and I wore those – it was very aesthetic."

There was another, more productive method of escape. People often talk of Rumours in miraculous terms: how did the group make such a perfect album amid such turmoil? But of course it was the turmoil that forced the band to focus on the music.

"I became really interested in the recording process," McVie says. "I used to watch everything simply because it was more interesting than having a fight."

Perhaps the truly miraculous thing about Rumours is not that the music was so good but that McVie's songs ended up sounding so positive. Aside from Don't Stop, her Rumours hits include You Make Loving Fun – inspired by her new relationship with the band's lighting director – and the beautiful piano balladSongbird. Was she trying to escape the reality of the situation?

"Yes, I suppose I was," she says, as if the thought had never struck her before.

McVie was trained classically before discovering the blues through the sheet music for a Fats Domino song her older brother had left at the piano. "My writing ability all stems from the blues," she says. "Don't Stop, Say You Love Me … they all have that boogie bass, lefthand thing. Even the more recent things, like Little Lies and Everywhere, they're all blues based."

Before Fleetwood Mac, she got used to being the "only girl, side stage with the piano" with the blues band Chicken Shack, but never gave too much thought to the notion that she was a pioneer. "There was Julie Driscoll