Norman - Paul McCartney : the life

On 4 December 1965, the Beatles appeared at Newcastle-on-Tynes 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 musicand, increasingly, beyond itfor more than two years. From my lowly, limited vantage-point, what new insight could I hope to add? As for getting a word with them, this tour came in the wake of their Rubber Soul album, their second smash-hit film Help!, their historic performance to 55,000 people at New Yorks Shea Stadium and their investiture as MBEs by the Queen. Id be competing not only with Tynesides own heavyweight media but also the national newspapers and broadcasters who had offices there. Even if I did manage to get close to them, why would they waste a second on some nobody from the Northern Echo?

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 oclock shadow dusting his jawline.

Paul wore his Beatle gear with greatest elegance: the high polo necks and long-collared, button-down shirts, the corduroy once confined to farm labourers, the black leather jackets still uncomfortably reminiscent of Nazi storm troopers, the elastic-sided boots last seen on Edwardian men-about-town. He also seemed the one most enjoying the bands (presumably) mounting riches; I remember with what inexpressible envy I read this gossip snippet in the New Musical Express: On order for Beatle Paul McCartneyAston Martin DB5.

Hed become known as their PR man, before we quite understood what PR men were, with his charm, good humour, impeccable manners and air of what could only be called refinement. There was always something aspirational about him, as in his dating of a classy young actress, Jane Asher; at the same time, none of the others seemed happier amid the mindless, balcony-buckling, seat-wetting mayhem of their live shows. A friend who saw them at Portsmouth Guildhall told me how, in the crazed opening moments, someone threw a teddy bear onto the stage. Paul picked it up, sat it on the neck of his bass guitar and kept it there throughout their performance.

So now here I was on a slushy December night in Newcastle, waiting outside the City Halls rear entrance with a knot of reporters including my friend David Watts from the Northern Echos 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 couldnt 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 Beatlestotally unguardeddressing-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.