Sir Paul McCartney jokes he turns into a tour guide when returning to Liverpool

Sir Paul McCartney has joked that he turns into a tour guide when he returns to Liverpool.

The former Beatle, 78, said he insists on driving himself around when making the trip to his hometown and enjoys showing his friends around the streets where he grew up.

Speaking to GQ, the beloved rock star said: “I like driving and I don’t want to be driven around Liverpool. And I know all the routes, you know? Most of the time I’m driving to Lipa (Liverpool Institute For Performing Arts, co-founded by Sir Paul in 1996) and on my way I pass all the old haunts and it’s like a guided tour, with me as the tour guide.

“I’ll say, ‘And this is where John’s mother, Julia, lived and we used to go round and visit her. And this is the street here where I had my first girlfriend.’ So it’s all that. ‘This is where I did this; this is where I took this girl out…’ I can remember lots of stuff.”

Sir Paul has been one of the most recognisable people in the world since the Beatles first began ruling pop music in the 1960s.

He said he was glad he rose to fame then as it was more “innocent,” adding: “It was exciting getting famous, but then it wears off a bit and when you’ve been famous for as long as I have, it’s a thrill sometimes and sometimes it’s a nuisance.”

Dylan Jones, British GQ’s editor-in-chief, said: “It was a privilege to experience Sir Paul being so candid about his life experiences and discuss how his journey is far from over.

“The weekend before our interview, I turned back into a McCartney fanboy myself, working my way, yet again, through his back catalogue, not in the hope of discovering anything new – like many Macca obsessives, I like to think I know everything about him, up and down and back to front – but just to reacquaint myself with things I hadn’t heard in a while.”

Read the full feature in the September issue of British GQ available via digital download and on newsstands Friday August 7.