The time I strummed Paul McCartney’s bass guitar

Loitering backstage in the hope of an interview, writer Philip Norman dared to talk to Paul McCartney – and ended up accessing the Beatles’ dressing room

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. Orders from my newsdesk were: “Go along and try to get a word with them.”

I set out on the assignment with zero hope. This tour came in the wake of their Rubber Soul album, their second smash-hit film Help!, their performance to 55,000 people at New York’s Shea Stadium and their investiture as MBEs by the Queen. I’d be competing not only with Tyneside’s own heavyweight media but also the national newspapers and broadcasters who had offices there. Even if I got close to them, why would they waste a second on some nobody from the Northern Echo?

At least I had a Beatles angle none of my rivals did: how Paul let me play his bass and told me he was a skinflint