Video: 'PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS: MACCASPAN 1980 VOL.17' (May 16, 1980, at 2:25)

(Friday, May 16, 1980) — Former Beatle Paul McCartney was interviewed today by Nicky Horne for his Nicky Horne’s Music Scene section, a short 5-minute item encompassed within the Thames regional news program Thames At Six show, transmitted May 19, 1980.

Besides using the interview to promote his new album, McCartney also recalled his marijuana bust a few months earlier in Japan.

McCartney: “It was very stupid! We’d been in America and the attitude to drugs over there is very different and it led me to take a real casual approach. Most people taking that kind of thing into the country would give it to the roadies, that’s the common practice. That just shows that I wasn’t really thinking about it. I was taking my opinion of it instead of the legal opinion of it, and I just didn’t really think much about it, you know till the fellow pulled it out of the suitcase and he looked more embarrassed than me! He wanted to put it back in and forget the whole thing, you know.”

Horne: “What thoughts went through your head when you realized it could be seven years!”

McCartney: “The first thing you do is ask to see your British Consul. You always think ‘He’ll get me out!’ Well, he turned up with a flat cap on, he didn’t look like a Consul at all, our man in Havana or something. He said, ‘Well Paul, there’s a fellow in here who had a lot less than you had and he’s done three months already, so you could have seven years hard labour to look forward to!’ I thought ‘What?’ and my jaw dropped. You’re worried about how long it’s gonna last; you’re not just worried about the immediate conditions. It’s not Bridge On The River Kwai you know… it’s not that bad. The immediate worry during the time is what’s going to happen to Linda and the kids. Those are the main worrying things.”