Reading this on mobile? Click here to view the video Second, it seemed to trigger a realisation within McVie herself: she had previously seemed adamant that leaving the band had been the right thing to do because she was sick of the music industry, panic attacks had made travelling impossible and she longed for the quiet life she had made for herself in a 17th-century mansion in Kent. First, it was discovered shortly after McVie's former husband John McVie, the Mac of the band's name and its bassist – about whom the song was written – had been diagnosed with cancer, although McVie says the 'prognosis looks good' and the band expect him to be 'up and running again in a couple of months' (they cancelled several Australian and New Zealand dates while he underwent treatment). Performing Don't Stop took on added poignancy for two reasons. 'But it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought. 'Not as much as I thought, because none of the band drink any more and I've seldom done a gig without a spritzer, you know?' She smiles, acknowledging the Mac's status as doyens of debauchery. 'I climbed back on there again and there they all were, the same old faces!' 'It was like falling off a bike,' McVie says when I meet her in her south London apartment, a beautiful space situated so close to the banks of the Thames that it feels as if we're floating above it. When it came to the end of the band's set, McVie stepped onstage with them for the first time in 15 years to run through Don't Stop, her enduring anthem about staying positive in the aftermath of a breakup.

Mac diva mac hang up