MCCARTNEY MISSES LATE MOTHER

SIR PAUL McCARTNEY's daughter STELLA wishes her mother LINDA was still alive - because the photographer would be so proud of her daughter's fashion career.

Pregnant designer Stella misses chatting over the telephone with her late mum, who died of cancer in 1998, and believes the fervent animal campaigner would be thrilled with her conscientious approach to fashion.

Stella says, "She would have loved some of the things I've done recently.

"She would have loved all my veggie shoes and she would have dug the ADIDAS thing. She'd have loved the perfume. It's a bummer.

"At the weekend I really wanted to call her, talk c**p down the phone. I didn't have anything to say, just sort of babble."

Despite being close friends with MADONNA and GWYNETH PALTROW, Stella considers her mother the "classiest woman" she has known.

She adds, "She wasn't like JACKIE O - you don't think of her like that - but just the way she handled herself and the decisions she made and the way she interacted with people was so fluid and natural and classy.

"It wasn't about her. It was about everyone else."