Paul McCartney at 80: Look back at Macca's life and career

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Paul McCartney's life and career. READ MORE: Life in the decade Beatlemania took over the world Growing up on , Paul had a difficult start to life, losing his mum to cancer at a young age.

Having met John Lennon at Woolton Village Fete in 1957, he joined Lennon's band, The Quarrymen. When John's own mum was killed in 1958, Paul was able to empathise.

Paul's brother, Mike McCartney said the world may have been without the Liverpool quartet if their mother had lived. Speaking to the ECHO, Mike explained how the guidance from their mother may have meant he and brother Paul would have followed more educational routes.

He joked: "You'd be speaking to Dr McCartney now, or she was a Catholic so maybe it would be Father McCartney. " Having recruited George Harrison and Ringo Starr, The Beatles enjoyed an extraordinarily quick rise to fame in the early 1960s, with Beatlemania sweeping the world.