Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney has launched a thinly veiled attack on soon-to-be ex-wife Heather Mills through a tribute to his late wife Linda McCartney.

Ahead of a new exhibition of Linda’s photography in London and the 10th anniversary of her death later this month, Paul described about his love for Linda in an article in the Sunday Times: “Linda was very down to earth. She taught me to relax.”

“Her priorities were private rather than public. She didn’t go on television to ingratiate herself. She was just very funny, very smart and very talented.”

Paul also explained how he first met Linda at the Bag O’Nails nightclub in Soho, London in May 1967 and how she was different from many of his ex-girlfriends, attracted to his Beatles fame: “Until then, I’d felt I’d been dating girls - well, except maybe one or two. Linda was genuinely a woman. She had a five-year-old child and I was genuinely impressed by the way she handled herself in life. She just knew how to do it.”

Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995 but Paul added that the family chose not to tell Linda how close to death she was during her final days in April 1998: “At the time she knew she was ill but she’d had chemo and her hair was growing back. She didn’t know she was dying. I’m not actually sure she ever knew she was dying.”

“You have a decision to make asa family as to whether you tell someone and the doctors leave it to you, the immediate family. I talked it over with the doctor and he said, ‘I don’t think she would want to know. She is such a strong, forward-thinking lady and such a positive girl that I don’t think it would do any good’.”

“She was fighting right up to the end.”