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lenetaylor · 2 years

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The Kellys - Paul McCartney's domestics

George and Gwen Kelly were employed by Paul McCartney for about a year (1966) at his house at Cavendish. The circumstances of their leaving are somewhat mysterious. Here's all the information on them that I could gather from public sources.

Paul bought the house at 7 Cavendish Ave on 13 April 1965 for £40,000. He then spent about £20,000 to renovate and redecorate, finally moving (from the Ashers' house on Wimpole Street) in March 1966. The house had (has) a basement, which served as living quarters for servants, a ground floor, and two floors above it. On the ground floor Paul installed an open-plan kitchen and a formal dining room.

In Paul McCartney: The Life by Philip Norman (2016), he writes: "Paul’s brief to the Adamses [the designers] was the strangest they’d ever received, or ever would again; he said he wanted the kind of house where a smell of cabbage floated up from the basement...In fact, the house had no basement from which cosy cabbage-smells could waft to its upper storeys." 100% wrong: The house does have a basement, and you can see the windows to the basement in some photos. This was a standard design for houses at the time, with the main kitchen in the basement along with quarters for some of the staff. This is where the Kellys lived.

Even though he gets that wrong, we'll continue with Norman's book:

In those same Sunday colour supplements one could read how, if traditional domestic servants might have no place in the egalitarian Sixties, wealthy young bachelors often employed a live-in married couple, usually Spanish, the husband combining the roles of butler and chauffeur, the wife cooking and keeping house. Paul started out at 7 Cavendish Avenue with just such a couple, albeit Irish rather than Spanish and with the reassuring Liverpool-echoey name of Kelly. When he hired them, he gave warning that his household would be anything but a conventional one, and defined their main role as just ‘to fit in’. He soon discovered the drawback in having domestic servants, as noted by writers like Harold Nicolson back in the Victorian country house era: there are always people standing around, eavesdropping on your conversations, obliging you to shut the toilet door (all the more irksome if you’re fond of sitting there, playing guitar) and generally behave as if you’re in an hotel rather than at home. Mr Kelly, evidently seeing himself as Jeeves to Paul’s Bertie Wooster, would ceremonially lay out his young master’s clothes for the day ahead until firmly dissuaded. Pop star pals who stayed overnight, and expected to be left comatose until after noon, would instead be briskly roused by Mr Kelly with early morning tea. On the big dining-room table, he placed a display of silverware whose highly-polished formality was too much even for Paul; to annoy them, he’d take out the ornate silver cruet and put a cheap plastic one in its place.

The "to fit in" quote is from a short piece that appeared in the London Sunday Times on September 18 1966, by Hunter Davies, titled "ATTICVS: All Paul":

Paul McCartney was in his new mansion in St. John's Wood. He lives alone. A Mr. and Mrs. Kelly look after him. Nothing so formal as a housekeeper and butler. Their job, he says, is just to fit in.

Barry Miles, in Many Years From Now (1997), picks up the silver cruet story:

There was a large dining table with an antique lace tablecloth, which was always beautifully set with all the appropriate cutlery, but it had a plastic salt cellar and pepper shaker in the centre. Paul owned silver ones but insisted on using the cheap ones, mainly to annoy the housekeeper, Mrs Kelly, and her husband, who had previously worked for gentry and let it be known, not very subtly, that they regarded their new position as a step down in the world. The husband had initially attempted to continue his role as gentleman's gentleman by laying out Paul's clothes each morning until Paul made it abundantly clear that this was not required. Every time they set the table the silver cruet was laid and each time Paul replaced it with the plastic one. Paul fired them for selling their story to an Australian magazine... “I had this live-in couple called the Kellys who would wake you up early in the morning like everything was just going normally and we had just stayed up all night and it was like, 'Go away please!'”

Nicholas Schaffner's book The Beatles Forever (1977) has this information from George Kelly:

George Kelly, a veteran of 16 years of service in the Royal Army who went on to become butler and chauffeur at some of Britain’s most stately homes before being hired by Paul McCartney in 1966, recalls with distaste in his memoirs having to bring morning tea for two to Paul’s bedroom when Jane was away, and having to endure the sight of the Beatle stubbing out ciggies on his silver Ivor Novello awards. But nothing seems to have unhinged Kelly more that the time he accidentally stumbled in on “one of the most bizarre scenes I have ever witnessed. There, in front of the television set, were the highest-paid pop group in the world and their manager, bowing down and salamming, chanting and dancing with one another!” Kelly recalls making his way through the billowing incense and flashing colored strobelights to give Paul a message, but “nobody took the slightest notice of me. They were all on their own little clouds. So as the Eastern music…grew louder, I just left the room quietly.” Shortly afterward, the butler handed in his notice, but not before receiving lectures from his employer about the benefits of LSD: “Your whole life flashes before you and you realize all the mistakes you have made.” (p. 76)

Schaffner says this is from Kelly's "memoirs", but I can't find any evidence of these memoirs being published. It's possible Schaffner had access to an unpublished manuscript; the quotes certainly read like something written, not an interview.

In addition to serving morning tea at noon and whatever else they were doing, they had to deal with the endless stream of fans. At Meet the Beatles For Real, Carol Bedford talks about visiting London in the summer of 1966:

“I couldn't have been there for more than two minutes when Mr. Kelly, Paul's gardener, came out screaming and waving a hoe at me. He said that Paul had just come in at 3 a.m. and needed rest. I looked up to see the curtains being rustled on the middle window of the second floor. Mrs. Kelly came out, and when asked if Paul and Jane were married, she answered, "No, of course not! That's a bunch of rubbish!"

(Lizzie Bravo added, "Funny, I remember her husband, Mr. Kelly, we called him "Stick" and he was pretty nasty but I don't remember her...")

So did they quit, or were they fired? They were gone by the end of January 1967. Here's an article published January 12, 1967 that ran in several American newspapers; this was titled "They’ve Had Enough of That Job, Thank You":

George and Gwen Kelly, who were Beatle Paul McCartney’s chauffeur and housekeeper until they quit recently, read a newspaper ad saying a Mr. Brown needed a chauffeur and housekeeper. George telephoned the employment agency that had advertised, said he and wife might be interested and asked for details. “Yes,” said the voice on the telephone. “Your prospective employer lives in St. John’s Wood—” “Did you say St. John’s Wood? We know the area very well. We’ve got friends there. We used to work in St. John’s Wood.” “And the wages are good,” said the agency man. “Go on, please,” said George. “There’ll be lots of entertaining. You will see a lot of interesting people.” “Tell me,” said George, “what sort of a chap is Mr. Brown?” There was a long pause. Then in a low, confidential voice, the agency man said: “Now, you must promise not to say anything, but Mr. Brown is really Paul McCartney—one of the Beatles, you know.” “I know,” said George. “Thank you for your trouble in answering my questions.” “When will you be coming in for an interview?” asked the agency man as George hung up. When the Kellys left McCartney, George said he and his wife thought they would be happier working for someone with more regular hours.

(They're not wrong!)

Back to Norman:

Paul’s live-in domestic couple, the Kellys, had left his employment in January 1967, after Mrs Kelly talked out of turn to an Australian newspaper, though he still hand-wrote her a reference calling her ‘efficient and trustworthy’. After trying another couple, the Millses, he found Rose Martin (no relation to George), an unflappable, unshockable woman who would serve him with irreproachable loyalty and discretion for many years to come. However, Rose was fiercely loyal to Jane, so treated Maggie with barely restrained hostility.

And back to Miles:

Paul asked his housekeepers, the Kellys, to leave after he found that they had written an article about his home life for an Australian magazine. Paul: “Mr and Mrs Kelly are looking for another place and I’m getting another couple to replace them. There have been disagreements over the running of the household. I haven’t asked them to leave instantly because that would be unreasonable.” They were replaced by Mr and Mrs Mills. (“She still hasn’t given me a tune yet,” quipped Paul, referring to popular pianist Mrs Mills.)

And then we have Mike McCartney, who has a different story - here he's talking about his photo of Paul's smashed-up face:

The fab pic was eventually stolen from Cave Avenue by a ‘butler’ and sold to an Italian mag to illustrate ‘wild Beatle drug parties in swinging London’.

(I'm pretty sure he's conflating stories here - I don't remember reading anywhere else that his photo was stolen)

The only contemporary account of their departure I can find in the newspapers is from The Daily Mirror on January 6, 1967.

Beatle’s Staff Driven Out By His Fans By Kenelm Jenour

The married couple who act as housekeeper and chauffeur to Beatle Paul McCartney have given him their notices. The reason: They could not stand the fans any more. The couple, George and Gwen Kelly, have looked after Paul at his £40,000 London home behind Lord’s cricket ground since he moved in almost a year ago. Last night, while Paul was recording with John, George, and Ringo, Mr. Kelly told me: “Paul has been a good boss. But the fans have been a terrible strain. “In fact sometimes it’s been murder. We’ve had no private life at all. “Sometimes we can’t even get into the house because of fans crowding around outside. And we get phone calls from all over the world at all hours of the night.” The Kellys, both aged 40, told Paul on Wednesday of their decision to quit. But they did not set a date for leaving. “We don’t want to leave him in the lurch,” said Gwen in their basement flat at Paul’s home. “We will probably go in four or five weeks.” Engaged Gwen, who once worked with her husband for the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire, went on: “We didn’t even know Paul was a Beatle when we came here. All we knew was that we had been engaged by a Mr. Paul McCartney. “And that’s what we have always called him - ‘Mr. McCartney’ or ‘Sir.” He hates any familiarity.” One thing the Kellys stressed: They are not leaving Paul, the only bachelor Beatle because he wants to get married. “As far as we know - and we probably know him as well as anyone - he has no immediate plans to marry,” said George.

The image at the top of this post is Paul's letter of recommendation for Gwen Kelly, which was sold at auction in 1993 for £250, according to The Paul McCartney Encyclopedia by Bill Harry (2003). It seems to have been sold through Tracks Ltd. in the UK. Here's the description:

A one-page job reference for a housekeeper, Mrs. G. Kelly, who Paul McCartney employed for a brief period in the mid-sixties in his home in Cavendish Avenue, London. Mrs. Kelly resigned as housekeeper due to differences with Paul about the running of the home. The reference dates to 1967. It reads, "Mrs G Kelly, Mrs Kelly worked for me and was a very capable and trustworthy housekeeper. She is an excellent cook and generally very efficient. Paul McCartney". It comes with four black & white modern prints of photographs of Paul McCartney's home which were formerly the property of Mrs. Kelly, (3 of these depict the housekeeper on the forecourt of the house) an original newspaper clipping relating to her resignation and a modern print out of another newspaper cutting. Three of the photographs measure 9cm x 9cm (3.5 inches x 3.5 inches), the fourth measures 10.5cm x 8.5cm (4.25 inches x 3.25 inches). The photographs are not being sold with copyright. The reference letter measures 20cm x 25cm (8 inches x 10 inches). It has tears and tape stains on the folds. The condition of the letter is fair.

Back to Norman:

I have spent considerable time searching online for "the Australian newspaper/magazine" that the Kellys supposedly sold their story to, but I can't find anything at all. Three possibilities:

The story was published in a small paper or magazine but isn't available online or in an archive

They talked to an Australian reporter but the story was never published, perhaps due to pressure from Beatle management (Murdoch involvement? He owned many newspapers in Australia at that time)

It was a rumor that got published as truth and keeps getting recycled; they really left because the situation was intolerable

I can't find any more information about what happened to the Kellys after they left Cavendish. I would love to know the end of their story!

(Honestly, being Paul's housekeeper in 1966 sounds like the worst job in the world.)

#paul mccharmly #paul mccartney #the kellys #george kelly #gwen kelly #cavendish

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