Sir Paul McCartney’s tribute to Cilla Black

Cilla Black has passed away at the age of 72. Tributes poured in when news of Cilla Black’s death were released.

Ahead of the post-mortem examination, police in Spain said “everything at this stage is pointing towards her death being the result of natural causes”.

At this time, she also worked as a waitress in the Zodiac coffee lounge, where she met her future husband and manager Bobby Willis. He told, “I spoke to her a week ago and she told me she was going to Spain“.

“Her passing away is a particular shock because despite the aches and pains we all suffer, she was always so upbeat”, he wrote in The Sunday.

Cilla was awarded an OBE in 1997 and in 2013 she celebrated 50 years in show business. I will always think of her as outrageous, funny, incredibly gifted but above all full of heart.

As Black began to make her name in showbiz, she could count The Beatles as some of her close friends, and her first single was “Love of the loved” by The Beatles’s John Lennon and McCartney.

2005: Her autobiography What’s It All About? became a best-seller. Spanish police have confirmed the identity of the woman to be Black and that an autopsy is being carried out.

2001: She performed as the ageing stripper from the musical Gypsy at the Royal Variety Performance, with pals Paul O’Grady and Barbara Windsor. I’ve seen her twice in the last few weeks, and as always she looked immaculate. “British to her very core”. She landed a job as a typist at a construction company – but also got a part-time job as a cloakroom attendant at the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool, where the Beatles regularly played.

1967: Only days before his premature death, Brian had engineered Cilla’s switch to television, where her girl-next-door image found great appeal.

Two of her biggest hits, “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and “You’re My World”, reached #1 in Britain in 1964.

“She always had a fun loving dignity that made her a great pleasure to be around”. She had a bit of arthritis, but the painkillers were working. “It was a privilege to know and love her”, added McCartney.

Ms Robertson, the editor of our sister newspapers the Barry & District News and the Penarth Times, said the last time she saw her aunt was at her father’s funeral in 2010 and before that at Cilla’s son’s wedding. “She was a good friend, we will all miss her. Peace to Cilla, peace and love to the family, R&B”.