(Very) Modern Manners

STRIKING up conversation with a stranger on the London Underground is generally frowned upon, but how about taking their picture?

Sir Paul McCartney’s photographer daughter Mary admits she upset a fellow traveller by trying to surreptitiously snap her on her smartphone.

‘I was on the Tube the other day and I had a horrible moment,’ Mary confesses during a talk at the National Portrait Gallery.

‘I took the picture of her first, because if I asked her it would kill the moment. And then I went to her and said: “Can I take the picture?”

‘But she’d seen me take the picture, so she got annoyed and said: “Well you did it anyway.” ’

Mary adds of the experience: ‘It was horrible, so I deleted [the snap].

‘I was mortified.’