashion photographer David Bailey and George Martin, the producer who used to be known as the fifth Beatle.

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The congregation sang “Let It Be,” the poignant ballad that McCartney wrote for his mother, Mary, who, like his wife, had died of breast cancer. The service began with the haunting refrain of McCartney’s 1977 hit, “Mull of Kintyre.”

“Lady Linda, we cannot see you, but we still hear you,” Carla Lane, a fellow animal rights activist and television writer, said in her speech to the congregation. “There was no lowly creature in your eye, no size, no strength, no special beauty; they were all the same. We will complete your journey.”

Actress Tracey Ullman, afterward, told commercial Sky television of her late friend: “She had no ego; she was so friendly to everybody; and that’s really important.”

Television cameras and photographers were not allowed at Monday’s memorial. But about 1,000 people, mostly animal rights activists who supported the vegetarian beliefs of Linda McCartney, observed a candlelight vigil outside, among the fountains and bronze lions of Trafalgar Square.

“I came to pay my respects to Linda McCartney, a great idealist who believed in the causes we believe in,” said Caroline Turner, a waitress from Shoreham by Sea, on the southern English coast, shrugging off the thin rain that had soaked her and her friends during their three-hour vigil.

The activists pressed leaflets on passersby, pleased of a chance to publicize their views without fear of what they said, in calm and resigned tones, was relentless police persecution against them. Mostly young, cautious police officers tried their best not to hear these stories.

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For almost 30 years, the McCartneys had one of the closest marriages in show business. Since 56-year-old Linda McCartney’s death in April, after a sudden deterioration in a two-year illness, her husband has shut himself away at the farmhouse they shared in southern England.

He had avoided the controversy that ensued after his wife’s death, with a publicist admitting that the family, to avoid crushing publicity, had deceived many about the exact place and circumstances of her death. Her body was flown back to London from the United States for cremation, and her ashes were scattered over the family farm.

In April, McCartney poignantly described his wife as the love of his life. He personally organized Monday’s service and wanted it to be as much a celebration of her life as a mourning of her passing. It reflected her interest in animal welfare, vegetarianism and photography.

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Hundreds of animal rights activists, some from Germany, Italy and France, turned out in the square along with the local activists.

The McCartneys’ three children--Mary, 27, fashion designer Stella, 26, and James, 21--were present, along with Linda’s daughter, Heather, from her first marriage.

Except for a photograph published last year when they brought out an anthology album, the three surviving Beatles had not been seen in public together since 1969. Paul and Linda McCartney, who played and sang together in the 1970s band Wings, after the Beatles dissolved, recorded six songs written by her shortly before her death for a planned tribute album.