HE was at the the peak of his fame and The Beatles were breaking up.

So Sir Paul McCartney retreated to High Park Farm on Kintyre and on Friday the legend will mark the 50th anniversary of the iconic album he wrote at his Scottish hideaway.

To celebrate RAM turning golden, Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 masterpiece will be reissued as a limited edition, vinyl pressing via UMe.

Sir Paul has said: “Going up to Scotland was real freedom. It was an escape – our means of finding a new direction in life and having time to think about what we really wanted to do.”

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At the height of Beatlemania, encouraged by then girlfriend Jane Asher, he had bought High Park Farm in 1968.

But it was only when newly married to American Linda Eastman in 1969 that he decided to make it a home – and there were plenty of sheep.

He said: “It was like, ‘Let’s escape – we’ll just run away’. And we did, we just ran away. And Linda was a great nature lover. That very much informed our relationship.”

The farm would become home to Linda’s daughter, Heather, and the couple’s first child Mary. Stella, now a top fashion designer, arrived in 1971.

But it was also the place where Sir Paul’s next music projects were born and, at first, he had tried to be a solo act.

The title of RAM came to him as he was heading north from Glasgow.

“As I’m driving, I’m just thinking. Linda often used to say she can see my brain working. My face would get a look on it. It would just be me, filing through ideas,” said Sir Paul.

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“And I just hit upon the word ‘ram’. It’s strong, it’s a male animal and then there’s the idea of ‘ramming’ you know pushing forward strongly... very short, very succinct; the kind of title you wouldn’t forget.”

Sir Paul later started the band Wings in 1971 with his wife who he had taught to play keyboards for Ram and who also sang.

She died in 1998 from breast cancer, aged just 56, and was often criticised for singing out of tune in the early days of Wings.

But Sir Paul, 78, maintains she was integral to the band and “was a good singer”. Pitchfork would later describe RAM’s sustained influence on generations of fans and musicians alike, “inventing an approach to pop music that would eventually become someone else’s indie pop”.

The only album to be credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM was created mostly at High Park Farm – following initial, more traditional studio sessions in New York.

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The RAM sessions were completed in early 1971, and yielding the standalone single Another Day, a worldwide hit.

It also gave Sir Paul his first postBeatles US No 1, the Grammy-winning Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey. Sir Paul wrote many of his best known songs – such as The Long and Winding Road – at the farm.

High Park Farm was also where Sir Paul discovered vegetarianism, where he fled with Linda to rebuild his shattered confidence following the break-up of The Beatles, and where he also got busted for growing cannabis.

He subsequently bought five neighbouring farms over the years, creating a large wildlife haven. Linda particularly took the place to her heart, renovating the threebedroom farmhouse, while Sir Paul installed a recording studio.

But since Linda’s death, the ex-Beatle rarely visits the farm. Friends say the memories are too closely associated with Linda – and Sir Paul has remarried twice. A statue of Linda commissioned by Sir Paul stands in Campbeltown.

However, Sir Paul recently revealed that he feared that he had lost one of his most prized compositions in Scotland.

High Park Farm is about 20 miles from the Mull of Kintyre – the most south westerly point on the peninsula.