The Beatles with Stu Sutcliffe, right, circa 1960; Ellen Piel – K & K/RedfernsPaul McCartney took to his social media pages Tuesday to send out posthumous birthday wishes to his one-time Beatles band mate Stu Sutcliffe, who would have turned 80 on June 23.
“Our original bass player Stuart would have been 80 today! So many great memories of our time together,” McCartney wrote. “Happy birthday Stu! Love Paul.”
The message was accompanied by a vintage photo of The Beatles featuring Sutcliffe, McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and drummer Pete Best.
Sutcliffe joined The Beatles in early 1960. He left the group the following year to focus on pursuing artistic studies in Hamburg, Germany. Sadly, he died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage in April 1962 at the age of 21.
In other news, McCartney and his daughters Mary and Stella have teamed up to support a new initiative launched by animal-rights organization PETA, calling for the U.K. to get rid of a rule that requires schools to serve meat to students on most days.
The McCartneys, who co-founded the Meat Free Monday campaign in 2009, have signed a petition organized by PETA calling for more flexible guidelines to be adopted for the food served to students, and that more plant-based options be made available.
“The school food standards are unnecessarily restrictive,” the letter reads in part. “So long as nutritional needs are met, individual school caterers should have the freedom to decide whether they wish to include meat and dairy in their menus.”
McCartney and his daughters say in a joint statement, “No one needs to eat meat, so it shouldn’t be mandatory to serve it in schools. It’s time to revise the school food standards to help the planet, spare the animals and promote healthy eating.”
Visit MeatFreeMondays.com for more details about the campaign.
By Matt Friedlander
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