With the news of her death fragments of vaguely-remembered images and interviews jostled for attention. Her hands, described as "mottled" and "workworn" by one shocked visitor; her marriage, characterised by her husband of nearly 30 years as "lusty and lively"; her appearance at her daughter Stella's fashion show in Paris five weeks ago, anti-fur sticker on lapel and whooping with delight, her cropped hair the only outward sign of her illness though the fatal cancer had already moved to her liver; and Stella herself, despite her father's £400 million fortune and her elevation to super-designer status in the fashion capital of the world, devoid of hauteur and pretension in an industry crawling with it.
If the mark of a successful human being is to love selflessly and consistently and to leave behind a new generation of decent, confident, rounded individuals, then Linda McCartney by all accounts has earned the title.
Not only did she pull it off, she did it while creating with Paul McCartney one of the century's greatest and most enduring love stories.
The young woman whose mother died in a plane crash when she was 18 quickly embarked on a short-lived marriage that produced a daughter, Heather, and first met McCartney in 1967, while he was still attached to actress Jane Asher.
The story goes that she pursued him relentlessly, deluging him with letters and telephone calls and supplying him with marijuana (the latter being one of her favourite vices, according to one Beatles biography, The Love You Make).
Hardly a promising beginning, but clearly he saw something in her even then that was rare:-
"She was just different. She was a woman. The others were girls . . . I just went for her in a big way. That was it. We've never looked back."
In the rush to canonise her now, many will choose to forget the hostility with which some sections of the British public in particular reacted to her 1969 marriage to the baby-faced Paul, the last unmarried Beatle.
What they saw was his ensnarement by a brash, pushy New Yorker, someone who broke the hearts of a generation of British teenagers, someone furthermore who had shattered the Beatles, usurping John Lennon's rightful place as best friend, soulmate and collaborator.
And they never let her forget it. When they created the band Wings in the 1970s, Paul insisted on her going on tour and taking the stage with him. It is said that such was her musical ignorance that he was obliged to point out middle C on the keyboard.
In any event, so keenly felt was the derision piled on her musical efforts, and on Paul for his soft-headedness in hauling her around with him, that the hurt filtered through to the next generation. Stella, for example, says now that she never developed her singing or guitar for fear of similar ridicule.
BUT music and family were Paul's twin passions and wherever he went Linda and family went too. It became a cliche to say that the couple spent barely more than a dozen nights apart during their married life. It was to be the motif for their marriage and the probable secret of its success.
In a moving tribute to her in the Daily Mail Hunter Davies - the Beatles' official biographer - suggested another. He recalled that when Paul first introduced Linda to him at Davies's Portuguese home, there was little to suggest that it would be a lasting relationship.
But after Linda had gone to bed one night, Paul began to talk to them about marriage, saying that when he did marry, it would be like saying to his bride: "I will not put you down."
Did he mean he would not humiliate his wife, not put her down in argument, not belittle her, Davies wondered.
"Now I know, 30 years later, he meant it in all those senses. It has been one of the richest, most stimulating and faithful marriages I have ever known."
Paul is the only Beatle to have remained in his first marriage. Asked recently how they remained so close, Paul said: "If people ask me what our secret is, well it's quite simple. Although guys are not meant to say this, I guess it's because we just adore each other."
Those who knew them well talk about how her sharp humour balanced Paul's. "She was his security, they were always together," said former Wings drummer Denny Seiwell.
"I think they did the couple thing better than they did music. They really did get the couple thing right, they were incredible parents. Their kids are all sensational kids. They had a great shot at being normal children born to people who were absolutely not normal."
None of this came about by accident. To achieve it, they gave up their swinging London lifestyle for remote homes in Sussex and Scotland.
In an interview with Lesley White of the Sunday Times about six weeks ago, Stella - speaking from the Parisian glamour-pit of Chloe - spoke of the down-home reality of a McCartney childhood:-
"My mother always had more serious things (than fashion) on her mind - she only really cares about her family, food and her horses. She always tried to make us wear penny loafers - it was like, `Mum, please! - No one wears them here'."
As a 14-year-old, Stella knew that she could flick through fashion magazines until hell froze over but that the coveted clothes would never come her way unless she worked and saved up for them.
None of it was a pose. The electric fence around the family farm in East Sussex was the only evidence of a less-than-ordinary family within. Inside, dogs and horses, organic vegetables, wellies and scruffy clothes were the stuff of everyday life.
Even after the murder of John Lennon in 1980, the only bodyguards they had were while on the road with Wings. Famously, all three McCartney sisters and brother went to local state schools.
The love and values instilled by Linda and Paul were clearly reciprocated. Stella, for example, dedicated her triumphant debut show in Paris to her mother, assuring Lesley White just a few weeks ago that she was now clear of cancer, "thank God".