Interview for Northern Echo

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On this day, The Beatles travelled by road from Glasgow to Newcastle, driving through heavy snow. They performed two concerts at Newcastle City Hall, the first at 6:30 pm and the second at 8:45 pm.

It is unclear whether The Beatles held a formal press conference in Newcastle, but they were interviewed by several journalists, including a young reporter from the Northern Echo, Philip Norman. Norman would later become a noted author, publishing “Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation” in 1981, followed by biographies of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the latter titled “Paul McCartney: The Biography” (2016).

On 4 December 1965, the Beatles appeared at Newcastle-on-Tyne’s City Hall during what would be their last-ever British tour. I was a 22-year-old reporter in the Newcastle office of the Northern Echo, a daily paper circulating throughout the north-east. Orders from my newsdesk were ‘Go along and try to get a word with them.’

I set out on the assignment with zero hope. The Beatles had already been the biggest story in pop music – and, increasingly, beyond it – for more than two years. From my lowly, limited vantage-point, what new insight could I hope to add? […]

Like almost every young male in the Western Hemisphere, my daily fantasy was to swap lives with a Beatle. And there was no question as to which one. Paul, a year my senior, was the most obviously good-looking; John for all his magnetism could never be called that while George had good bone-structure but unsightly teeth and Ringo was… Ringo. If the adolescent female frenzies that engulfed them had any rational focus, it was the left-handed bass guitarist whose delicate face and doe-like eyes were saved from girliness by the five o’clock shadow dusting his jawline. […]

So now here I was on a slushy December night in Newcastle, waiting outside the City Hall’s rear entrance with a knot of reporters including my friend David Watts from the Northern Echo’s evening stablemate, the Northern Despatch. Forty-five minutes before showtime, a black Austin Princess limousine, which had driven from Glasgow through heavy snow, drew up and from it emerged the four most famous haircuts on earth. The only one to acknowledge us was John, who shouted a sarcastic greeting. Despite the cold, he wore no topcoat, only jeans and a white T-shirt, the first I ever saw with something printed across the front. I couldn’t make out what it said, but I got the impression that was sarcastic also.

In those innocent days, the only security was a single elderly stage-door keeper. Dave and I between us easily talked our way past him and a few minutes later found ourselves in the corridor outside the Beatles’ – totally unguarded – dressing-room. Some other media people had also got this far, but no one dared knock on the closed door, let alone barge in. As we loitered there indecisively, a rising crescendo of shrieks and stamping feet from the adjacent concert hall warned that potential interview time was running out.

Then suddenly Paul came along the passage wearing a black polo neck, just like on the With the Beatles album cover, and unwrapping a stick of Juicy Fruit gum. As he opened the door, Dave said ‘I know that face’ and, as he paused with a grin, I managed to ask, ‘Can we come in and talk to you?’

‘Sure,’ he replied in the Liverpudlian voice that was so conspicuously higher and softer than the others. So, scarcely believing our luck, we followed him. […]

On a nearby sofa lay the Hofner ‘violin’ bass whose long-necked Stradivarius silhouette had become his particular trademark. I’d once played guitar myself, in a no-hope band on the Isle of Wight, and to show my kinship with the Beatles I asked him if the bass was heavy to wear onstage. ‘No, it’s light,’ he said. ‘Here . . . try it.’ With that, he picked it up and tossed it over to me. I’m a hopeless catcher, but I somehow managed to grab its fretboard and shoulder-strap together. For a few moments I found myself fingering the same frets Paul McCartney did, and thumbing the same steel-wound strings. I asked whether violin-shaped basses were more expensive than regular ones. ‘Only 52 guineas [£54.60],’ he said. ‘I’m a skinflint, you see.’

Like all their interviewers, I felt I got on better with them than anyone ever had before. ‘Is it OK if I stick around for a bit?’ I asked Paul, then looked at John. ‘Sure,’ they both nodded. Just then, a hollow-cheeked man in a yellow shirt with leg o’ mutton sleeves entered the room and noticed me. This was their roadie, Neil Aspinall, one of whose main functions on the road was saying to journalists what the lovely, cuddly Fab Four couldn’t possibly say themselves. More than likely he’d received one of their secret signals that a visitor was becoming tiresome.

‘You,’ he said with a jerk of his thumb. ‘Out!’

‘But… they just told me I could stay,’ I protested.

‘Well, I’m telling you you’ve got to go,’ he snapped, then glanced down at a newspaper, forgetting my existence.

As I made my ignominious exit, I consoled myself that at least I had a Beatles angle none of my rivals did: how Paul McCartney threw me his violin bass and told me he was a skinflint.

Philip Norman – From “Paul McCartney: The Biography“, 2016