1
00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:13,260
Hey guys. How's it going?

2
00:00:14,140 --> 00:00:15,140
Okay.

3
00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:16,720
Right.

4
00:00:19,040 --> 00:00:20,980
The Lost Bass, yay!

5
00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:25,580
It's a story. It is a story. It's quite
a thing, yeah.

6
00:00:26,100 --> 00:00:32,680
And this being my first bass that I got
in Hamburg all

7
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:37,760
those years ago, I had an attachment to
it, you know.

8
00:00:38,200 --> 00:00:39,600
It just went off.

9
00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:45,760
Into the universe, you know, it's like
where did it go? There must be an

10
00:00:45,760 --> 00:00:49,380
answer, you know Somebody's got it

11
00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:06,640
you

12
00:02:39,950 --> 00:02:44,830
And as you see, if you think what's
being written in the yarn on Thursday...

13
00:02:44,830 --> 00:02:51,170
This was one of the main places we used
to sit and write songs.

14
00:02:51,430 --> 00:02:54,750
The sneak bunk off school, come in here,
eat some fried eggs. There's a thing

15
00:02:54,750 --> 00:02:56,270
about fried eggs, I don't know why,
everywhere.

16
00:02:56,790 --> 00:02:59,270
You go to Hunter Davison's story,
they're all eating fried eggs. They must

17
00:02:59,270 --> 00:03:02,490
have been just after the war, they must
have just loved fried eggs. This is

18
00:03:02,490 --> 00:03:03,490
where we used to live.

19
00:03:05,170 --> 00:03:08,550
Our humble abode in Forthland Road.

20
00:03:09,070 --> 00:03:14,670
Allerton, Liverpool, and this is where
we used to live as a little family.

21
00:03:15,810 --> 00:03:20,130
And there's some people out there, what
are they doing there?

22
00:03:22,230 --> 00:03:23,310
That's why we left.

23
00:03:25,650 --> 00:03:27,730
Lots of lovely memories.

24
00:03:29,450 --> 00:03:36,290
Not enough of my mum and the smells that
would have come from the kitchen when

25
00:03:36,290 --> 00:03:38,170
she did Sunday dinners.

26
00:03:38,590 --> 00:03:45,210
She'd do off cuts of lamb or beef and
sneak them in to us, her little

27
00:03:45,210 --> 00:03:47,690
boys. Shh, don't tell your dad.

28
00:03:47,950 --> 00:03:48,950
Shh.

29
00:03:51,790 --> 00:03:58,030
You see, whenever I talk about my mum,
it's always dangerous because this is

30
00:03:58,030 --> 00:03:59,310
where she went from.

31
00:04:01,110 --> 00:04:03,010
This is our kids' little room.

32
00:04:04,010 --> 00:04:07,750
Yeah, I stopped them going in there.

33
00:04:08,250 --> 00:04:15,110
for many years because it was too
important for

34
00:04:15,110 --> 00:04:17,190
me. I'm a brother.

35
00:04:21,410 --> 00:04:27,930
I was 12, my brother was 14, and she
died of cancer

36
00:04:27,930 --> 00:04:30,870
when you're 12 or 14.

37
00:04:31,270 --> 00:04:32,710
You don't understand.

38
00:04:34,970 --> 00:04:37,010
You have to get on with life.

39
00:04:37,850 --> 00:04:43,930
you have to survive and because dad had
been in his own band

40
00:04:43,930 --> 00:04:49,990
at the back of his mind he always
thought well that was a way out

41
00:04:49,990 --> 00:04:56,490
and so he bought me a banjo and my
brother a guitar spanish guitar

42
00:04:56,490 --> 00:05:03,490
i took that out the back window our kid
was sitting in the

43
00:05:03,490 --> 00:05:07,070
back garden lost just

44
00:05:07,919 --> 00:05:10,500
miles away with his guitar.

45
00:05:11,260 --> 00:05:14,120
My brother was 14 in that photograph.

46
00:05:15,540 --> 00:05:17,960
Beatlemania came six years later.

47
00:05:23,260 --> 00:05:28,400
If I'm in a not very good mood, a great
thing to do is just take a guitar,

48
00:05:28,540 --> 00:05:31,980
because you think about it, you sort of
hold it to you, you know, a guitar, and

49
00:05:31,980 --> 00:05:34,000
it's kind of a comforting thing to do.

50
00:05:35,690 --> 00:05:39,370
You go off into a little room somewhere,
you know, on your own, and tell the

51
00:05:39,370 --> 00:05:43,670
guitar your troubles, kind of thing.
It's like a cheap psychiatrist, really.

52
00:05:44,870 --> 00:05:50,110
And it turns round, and the guitar sort
of sends it back to you, and it comes

53
00:05:50,110 --> 00:05:51,310
back as a song somehow.

54
00:05:58,370 --> 00:05:59,370
Well...

55
00:06:05,100 --> 00:06:07,160
It started in Hamburg.

56
00:06:13,100 --> 00:06:20,060
You had gangsters, pimps, you had
prostitutes, you had

57
00:06:20,060 --> 00:06:21,440
all you could imagine.

58
00:06:23,280 --> 00:06:27,920
Hamburg is echoing to the invasion from
the latest big groups in Britain who've

59
00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:28,920
taken over.

60
00:06:32,590 --> 00:06:36,530
I heard the music through a window, a
cellar window.

61
00:06:37,230 --> 00:06:39,910
I just wanted to see that rock and roll
music.

62
00:06:42,310 --> 00:06:45,870
The next band came on, and that was The
Beatles.

63
00:06:48,430 --> 00:06:53,010
Paul came up, and I think he was the one
who talked to the audience first,

64
00:06:53,190 --> 00:06:54,890
because he could speak German.

65
00:06:55,110 --> 00:06:56,570
Hello, The Beatles.

66
00:06:57,470 --> 00:06:59,290
Guten Tag, sir.

67
00:06:59,950 --> 00:07:01,430
It was really sweet.

68
00:07:04,240 --> 00:07:05,780
We were young kids.

69
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:07,800
George was 17, you know.

70
00:07:08,220 --> 00:07:10,640
And I was a little older then, you know.

71
00:07:11,140 --> 00:07:17,460
We became friends, and they came to the
house. They got great food.

72
00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:20,280
Put them in the bathtub.

73
00:07:21,340 --> 00:07:25,800
Because they didn't have any mother or
father to look after them.

74
00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:29,940
It was a friendship. A friendship grew
up, you know.

75
00:07:56,940 --> 00:08:02,440
He is still that same little Paul he was
when he was 19 years old, you know.

76
00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:03,780
It's the same guy.

77
00:08:06,280 --> 00:08:07,760
I'm a graphic designer.

78
00:08:08,520 --> 00:08:13,160
I had the job to do the cover on
Revolver and a bass player.

79
00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:16,980
But now I can't play any guitar chords
with this cramp.

80
00:08:17,780 --> 00:08:19,860
And I can't do a fist.

81
00:08:20,100 --> 00:08:22,920
I can't do a fist, you know. It doesn't
work.

82
00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:29,060
Luckily enough, I can still hold my
pencil.

83
00:08:30,340 --> 00:08:34,200
I'm going to do drawings of the story of
the base.

84
00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:43,360
I decided to start with the top ten.
That's the first time I actually saw the

85
00:08:43,360 --> 00:08:44,360
base.

86
00:08:51,470 --> 00:08:55,930
So what do you want to talk about? We
want to talk about you as a bass player,

87
00:08:55,930 --> 00:08:56,930
really.

88
00:08:57,630 --> 00:09:03,990
So you've got Paul's guitar, and next to
it, Stuart Sutcliffe's guitar.

89
00:09:05,450 --> 00:09:10,890
My bass guitar days go back to when
Stuart was the bass player.

90
00:09:11,090 --> 00:09:14,070
Stuart had fallen in love with this girl
called Astrid.

91
00:09:14,850 --> 00:09:19,710
Stu decided he was going to stay in
Hamburg, and so that meant we didn't

92
00:09:19,710 --> 00:09:20,710
have a bass player.

93
00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:24,380
And John and George thought, I'm not
doing it.

94
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:26,400
So that left me.

95
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:34,680
Eventually, then, I found a nice little
shop in the center of Hamburg.

96
00:09:35,360 --> 00:09:40,680
And I saw this bass in the window with
the violin-shaped bass, the Hoffman.

97
00:09:41,660 --> 00:09:44,920
I don't think it was very expensive. It
was something like about 30 quid.

98
00:09:46,280 --> 00:09:49,500
Then once I got my own bass, then I was
a bass player.

99
00:10:04,940 --> 00:10:11,680
I remember it was the last day the band
played in the Top Ten Club.

100
00:10:11,900 --> 00:10:15,680
And Stuart, it was his last night of
playing.

101
00:10:17,480 --> 00:10:19,600
And we were sitting outside.

102
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:21,020
The sun was shining.

103
00:10:21,220 --> 00:10:23,480
I think it was Sunday morning.

104
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:30,100
And we were all sitting there, being all
pretty stoned. Stoned meaning, you

105
00:10:30,100 --> 00:10:31,760
didn't have pills and stuff.

106
00:10:31,980 --> 00:10:33,540
Talking, talking, talking.

107
00:10:35,540 --> 00:10:41,120
John was sitting next to me, and I said,
well, Stuart isn't playing. I could play

108
00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:42,120
the bass.

109
00:10:42,320 --> 00:10:46,400
And he said, oh, sorry, Klaus, Paul
already bought the bass. He's going to

110
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:47,520
be the next bass player.

111
00:10:49,060 --> 00:10:52,220
Could be in your moment, Klaus. You
could have become Beatle No. 5.

112
00:10:52,560 --> 00:10:53,620
Yeah, all right.

113
00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:01,700
I don't know. Anyway, I don't even want
to think about it.

114
00:11:14,350 --> 00:11:17,870
I lived in Hamburg through my brother's
letters.

115
00:11:19,590 --> 00:11:24,730
Then suddenly he came back one day and
he had that Hofner.

116
00:11:26,310 --> 00:11:27,790
It's so unique.

117
00:11:32,570 --> 00:11:34,590
We were the roadies.

118
00:11:35,330 --> 00:11:37,790
I probably held that bloody thing.

119
00:11:39,890 --> 00:11:43,070
And then our kid got a Ford Classic.

120
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:51,780
Look cool And

121
00:11:51,780 --> 00:11:57,060
their music then, you know going to the
cabin

122
00:11:57,060 --> 00:12:03,020
The difference was unbelievable it was
like

123
00:12:03,020 --> 00:12:06,260
whoo Wow what happened?

124
00:12:07,560 --> 00:12:13,160
We knew we were going somewhere we
always felt that we had something

125
00:12:16,400 --> 00:12:21,520
They did with John Lennon, you know,
he's a very witty cat.

126
00:12:23,260 --> 00:12:25,740
With me, who could hold his own.

127
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:30,120
With George, who was like spectacular.

128
00:12:31,480 --> 00:12:34,060
And then finish it all up with Ringo.

129
00:12:34,860 --> 00:12:36,720
So we had a kind of magic.

130
00:12:59,820 --> 00:13:01,760
I'm the least technical person you'll
meet.

131
00:13:02,180 --> 00:13:04,620
So I don't know what I do.

132
00:13:05,460 --> 00:13:07,060
I just play with it.

133
00:13:07,660 --> 00:13:11,800
It's a lovely instrument to play and
it's kind of easy to play.

134
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:16,880
And so I got very used to it and loved
it.

135
00:13:44,580 --> 00:13:50,260
This Hofner bass really suited Paul's
style of play. It's very rhythmical, but

136
00:13:50,260 --> 00:13:52,800
at the same time it's very, very
melodic.

137
00:14:03,050 --> 00:14:08,230
You can hear lots of songs, that the
songs are very, very simple. And the

138
00:14:08,230 --> 00:14:11,670
bass does more movement than any other
instrument.

139
00:14:16,450 --> 00:14:23,230
I'm a big fan of James Jamieson, who was
the

140
00:14:23,230 --> 00:14:25,910
Motown bass player, because normally
bass is...

141
00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:36,300
But he was going... I was going, wow,
that's a great way to use the bass.

142
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:43,040
That set me free. I was like, great,
okay, I can make up melodies.

143
00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:48,500
So as the guys were doing the main song,
I would just try and put something

144
00:14:48,500 --> 00:14:50,860
imaginative behind it.

145
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:55,820
It was a great feeling. I mean, I still
remember it, the moment.

146
00:14:56,300 --> 00:14:57,300
Bingo.

147
00:15:28,479 --> 00:15:32,580
First time I was aware of the Beatles,
I'd have been about nine years old.

148
00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:37,020
My clear memory of that is seeing them
on the six o'clock television news.

149
00:15:37,700 --> 00:15:41,660
And all the girls were screaming outside
the cinemas and that kind of thing.

150
00:15:42,300 --> 00:15:44,100
They were playing electric guitars.

151
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:47,560
And let's face it, you know, electric
guitars are so sexy.

152
00:15:48,340 --> 00:15:52,300
My mother would have thought it not the
right thing to have an electric guitar.

153
00:15:52,380 --> 00:15:53,760
That was for bad boys, you know.

154
00:15:58,230 --> 00:16:04,650
Years later, I was the electric guitar
manager with Hofner, a small German

155
00:16:04,650 --> 00:16:05,710
guitar company.

156
00:16:07,630 --> 00:16:12,570
Subsequently, I'd met Paul McCartney. It
was at his studio down south in England.

157
00:16:13,570 --> 00:16:17,910
He just walked in and said, oh, hello,
you're Mr Hofner. Do you know where my

158
00:16:17,910 --> 00:16:19,050
old Hofner's gone?

159
00:16:19,670 --> 00:16:23,890
And I knew what he meant, straight away,
my old Hofner. He meant the 61 bass.

160
00:16:27,760 --> 00:16:31,300
We'd been looking for my old bass for
years.

161
00:16:32,180 --> 00:16:36,380
But that's what happened with Nick. I
started talking about it and just

162
00:16:36,380 --> 00:16:40,180
saying, yeah, we're looking for it. I
don't know if we'll ever find it.

163
00:16:42,540 --> 00:16:46,220
Of course, I had to say, you know, I've
got no idea where it's gone.

164
00:16:47,040 --> 00:16:48,360
It's all a bit of a mystery.

165
00:16:49,600 --> 00:16:53,460
It's the most important bass of any bass
ever, anywhere.

166
00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:59,600
In terms of anybody actually totally
associated with an instrument, yeah,

167
00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:00,900
McCartney and the Hofner bass.

168
00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:04,560
There's just something in the soul of
the two of them.

169
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:12,920
Here's the old Hofner factory down in
Bavaria.

170
00:17:14,520 --> 00:17:15,800
Well, it's still standing.

171
00:17:16,700 --> 00:17:17,700
Poor old place.

172
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:22,220
And it was here.

173
00:17:22,890 --> 00:17:27,270
in these premises that they built the
base all those years ago.

174
00:17:28,610 --> 00:17:35,350
That moment, that turn in history, you
almost had to be there,

175
00:17:35,410 --> 00:17:37,890
really, to feel the electricity in the
air.

176
00:17:42,470 --> 00:17:48,510
I was probably bored on a wet Wednesday
when I designed and put up the web page

177
00:17:48,510 --> 00:17:50,090
on the Hofner website.

178
00:17:51,270 --> 00:17:56,210
The usual sort of things, if you've got
any information, email us. And I think

179
00:17:56,210 --> 00:18:01,170
Cathy came up with the name Trace the
Base with the hashtag on the front.

180
00:18:01,970 --> 00:18:05,410
Yes. I think it was you, was it? It was
me, yes. Well, there you are. Genius.

181
00:18:05,870 --> 00:18:06,870
Very catchy.

182
00:18:06,950 --> 00:18:07,629
It's good.

183
00:18:07,630 --> 00:18:08,569
Genius, you see.

184
00:18:08,570 --> 00:18:09,570
Trace the Base.

185
00:18:09,790 --> 00:18:13,710
The whole of our marriage, you know, for
the last 20-odd years.

186
00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:18,200
Kathy's just supported me with one
lunatic scheme after another, you know,

187
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:22,120
and she used to be a bank manager. She's
good at filing stuff.

188
00:18:22,540 --> 00:18:25,320
We talked about it endlessly. Endlessly,
yeah.

189
00:18:27,820 --> 00:18:31,800
I don't think there was one purpose in
searching for the base.

190
00:18:32,180 --> 00:18:38,380
There was 100 million fans out there who
I knew would be thrilled to bits to know

191
00:18:38,380 --> 00:18:39,640
that this thing had come back.

192
00:18:40,640 --> 00:18:42,300
So it was for everybody.

193
00:18:42,830 --> 00:18:43,830
Not just ball.

194
00:18:51,830 --> 00:18:57,930
I was in Liverpool, so I could go every
game that I could afford to go to.

195
00:18:58,850 --> 00:19:00,810
27,000 people used to be on the court.

196
00:19:02,010 --> 00:19:04,110
And very emotional sound.

197
00:19:08,040 --> 00:19:11,940
Among the many things I memorized before
I picked up an instrument were the

198
00:19:11,940 --> 00:19:12,939
harmony parts.

199
00:19:12,940 --> 00:19:17,080
I can't sing in Paul's register now, but
I could then when I was a kid.

200
00:19:21,900 --> 00:19:28,180
And we would cut out cardboard
likenesses of the guitars we liked and

201
00:19:28,180 --> 00:19:32,920
draw the controls on them and then mime
along with records.

202
00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:38,340
It was a perfect apprenticeship for
being on top of the pops, you know,

203
00:19:38,360 --> 00:19:40,000
pretending to play.

204
00:19:41,820 --> 00:19:46,700
The hardest thing was to make a Hofner
bass, because you needed a longer piece

205
00:19:46,700 --> 00:19:47,800
of cardboard for the neck.

206
00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:50,160
This is like when I'm nine or something,
you know.

207
00:19:55,540 --> 00:20:02,100
Well, the thing about the Hofner is it's
very

208
00:20:02,100 --> 00:20:03,100
lightweight.

209
00:20:03,550 --> 00:20:04,550
which is great.

210
00:20:05,530 --> 00:20:07,310
It makes it easier to play.

211
00:20:08,310 --> 00:20:11,770
So that was the one on all the early
Beatles records.

212
00:20:12,550 --> 00:20:17,670
So it was a very rich period for music,
for us, and particularly for making

213
00:20:17,670 --> 00:20:18,670
records.

214
00:20:23,950 --> 00:20:30,850
That bass was used an enormous amount,
and it started to fall to

215
00:20:30,850 --> 00:20:31,850
bass.

216
00:20:32,300 --> 00:20:35,360
And we don't know when, again, because
all the records are long gone.

217
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:38,660
They ordered another Hofner bass.

218
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:44,700
We think it gets delivered into his hand
on October the 4th, 1963.

219
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:50,980
They did a gig on an old TV program
called Ready Steady Go.

220
00:20:51,860 --> 00:20:58,500
And there's pictures of him at rehearsal
and pictures of him actually doing the

221
00:20:58,500 --> 00:20:59,680
performance to camera.

222
00:21:00,360 --> 00:21:01,960
And both bases are there.

223
00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:05,620
He's got the 61 from Hamburg.

224
00:21:06,460 --> 00:21:08,480
It has two pickups close together.

225
00:21:09,900 --> 00:21:11,300
And he's got this new one.

226
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:14,980
They've moved this pickup down to near
the bridge.

227
00:21:15,640 --> 00:21:19,100
And in some of the shots, he's got the
new one and he's holding out, but it

228
00:21:19,100 --> 00:21:20,320
hasn't even got a strap on it.

229
00:21:20,760 --> 00:21:25,420
So we're kind of concluding that it
arrived that very day.

230
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:30,340
And the 61 gets put on backup duties,
poor thing.

231
00:21:33,820 --> 00:21:38,780
Within a couple of months of that, the
February, they're playing in front of 70

232
00:21:38,780 --> 00:21:40,380
million people in the USA.

233
00:21:55,530 --> 00:21:58,570
Meanwhile, the 61 base was away being
repaired.

234
00:22:03,050 --> 00:22:09,010
Our roadie, Mal, took it off and brought
it back like

235
00:22:09,010 --> 00:22:15,010
new, but with a completely different
paint job on it.

236
00:22:16,590 --> 00:22:19,950
When it returned, it had been completely
re-sprayed.

237
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:25,060
And it came back with what's now called
a three-part sunburst, which is more or

238
00:22:25,060 --> 00:22:26,900
less black, red, yellow.

239
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:30,960
It's very distinctive when you look at
this bass now.

240
00:22:35,140 --> 00:22:38,720
For me, the whole charm of that
instrument was gone.

241
00:22:40,580 --> 00:22:42,720
I don't know how Paul feels about it.

242
00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:44,880
I think he was a bit pissed off too.

243
00:22:50,500 --> 00:22:55,720
Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb
across my head.

244
00:22:57,640 --> 00:23:03,540
Found my way downstairs and drank a
cock. And looking up, I noticed I was

245
00:23:03,540 --> 00:23:04,540
late.

246
00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:07,320
Found my coat and grabbed my hat.

247
00:23:07,780 --> 00:23:10,120
Made the bus in seconds flat.

248
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:15,240
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke.

249
00:23:15,540 --> 00:23:18,140
And somebody spoke and I went into a
dream.

250
00:23:20,380 --> 00:23:25,680
From my point of view, I think the 63 is
nicer, maybe even better.

251
00:23:26,360 --> 00:23:29,540
Better pickups, better sound, louder,
whatever.

252
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:37,240
He's very singular. He played that 63
bass then continuously, and you never

253
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:38,740
see him playing the 61.

254
00:23:39,020 --> 00:23:41,800
You know, he didn't swap and change
between the two or anything.

255
00:23:43,260 --> 00:23:46,420
They went back to America in 1965.

256
00:23:47,660 --> 00:23:51,600
The 61 is being used as a backup, but
not played.

257
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:59,000
If you look really careful, you see
Ringo up on the jump riser, and just

258
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,380
down below Ringo on the back of the amp,
there's the bass.

259
00:24:02,180 --> 00:24:04,640
You have to look very eagle-eyed that
it's there.

260
00:24:09,540 --> 00:24:12,480
What happened to it after that is a
mystery.

261
00:24:14,290 --> 00:24:18,230
It's just luck and a lot of sort of
peering at grainy old black and white

262
00:24:18,230 --> 00:24:19,230
pictures.

263
00:24:22,730 --> 00:24:26,210
The only time you see it again, you have
to wait till a quick shot of it by the

264
00:24:26,210 --> 00:24:30,030
coffee table and the Let It Be sessions,
and then we don't see it anymore.

265
00:24:31,430 --> 00:24:32,490
It's just not around.

266
00:24:33,370 --> 00:24:34,410
Get back.

267
00:24:35,110 --> 00:24:36,110
Get back.

268
00:24:36,970 --> 00:24:38,950
Get back to where you want.

269
00:24:42,350 --> 00:24:43,350
Get back.

270
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:56,260
The event is so momentous that
historians may one day view it as a

271
00:24:56,260 --> 00:24:58,680
landmark in the decline of the British
Empire.

272
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:01,420
The Beatles are breaking up.

273
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,280
And when they split up, I mean, all the
rancor starts, you know, the lawyers are

274
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:26,960
in, and it was chaotic.

275
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:32,820
There were guitars here, there were
guitars there, and nobody was really

276
00:25:32,820 --> 00:25:34,040
taking care of stuff.

277
00:25:35,740 --> 00:25:41,500
This is the remarkable thing, is from
the end of the Beatles, nobody had ever

278
00:25:41,500 --> 00:25:42,500
seen this bass.

279
00:25:42,540 --> 00:25:44,220
It just wasn't there anymore.

280
00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:50,320
I was never able to establish any firm
basis.

281
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:51,820
as to when it disappeared.

282
00:25:52,740 --> 00:25:59,040
I put my hand up absolutely and say, I
started this from nowhere, not knowing

283
00:25:59,040 --> 00:26:05,360
how to do it. So I was kind of a bit
handicapped, I suppose, and as green as

284
00:26:05,360 --> 00:26:06,360
a cabbage as well.

285
00:26:07,700 --> 00:26:12,400
It got to the point where it needed
somebody better than me to start poking

286
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:13,400
about.

287
00:26:20,140 --> 00:26:25,760
It was June 2022, and I was watching
Paul McCartney headline at Glastonbury.

288
00:26:27,020 --> 00:26:32,200
But there was one moment in the show
where the stage just went black, apart

289
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:35,920
from one light just picking out Paul's
Hofner bass.

290
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,900
And it just caught the varnish and the
wood and everything. It was almost like

291
00:26:40,900 --> 00:26:46,880
shining like gold for this split second.
And I thought, is that the original

292
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:47,920
Hofner bass?

293
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,130
And... So I Googled it and saw that it
wasn't.

294
00:26:51,810 --> 00:26:56,110
The original bass that he'd got in 1961
was lost.

295
00:26:56,490 --> 00:27:02,290
And I instantly started Googling to see
and find out more about that story.

296
00:27:05,790 --> 00:27:09,890
But in terms of an investigation and
then thinking, I want to find this

297
00:27:09,890 --> 00:27:14,170
thing, I thought, well, if no one else
is doing that, and that guitar is so

298
00:27:14,170 --> 00:27:16,850
important, we need to do it.

299
00:27:18,970 --> 00:27:20,990
Me and my wife, we worked together.

300
00:27:21,930 --> 00:27:28,650
And we convinced ourselves that we may
not find the base, but we'd find stories

301
00:27:28,650 --> 00:27:31,950
about the base. We'd find what the base
meant to people.

302
00:27:32,170 --> 00:27:35,290
You know, that sort of Beatlemania fan
thing.

303
00:27:37,010 --> 00:27:43,250
By July 2023, I'd seen that Hofner over
in Bavaria

304
00:27:43,250 --> 00:27:45,110
had ran a search.

305
00:27:46,030 --> 00:27:48,990
And I was really curious to find out
what they know.

306
00:27:49,290 --> 00:27:54,270
So I wrote this very polite email, sort
of introduced myself, thinking he was

307
00:27:54,270 --> 00:27:58,530
German and being conscious of the
English language that I was using.

308
00:27:58,870 --> 00:28:04,290
And then within 24 hours, I realised
that Nick was from London and he was on

309
00:28:04,290 --> 00:28:06,630
the end of the phone and we were talking
like old mates.

310
00:28:06,890 --> 00:28:09,870
And I thought, oh, my God, these are
exactly the people I've been looking for

311
00:28:09,870 --> 00:28:10,870
for a long time.

312
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,840
We got together and I said to Scott,
well, look, I've got a lot of emails and

313
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:20,040
I passed him the lot over for him to
read and get a sense of what we were

314
00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:21,040
dealing with there.

315
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,640
All of these leads that came in, you
knew it was people that had lived with

316
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:27,300
this story for a long, long time.

317
00:28:27,740 --> 00:28:29,800
It's just that it was wrong.

318
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,800
A man claiming he had one of Paul's
guitars walked into a pawn shop in Las

319
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:41,220
Vegas. Called the gold and silver pawn
shop to sell it as a television program

320
00:28:41,220 --> 00:28:44,180
called the porn stars where it was aired
Hope it helps.

321
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,620
I Definitely saw the base in an auction
of music equipment in the mid 80s in

322
00:28:48,620 --> 00:28:54,700
London It sold for 100 pounds to a music
rental studio company I've heard that

323
00:28:54,700 --> 00:28:59,860
the base is in Japan in the possession
of a Japanese banker This information

324
00:28:59,860 --> 00:29:03,260
was given me to a guy that knows the
Beatles and the Beatles gear website.

325
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,780
Well, I had this vision

326
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:09,500
I used to say to people, I know what's
happened.

327
00:29:09,780 --> 00:29:16,300
Some German guy, rich German guy, has
nicked it, and he's got a big castle in

328
00:29:16,300 --> 00:29:20,920
the Bavarian mountains, and he invites
you up, and then after a few drinks, he

329
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:23,320
says, come, I'll show you something
special.

330
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:27,660
And there, over the mantelpiece, is
hanging my base.

331
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:35,100
So it's a treasure hunt, but also people
love the Beatles.

332
00:29:35,900 --> 00:29:38,020
and loved Paul McCartney and wanted to
help.

333
00:29:58,500 --> 00:30:01,060
I've always admired Paul McCartney as a
bass player.

334
00:30:01,780 --> 00:30:03,840
He made the bass guitar cool.

335
00:30:05,919 --> 00:30:10,340
Beatle fans know that the bass has
disappeared and no one knows where it's

336
00:30:10,340 --> 00:30:15,960
gone, so it'd be amazing if somebody
ever did find it, because that's

337
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:17,360
history, isn't it?

338
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:18,560
It's history.

339
00:30:25,700 --> 00:30:31,820
Ever since I can remember being a
Beatles fan, it's only ever been one

340
00:30:31,820 --> 00:30:32,820
band for me, I think.

341
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:36,880
First time I ever opened the size of
peppers and that you opened it up and

342
00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:42,420
they've all got mustaches And I thought
when I get older on whatever mustache I

343
00:30:42,420 --> 00:30:47,660
Bought it secondhand and he paid 80
pound for it, which is not much more

344
00:30:47,660 --> 00:30:52,300
than poor paper is probably a Little bit
day-tripper, but

345
00:30:52,300 --> 00:30:57,140
I've

346
00:30:57,140 --> 00:31:01,360
always wanted to play guitar.

347
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:02,640
I've tried for years

348
00:31:03,550 --> 00:31:06,490
And I thought it might be easier to play
bass because there's only four strings.

349
00:31:08,970 --> 00:31:10,130
And it's a Vox.

350
00:31:12,290 --> 00:31:15,050
Vox. You have to have a Vox, don't you,
if you have a Beatles bass.

351
00:31:17,650 --> 00:31:18,650
I don't know.

352
00:31:18,790 --> 00:31:19,870
After all that, mate, it's broken.

353
00:31:20,930 --> 00:31:21,930
Cut.

354
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:55,120
What's that?

355
00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:00,460
Got there in the end. Yeah, practice
makes perfect, doesn't it?

356
00:32:17,639 --> 00:32:22,560
I work for the ambulance service.

357
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,180
I've been doing it 23 years now.

358
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,280
So I'm on the patient transport side, so
it's all non-emergency.

359
00:32:30,500 --> 00:32:33,200
There's a guy, Steve, I work with. He's
a lovely guy.

360
00:32:33,860 --> 00:32:37,640
I've known him for two, three years. We
always have a good laugh when we crewed

361
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:38,359
up together.

362
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,640
You know, we bounce off each other quite
nicely.

363
00:32:45,060 --> 00:32:50,380
I'm always looking online for guitars
and things, and I think I just might

364
00:32:50,380 --> 00:32:54,900
have been by accident, went onto the
Hofner website, saw that Nick Waz was

365
00:32:54,900 --> 00:32:57,360
looking for it.

366
00:32:58,420 --> 00:33:04,160
And that was like, yeah, the holy grail
for me is, you know, it's like finding

367
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,880
the Bible, trying to find Paul
McCartney's bass. You know, if you're a

368
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:08,220
fan, that's like... Wow.

369
00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:14,720
Well, I was with Steve one day.

370
00:33:16,260 --> 00:33:19,360
I said, well, I've still got a bass
that's a bit like Paul McCartney's, and

371
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:21,780
he just sort of said, I think I know
where that is, you know.

372
00:33:22,860 --> 00:33:24,560
And I said, you're joking, aren't you?

373
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:32,740
So I just said to him, I said, I've got
an idea where that might be, you know.

374
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:36,560
And he sort of looked at me and I
went...

375
00:33:39,540 --> 00:33:40,760
Right. I'm going to tell you something.

376
00:33:41,060 --> 00:33:43,600
I don't know if it's right or proper,
but I'm going to tell you something.

377
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:44,960
It's only a story I've heard.

378
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:50,480
He said, where? So I said, we don't know
where. I said, but I think it was nicked

379
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,060
from a house in London.

380
00:33:54,020 --> 00:34:00,340
So I said to Steve, can I tell the
story? Can I tell Nick what little bit

381
00:34:00,340 --> 00:34:01,340
you've told me?

382
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:04,140
I said, don't put my name on it.

383
00:34:05,180 --> 00:34:08,880
No, he said, what we'll do... He said,
I'll email it in and say it's a story

384
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:10,699
that someone told us on the back of the
ambulance.

385
00:34:11,460 --> 00:34:12,460
A patient.

386
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,340
I mean, the emails were quite mixed, if
I'm honest.

387
00:34:17,840 --> 00:34:22,800
One of them in particular was from these
two guys who are a crew on an ambulance,

388
00:34:23,060 --> 00:34:29,100
and they tell me this bullshit story
about having a client in the back of the

389
00:34:29,100 --> 00:34:31,340
ambulance, as they described it. A
patient?

390
00:34:31,620 --> 00:34:34,320
Yeah, but I think they call it client
now, don't they?

391
00:34:35,110 --> 00:34:39,770
who'd given them some story about the
fact that the base had been stolen

392
00:34:39,770 --> 00:34:45,850
and that it had been given to a guy in a
pub

393
00:34:45,850 --> 00:34:48,670
up at Labyrinth Grove, London.

394
00:34:50,409 --> 00:34:53,469
And I thought, yeah, a bit more
bullshit.

395
00:34:54,630 --> 00:34:59,970
But I wrote a polite reply, that sounds
like a really good book, Tales from the

396
00:34:59,970 --> 00:35:01,110
Back of an Ambulance.

397
00:35:02,530 --> 00:35:03,870
And I left it there.

398
00:35:12,940 --> 00:35:16,220
I had a call from the news editor at The
Telegraph looking for stories.

399
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,760
And I said, well, look, we're looking
for Paul McCartney's lost bass.

400
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:25,480
And the minute I said it, Ben
commissioned the story on the spot.

401
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:31,400
The story in The Telegraph went live on
the 2nd of September. It was a Saturday.

402
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:33,440
It was around about 4 o'clock online.

403
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,680
Within minutes, the BBC were in touch.

404
00:35:38,240 --> 00:35:40,640
So they wanted us on BBC Breakfast.

405
00:35:41,690 --> 00:35:46,170
Well, delighted to say we're joined now
by Nick Woss, who is a Hofner and lost

406
00:35:46,170 --> 00:35:50,130
bass expert, and he's provided Paul
McCartney with many of his iconic

407
00:35:50,130 --> 00:35:56,730
instruments. Lots of interviews and
radio station interviews, day and night.

408
00:35:57,290 --> 00:36:00,570
I realised why being famous must be
absolutely awful.

409
00:36:02,110 --> 00:36:06,550
The difference with the lost bass is
Paul McCartney had it refinished in

410
00:36:06,550 --> 00:36:07,550
1964.

411
00:36:08,730 --> 00:36:14,070
And the two pickups are now mounted in a
big black piece of wood here. But I

412
00:36:14,070 --> 00:36:17,970
think you've shown your audience some
pictures of what we're after. Yeah.

413
00:36:18,210 --> 00:36:23,730
This is it. Yeah. And the thing is, so
it is distinctive and it should be

414
00:36:23,730 --> 00:36:24,730
identifiable.

415
00:36:24,990 --> 00:36:29,090
But of course, it may have been
destroyed somewhere along the line. It

416
00:36:29,090 --> 00:36:31,950
could have been taken by someone at the
Apple offices.

417
00:36:32,290 --> 00:36:33,670
We just don't know, do we?

418
00:36:34,570 --> 00:36:36,730
No, we don't know. This is the problem.

419
00:36:52,070 --> 00:36:53,470
In the

420
00:36:53,470 --> 00:37:00,450
first 24

421
00:37:00,450 --> 00:37:03,150
hours we must have had more than a dozen
major

422
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:09,160
newspapers and radio and tv stations on
nbc in america or in the new york times

423
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:15,920
and in germany and just went on and on
and then tv channels

424
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:20,600
that we've never ever heard of we're
getting in touch from brazil and other

425
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:27,200
places we thought that we'd almost
plugged into that

426
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:33,760
spirit of the beatles you know we
thought that we had

427
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:39,900
connected with that positive vibe around
peace and love and the band and what the

428
00:37:39,900 --> 00:37:41,080
music meant to people.

429
00:37:43,700 --> 00:37:49,540
We got 600 emails in the first 48 hours
and the emails were just landing and

430
00:37:49,540 --> 00:37:50,540
landing and landing.

431
00:37:50,740 --> 00:37:56,120
That's when the journalists in us took
over and we started to pick out what

432
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:57,580
could be really important.

433
00:38:19,050 --> 00:38:25,870
When we read Ian Horne's email, we knew
instantly that we had to speak

434
00:38:25,870 --> 00:38:26,870
to Ian.

435
00:38:28,510 --> 00:38:34,470
And Ian's lead was the only lead that
said, I know Paul McCartney.

436
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:39,260
And it was the only lead that said, I
worked for Paul McCartney.

437
00:38:52,060 --> 00:38:56,260
After he broke up with the Beatles, we
met up.

438
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,400
I think Paul was definitely getting back
in the saddle, I'd call it.

439
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,560
Which is a big step, because I think he
hid away for a while.

440
00:39:08,380 --> 00:39:13,500
Yeah, you know, it was very depressing,
you know, because you were breaking from

441
00:39:13,500 --> 00:39:14,700
your lifelong friends.

442
00:39:16,140 --> 00:39:17,480
You weren't going to see them again.

443
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:20,000
It was depressing.

444
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:25,860
And not knowing whether I was going to
continue in music.

445
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,300
Suddenly I wasn't having a good time. It
wasn't working.

446
00:39:31,370 --> 00:39:35,790
It was Linda who sort of said, you know,
you've got to get it together and we've

447
00:39:35,790 --> 00:39:36,790
got to do something.

448
00:39:36,810 --> 00:39:39,770
So we ended up performing Wings.

449
00:39:42,270 --> 00:39:49,010
I knew that if I kept playing Beatles
songs, which I knew people

450
00:39:49,010 --> 00:39:52,570
wanted, then I would become a Beatles
tribute band.

451
00:39:52,890 --> 00:39:56,310
And I thought, maybe that's not the
greatest look.

452
00:39:59,530 --> 00:40:04,750
He was... experimenting with things he
hadn't done before. And a Yamaha bass, a

453
00:40:04,750 --> 00:40:09,010
Fender bass, so he went through all the
basses he saw people playing, you know.

454
00:40:17,130 --> 00:40:18,570
We went on the road.

455
00:40:30,110 --> 00:40:33,990
Boy, do we go on the road. Tell us about
it. I mean... Well, because the thing

456
00:40:33,990 --> 00:40:36,130
is, you know, normally you go on the
road, at least you book hotels.

457
00:40:37,670 --> 00:40:39,170
You know, anyone books hotels.

458
00:40:39,450 --> 00:40:42,370
But we decided to really just bust the
whole thing.

459
00:40:42,850 --> 00:40:46,350
So we had a tranny and we just headed
off up the motorway.

460
00:40:46,770 --> 00:40:51,430
We had the kids, a couple of dogs, the
whole group, all our instruments. There

461
00:40:51,430 --> 00:40:56,270
was a U-Haul following behind with
the... The roadies. The roadies.

462
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,820
And we literally turned up at
universities and stuff. We turned up at

463
00:40:59,820 --> 00:41:01,520
Nottingham University was the first one.

464
00:41:01,820 --> 00:41:05,480
And we said... In fact, we didn't. I
didn't say anything. I stayed in the

465
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:09,520
van. One of the lads, Ian Horne,
actually went in. Well, you know, I've

466
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:12,900
got Paul McCartney out in the van. Do
you want him on lunchtime tomorrow?

467
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:16,940
Really? I need to come out in the van to
sort of check.

468
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:18,439
Oh, yeah.

469
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:19,440
Yeah, we'll have him.

470
00:41:29,740 --> 00:41:36,660
he was loving it being back in the
saddle he never played the uh hofner as

471
00:41:36,660 --> 00:41:43,660
far as i know it was around so lugging
it around from place to

472
00:41:43,660 --> 00:41:50,660
place yeah maybe that's more me than him
meaning if you

473
00:41:50,660 --> 00:41:51,700
ask for it i've got it

474
00:42:07,009 --> 00:42:10,730
We'd just finished the university tour,
and we were recording an album called

475
00:42:10,730 --> 00:42:11,730
Red Rose Speedway.

476
00:42:18,630 --> 00:42:23,270
Well, on this particular day, we'd been
in the studio, and we didn't leave till

477
00:42:23,270 --> 00:42:25,670
quite late, so we drove back to
Trevor's.

478
00:42:25,970 --> 00:42:27,510
Yeah, Trevor's my brother-in-law.

479
00:42:28,290 --> 00:42:29,490
He was my assistant.

480
00:42:30,310 --> 00:42:34,690
We had a truck full of gear, which we
had the Hoffnett bass, acoustic guitars.

481
00:42:35,549 --> 00:42:36,549
Some amplifiers.

482
00:42:42,710 --> 00:42:47,430
I couldn't park at Trevor's because
obviously Trevor's house was a school,

483
00:42:47,630 --> 00:42:49,410
so it was restricted parking.

484
00:42:51,170 --> 00:42:55,890
Just went up the road a bit to the right
and there's a tea junction there, which

485
00:42:55,890 --> 00:42:57,010
is Cambridge Gardens.

486
00:42:58,450 --> 00:43:02,250
There's a parking place right on the
edge, so I thought I'd put it there with

487
00:43:02,250 --> 00:43:04,730
the back of the truck visible to
everybody.

488
00:43:08,220 --> 00:43:11,320
Basically, I had a big heavy-duty
padlock on the back. It was a roller

489
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:12,400
shutter on the back.

490
00:43:14,060 --> 00:43:15,380
So I felt fairly secure.

491
00:43:17,820 --> 00:43:20,300
I walked back to Trevor's and we went to
sleep.

492
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,060
And then, of course, in the morning, the
nightmare began.

493
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,640
You could see that the padlock was off.

494
00:43:30,860 --> 00:43:32,160
And I went, oh, God.

495
00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:34,520
It was cold sweat.

496
00:43:35,370 --> 00:43:40,210
So I throw the roller door up and
immediately notice there's stuff

497
00:43:40,210 --> 00:43:41,210
missing, you know.

498
00:43:42,630 --> 00:43:46,870
So there's a couple of amplifiers, two
guitars, including the Hofner bass.

499
00:43:49,190 --> 00:43:55,050
I was beside myself with worry and anger
and pain.

500
00:43:56,570 --> 00:44:00,710
Right opposite where the truck is, so
the back of the truck's there is 100

501
00:44:00,710 --> 00:44:02,270
Cambridge Gardens.

502
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:04,820
At the time, it seemed kosher.

503
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:10,180
But all these hippies and people that
lived around Lancaster Road and

504
00:44:10,180 --> 00:44:12,360
Cambridge Gardens and these squat
houses.

505
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:14,220
There were a lot of musicians.

506
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:18,880
There were obviously thieves amongst
them.

507
00:44:20,500 --> 00:44:23,280
Trevor thought this guy Dick Mick was a
bit iffy.

508
00:44:23,540 --> 00:44:28,000
Why? I don't know why, really. He
flagged him up. I didn't flag anyone.

509
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:33,280
I did feel it was one of that mob
because they all knew we worked for

510
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:34,280
Paul.

511
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:39,900
And so, yeah, we sort of got tooled up
in case it got nasty.

512
00:44:40,220 --> 00:44:42,140
So, wait, hang on. In case what got
nasty?

513
00:44:42,460 --> 00:44:46,820
I decided we'd go and check this guy out
so we could end the thing there.

514
00:44:47,540 --> 00:44:50,000
So we went in there, kind of threatening
the baby.

515
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:53,320
Dick Mick is still in bed. He was
shitting himself.

516
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:55,400
We looked round, no stuff.

517
00:44:58,749 --> 00:45:01,570
And eventually, you know, we had to go
to Paul and tell him the news.

518
00:45:04,130 --> 00:45:08,510
Knock on the door, and he comes to the
door, and the truck's been broken into,

519
00:45:08,690 --> 00:45:12,950
and the Hoffner base has been stolen,
and a few other things.

520
00:45:14,230 --> 00:45:17,990
And I sort of took a deep breath, stood
there thinking, well, what's going to

521
00:45:17,990 --> 00:45:18,990
come back at me?

522
00:45:19,630 --> 00:45:22,590
And he was absolutely amazing. He just
turned around, he says, all right, Ian,

523
00:45:22,590 --> 00:45:23,590
I've got another one.

524
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:28,260
Had a feeling in me, did he think I've
done it?

525
00:45:30,180 --> 00:45:31,360
So I rang the police.

526
00:45:33,820 --> 00:45:35,500
And the police didn't seem that
bothered.

527
00:45:38,380 --> 00:45:43,400
I think all the papers used to have
contacts in the police, their friends on

528
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:46,700
the news desk, maybe they'd get a small
payment, that's the way it used to work.

529
00:45:47,060 --> 00:45:50,380
So in this particular case, the Standard
had got a tip-off that this had

530
00:45:50,380 --> 00:45:54,140
happened, but they didn't know very much
about it, or even if it was true.

531
00:45:57,020 --> 00:46:01,360
Obviously, the best person to confirm
whether a guitar abyss had been stolen

532
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:02,360
would be him.

533
00:46:03,860 --> 00:46:08,780
I set off for his house, and I didn't
feel very comfortable about doing this.

534
00:46:08,820 --> 00:46:12,800
I didn't think that this was the kind of
journalism I really wanted to do.

535
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:16,560
And I thought that if he did come out,
he's going to tell us to fuck off.

536
00:46:20,660 --> 00:46:24,540
Probably an hour passed, standing around
on the road, chatting to the

537
00:46:24,540 --> 00:46:25,540
photographer.

538
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:31,620
Suddenly, without any warning, a wooden
gate swung open and there was Paul.

539
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:39,020
I can clearly remember his first words
were, ''What do you want, boys?''

540
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:43,720
And the first question I think I asked
him, first of all, to confirm that the

541
00:46:43,720 --> 00:46:48,520
guitar had been taken, and he said it
had, so that confirmed the story and he

542
00:46:48,520 --> 00:46:52,540
confirmed that it was the original one
that he'd bought back in Hamburg.

543
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:55,940
which I knew about because I'd followed
the Beatles.

544
00:46:56,380 --> 00:47:01,060
So then I suddenly realised that I was
actually in the middle of a very big

545
00:47:01,060 --> 00:47:07,740
story. The most famous or iconic
instrument of that era had been

546
00:47:07,740 --> 00:47:09,920
stolen and I was talking to the guy who
owned it.

547
00:47:11,780 --> 00:47:16,760
And he was quite happy to chat about it.
He posed for pictures for the

548
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:17,760
photographer.

549
00:47:17,950 --> 00:47:21,130
And I think we probably spoke for maybe
four or five minutes.

550
00:47:21,890 --> 00:47:27,410
And at that stage, our presence had
started to get noticed. A small crowd of

551
00:47:27,410 --> 00:47:28,550
people had started to gather.

552
00:47:28,790 --> 00:47:32,890
So he politely thanked us and closed the
gate and went back into the house.

553
00:47:38,810 --> 00:47:40,890
This was the first time I had met a
Beatle.

554
00:47:41,430 --> 00:47:43,970
The Beatles' music has enriched my life
enormously.

555
00:47:44,310 --> 00:47:48,790
And I just kind of felt... maybe this
sounds a little bit sycophantic but i

556
00:47:48,790 --> 00:47:52,810
just really felt that i would like to
have said can i just thank you for

557
00:47:52,810 --> 00:47:56,650
everything you've done i think your
music's great um it's something which

558
00:47:56,650 --> 00:48:00,910
will stay with me forever just something
like that just to thank you i think that

559
00:48:00,910 --> 00:48:03,970
would have been nice but i was in a rush
and i never got to do that

560
00:48:03,970 --> 00:48:11,830
paul

561
00:48:11,830 --> 00:48:12,830
had

562
00:48:12,940 --> 00:48:18,840
given a quote to a newspaper at the time
and so we thought that you would

563
00:48:18,840 --> 00:48:22,120
remember that or you'd remember you know
it's his favorite base that had been

564
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:28,700
stolen nick was scratching his head as
to why he hadn't been told that that

565
00:48:28,700 --> 00:48:35,460
information hadn't been passed on i i
have to presume that he'd forgotten i

566
00:48:35,460 --> 00:48:39,340
mean this is a guy who's actually done
quite a lot isn't it you know he's been

567
00:48:39,340 --> 00:48:41,300
a few places and around so

568
00:48:42,170 --> 00:48:46,470
He might well have just not registered
with him. I don't know. There has been a

569
00:48:46,470 --> 00:48:49,770
report recently that you have said that
you might get back with the Beatles.

570
00:48:49,990 --> 00:48:50,990
Is this true?

571
00:48:51,010 --> 00:48:54,370
No, I wouldn't think so. I don't think
any of us fancy telling the truth.

572
00:48:59,950 --> 00:49:06,230
Perhaps the bass wasn't as important to
Paul in 1972 as it was to him when he

573
00:49:06,230 --> 00:49:08,430
asked Nick to start the search.

574
00:49:08,910 --> 00:49:11,350
I think, in a way, the Beatles have done
it, you know?

575
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:14,500
Beatles started from nothing and got
everywhere.

576
00:49:15,100 --> 00:49:18,640
The thing is, you know, I don't know
whether anyone really would even like to

577
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:20,440
even try and push it any further, you
know?

578
00:49:22,820 --> 00:49:27,180
The Hoffner was a Beatle bass, and he
wasn't a Beatle anymore.

579
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:33,260
I don't blame him, you know.

580
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:35,800
Those guys had had a hell of a life.

581
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:39,080
For all their fame and their money,
they'd had a hell of a time.

582
00:49:42,190 --> 00:49:44,790
I think the Hofner was part of that
time.

583
00:49:46,370 --> 00:49:47,950
And they just wanted it gone.

584
00:49:54,630 --> 00:49:58,930
Ian thought that the base had gone into
100 Cambridge Gardens.

585
00:49:59,170 --> 00:50:04,590
So we were interested to find out more
about this character, Dick Mick, that at

586
00:50:04,590 --> 00:50:08,170
that time certainly Trevor suspected and
Ian did as well.

587
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:13,420
Dick Mick was a roadie, and he'd been a
weed dealer.

588
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:19,820
We were able to find that in the
basement flat of 100 Cambridge Gardens,

589
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:25,000
a band called Hawkwinds, and a lot of
members of the band called the Pink

590
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:26,000
Fairies lived.

591
00:50:43,740 --> 00:50:46,640
Trevor and Ian, they were both very good
friends of mine.

592
00:50:47,520 --> 00:50:54,380
There was the next day when I saw Trevor
and he just said, fuck, he says Paul's

593
00:50:54,380 --> 00:50:58,400
bass got stolen out of the van last
night outside Cambridge Garden. I said,

594
00:50:58,460 --> 00:50:59,460
what?

595
00:51:00,280 --> 00:51:05,480
They said, keep your ears peeled and,
you know, see if there's any word coming

596
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:09,540
out or any word on the street or... I
think, Mick, who was it?

597
00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:15,260
Dick Mick was one of the people in the
original Hawkwind.

598
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:22,180
Dick Mick was unfortunately most of the
time out of his head on mandrax. But he

599
00:51:22,180 --> 00:51:26,100
could have been outside blagging away or
leaning against the van or whatever,

600
00:51:26,300 --> 00:51:27,300
having a smoke.

601
00:51:27,540 --> 00:51:31,320
You know, somebody could have said, oh,
whose van's that? Oh, it's Wing's van,

602
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:32,480
you know.

603
00:51:33,920 --> 00:51:37,240
I heard reports of Hawkwing's gear going
missing.

604
00:51:38,090 --> 00:51:44,190
But that's only the tip of the iceberg.
The whole dynamic around Hawkwind is,

605
00:51:44,190 --> 00:51:45,550
you know, somewhat troubled.

606
00:51:52,270 --> 00:51:58,990
In May 1972, Hawkwind had had £10,000
worth of kit

607
00:51:58,990 --> 00:52:00,530
stolen from their van.

608
00:52:01,430 --> 00:52:06,470
In old newspaper searches, we found out
that they'd been banned from the BBC.

609
00:52:07,310 --> 00:52:09,510
because they'd stolen a microphone.

610
00:52:09,890 --> 00:52:14,070
I think, didn't they write a song that
was sort of anti the Beatles? They were

611
00:52:14,070 --> 00:52:17,730
anti the Beatles. They were anti the
Beatles, so they felt quite anarchic.

612
00:52:19,030 --> 00:52:22,930
It felt like Hawkwind had a motive, and
it also felt like they had the

613
00:52:22,930 --> 00:52:24,570
personality to go and do it.

614
00:52:26,830 --> 00:52:29,850
Ladbroke Grove was pretty funky.

615
00:52:31,450 --> 00:52:34,370
You know, there was the hippies, there
was the...

616
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:41,540
all the people who had the fruit and
vegetables a lot of thugs showed up on

617
00:52:41,540 --> 00:52:46,840
portobello road and that's when things
started to go downhill you know rougher

618
00:52:46,840 --> 00:52:52,840
and people started injecting people
started getting stuff stolen

619
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:59,980
paul

620
00:52:59,980 --> 00:53:06,180
rudolph described a place with a lot of
poverty a lot of people really clinging

621
00:53:06,180 --> 00:53:11,580
on that it wasn't a big deal for
something to be stolen out of the back

622
00:53:11,580 --> 00:53:13,480
of a van. It happened all the time.

623
00:53:16,860 --> 00:53:21,900
The base did feel like that's the last
place on Earth it should really be.

624
00:53:24,420 --> 00:53:30,420
Which is a long, long way from these
dark, poorly lit streets.

625
00:53:33,200 --> 00:53:37,220
You know, lots of political banners
written on bed sheets sort of hanging

626
00:53:37,220 --> 00:53:38,220
out the windows.

627
00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:41,640
Anarchists and theft.

628
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:52,500
To picture the bass in the middle of all
of that makes you feel like this little

629
00:53:52,500 --> 00:53:54,920
thing is out there that desperately
needs saving.

630
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:06,380
But then a penny dropped.

631
00:54:06,620 --> 00:54:12,980
I thought, ah, I got an email about six
months before this from a guy

632
00:54:12,980 --> 00:54:17,820
talking about the base being stolen in
Labrador Grove.

633
00:54:18,420 --> 00:54:24,060
So I naturally went and dug back through
the pile of emails and found it. It was

634
00:54:24,060 --> 00:54:26,120
from a guy called Andrew, Andrew
Dickinson.

635
00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:32,200
And so, yeah, I contacted them and said,
look, you know, something's occurred.

636
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:33,440
We didn't tell them what.

637
00:54:36,020 --> 00:54:37,240
Further information's arisen.

638
00:54:37,500 --> 00:54:39,040
Can they tell me more?

639
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:45,940
I didn't think we were going to hear any
more, to be honest.

640
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,480
You know, it was a very small story to
tell.

641
00:54:51,240 --> 00:54:52,240
Whereabouts are you struggling?

642
00:54:52,380 --> 00:54:53,380
Oh, just my neck.

643
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:56,000
He's, like, really digging in hard, you
know? Yeah.

644
00:54:56,500 --> 00:54:58,640
I think he was using his elbow or
something.

645
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:01,000
I think they do a lot with their elbow.
Yeah.

646
00:55:01,260 --> 00:55:02,380
Dig in, you know.

647
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:04,180
Did you get a happy ending?

648
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:06,560
No, no, I didn't fancy it.

649
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:12,740
I got back to Steve and said, this Nick,
he's emailed me again.

650
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:13,879
Next time.

651
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:19,580
I think, you know, sure story to tell.
Do you want to get involved and say a

652
00:55:19,580 --> 00:55:20,580
little bit more?

653
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:22,440
Oh, God.

654
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:25,820
Straight away I thought, I've opened my
mouth here and he's not going to let

655
00:55:25,820 --> 00:55:26,820
this go now.

656
00:55:29,220 --> 00:55:31,260
What I didn't want to come out was...

657
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:36,740
Our first house was just off of Ladbroke
Grove, not far from Grenfell Tower.

658
00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,480
It was quite a carousel of people coming
and going, really.

659
00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:48,140
I think I was made aware of who you
could talk to and where you could go.

660
00:55:49,540 --> 00:55:52,520
You had boundaries of where you could go
and where you couldn't go.

661
00:55:53,540 --> 00:55:56,840
So there was only so many people you
were likely to get to meet or likely to

662
00:55:56,840 --> 00:55:57,840
get to see.

663
00:55:59,220 --> 00:56:00,420
Dad had a couple of jobs.

664
00:56:02,370 --> 00:56:04,850
He played a lot of football, Saturdays
and Sunday mornings.

665
00:56:07,150 --> 00:56:11,150
Dad's mates, they would always tell me
how good my dad was as a semi-pro

666
00:56:11,150 --> 00:56:13,170
footballer. Because he was good, Dad.

667
00:56:15,770 --> 00:56:16,770
There was a pub.

668
00:56:17,790 --> 00:56:18,910
It's called the Admiral Blake.

669
00:56:20,130 --> 00:56:23,610
And that's where they all used to
congregate, my dad and his mates.

670
00:56:24,770 --> 00:56:26,590
So occasionally I'd get taken across.

671
00:56:28,299 --> 00:56:30,900
It was a good source of information, it
was a good source of recreation.

672
00:56:31,340 --> 00:56:34,900
It was just a good way of socialising
and getting around and getting to know

673
00:56:34,900 --> 00:56:38,440
what was going on and doing what around
the area and stuff like that.

674
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,500
There was racketeering going on and
people going round and if you want a

675
00:56:42,500 --> 00:56:46,700
garden fork or a spade, there's a couple
in the back of that lorry that no one

676
00:56:46,700 --> 00:56:47,820
knows are there if you want that.

677
00:56:49,180 --> 00:56:51,880
If you couldn't get rid of it or you
hadn't sold it, take it out of the pub,

678
00:56:51,940 --> 00:56:52,939
someone will have it off you.

679
00:56:52,940 --> 00:56:54,200
Someone will buy it off you.

680
00:56:58,339 --> 00:57:00,920
Because obviously I wasn't always crewed
up with him, so I was getting little

681
00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:03,160
bits of information here, there,
everywhere, you know.

682
00:57:07,240 --> 00:57:10,780
So he got to a stage where when I was
looking at the roadside, I thought, oh,

683
00:57:10,820 --> 00:57:12,500
I'm working with him again, I know
what's coming here.

684
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:19,200
I'm just going to have to try and muddy
the waters a little bit here because

685
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:20,280
he's not going to let it go.

686
00:57:23,300 --> 00:57:25,180
He'd heard that it had been stolen.

687
00:57:25,819 --> 00:57:28,360
from the road that they were in.

688
00:57:30,180 --> 00:57:34,120
They sold it to the barman in the pub
and then they sort of dumped it in the

689
00:57:34,120 --> 00:57:37,920
canal just because they knew it was Paul
McCartney's and they'd never be able to

690
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:38,920
get rid of it.

691
00:57:40,040 --> 00:57:42,280
We got an A to Z out of the van.

692
00:57:43,140 --> 00:57:46,380
I said, that was the pub, so there's the
canal there, so I'm assuming there. So

693
00:57:46,380 --> 00:57:49,980
he said, so whereabouts do you think? I
said, I don't know, I wasn't there, so I

694
00:57:49,980 --> 00:57:50,939
had no idea.

695
00:57:50,940 --> 00:57:53,740
I said, but that's the canal. I said, if
I lived in that pub, I would have walked

696
00:57:53,740 --> 00:57:54,729
over that bridge.

697
00:57:54,730 --> 00:57:55,609
and just lobbed it there.

698
00:57:55,610 --> 00:57:59,150
And then he said, do you reckon we could
get a boat and go and find it? I said,

699
00:57:59,190 --> 00:58:01,570
no. No, I said, I don't think we can go
and get a boat and go and find it.

700
00:58:01,790 --> 00:58:08,030
I think Andrew replied to me, saying he
would ask his partner,

701
00:58:08,210 --> 00:58:10,930
and then I get an email from Steve.

702
00:58:11,550 --> 00:58:17,130
Now we had a strong lead, it's been
stolen, and it went on to this pub.

703
00:58:17,470 --> 00:58:20,930
The email had said that it had been
thrown into the canal.

704
00:58:22,130 --> 00:58:23,990
That was quite a low point, really.

705
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:29,400
It was almost like, you know, the body
of the guitar had been dumped into the

706
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:30,400
water there.

707
00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:39,220
And I remember feeling that the result
isn't what we wanted, but we might

708
00:58:39,220 --> 00:58:42,740
actually have a story now that we know
where Paul McCartney's base is, but

709
00:58:42,740 --> 00:58:46,700
sadly it's at the bottom of that canal
and probably gone forever.

710
00:59:07,660 --> 00:59:10,680
My manager at the time got a call from
Paul's manager at the time.

711
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:14,860
Richard wants you to go down to work
with Paul. I said, kid, no. He was like,

712
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:18,080
you know, I was 33, I think, when we
started doing that.

713
00:59:18,700 --> 00:59:21,320
He wasn't calling up an eight-year-old
kid who was in the fan club.

714
00:59:21,560 --> 00:59:22,840
One, two, three, four.

715
00:59:29,200 --> 00:59:31,900
We got off to a flying start, you know.

716
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:41,180
And we'd just recorded with two guitars
and vocals, and it was good fun.

717
00:59:47,420 --> 00:59:51,560
There's a version of me singing My Brave
Face where I'm singing lead, so Paul

718
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:55,680
could fly around on the bass, and he's
doing all these moves, but I never felt

719
00:59:55,680 --> 00:59:57,080
like he could hear the voice.

720
00:59:59,950 --> 01:00:04,090
Because this bass was just too... it was
too big sounding.

721
01:00:05,070 --> 01:00:10,470
At some point I asked whether the
whereabouts of the Hofner, and it

722
01:00:10,470 --> 01:00:12,170
suddenly appeared.

723
01:00:13,850 --> 01:00:17,410
Elvis Costello said, what about your
Hofner bass, you know, your violin bass,

724
01:00:17,570 --> 01:00:18,488
the Beatle bass?

725
01:00:18,490 --> 01:00:22,790
And I was saying, well, I can try it,
but it's not very good at keeping in

726
01:00:22,790 --> 01:00:23,729
tune.

727
01:00:23,730 --> 01:00:26,750
Which it isn't, because they're not very
expensive instruments.

728
01:00:27,500 --> 01:00:31,960
So I had given up recording with it
really in favor of more some modern

729
01:00:31,960 --> 01:00:38,860
instruments But he said I love the sound
of it, you know go on But it wasn't the

730
01:00:38,860 --> 01:00:45,640
lost bass the 61 bass this was 63 But I
think at that

731
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,640
point he that things change for Paul

732
01:00:57,470 --> 01:01:01,990
And it recorded great. It's got a lovely
tone for a little bass.

733
01:01:06,190 --> 01:01:10,830
Honestly, I felt vindicated when I heard
the part. You could hear his personality

734
01:01:10,830 --> 01:01:12,230
really clearly.

735
01:01:12,830 --> 01:01:17,290
And it had the tone. It had the tone. It
was like somebody singing, you know?

736
01:01:24,050 --> 01:01:26,130
Elvis Costello suggested bringing that.

737
01:01:26,360 --> 01:01:30,780
the 63, maybe that kind of like, you
might have thought, yeah, what happened?

738
01:01:30,920 --> 01:01:34,100
Maybe that's when the whole conversation
sort of started up again about where is

739
01:01:34,100 --> 01:01:35,100
the original one?

740
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:41,360
By the time we got 89, 90, when we were
about to embark on a big, massive world

741
01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:45,460
tour, and Paul said, what are people
going to want to, you know, they're

742
01:01:45,460 --> 01:01:47,320
going to come to a gig, what are they
going to want?

743
01:01:48,500 --> 01:01:49,500
They're going to want pieces.

744
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:52,080
They're going to want some...

745
01:01:52,280 --> 01:01:53,280
Big big moment

746
01:02:26,780 --> 01:02:29,040
Paul's quite nostalgic about things.

747
01:02:31,020 --> 01:02:36,100
They're important to him, not maybe in a
collectible way, but just emotionally,

748
01:02:36,340 --> 01:02:39,860
and they're part of his history and
they're part of his life, and he, yeah,

749
01:02:40,460 --> 01:02:41,600
he probably missed the bass.

750
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:44,160
He just wanted it back.

751
01:02:46,640 --> 01:02:50,900
Yeah, well, I think anything that's
nicked, you want back, you know,

752
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:53,740
especially if it has a sentimental
attachment.

753
01:02:54,350 --> 01:02:56,350
Plus, I was annoyed that someone nicked
it.

754
01:02:56,570 --> 01:02:59,610
You know, it's just like, how dare you?
Give me it back, you know.

755
01:03:01,850 --> 01:03:06,570
Very often in investigations, there's a
breakthrough moment where you're

756
01:03:06,570 --> 01:03:08,230
effectively given something on a plate.

757
01:03:11,070 --> 01:03:12,070
Who's Stephen?

758
01:03:12,670 --> 01:03:17,270
Who's this person? And how does he know
so much about the theft of this guitar?

759
01:03:19,110 --> 01:03:21,170
I made an inquiry about...

760
01:03:21,470 --> 01:03:25,970
the residents of 100 Cambridge Gardens,
so who was on the electoral register.

761
01:03:27,930 --> 01:03:32,810
And I just remember reading through the
list of names, and we got to the name

762
01:03:32,810 --> 01:03:33,810
Glenister.

763
01:03:35,190 --> 01:03:36,190
Oh, my God.

764
01:03:36,770 --> 01:03:40,690
His parents are on the electoral
register in 100 Cambridge Gardens.

765
01:03:56,080 --> 01:03:59,060
We was on holiday in Spain, and my phone
went.

766
01:04:00,300 --> 01:04:01,400
Is that Steve Clements? Yeah.

767
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:04,620
It's Nick Bass here from The Lost Base.

768
01:04:05,860 --> 01:04:07,920
I said, oh, right, hi, you all right?

769
01:04:08,500 --> 01:04:13,300
He said, I think you know a little bit
more than you're letting on.

770
01:04:14,420 --> 01:04:19,560
Are you prepared to say anything? I
said, not really. I don't know anything

771
01:04:19,560 --> 01:04:21,080
other than I told you. And he said,
well, I think you do.

772
01:04:21,380 --> 01:04:23,240
I knew I had to ask him the question.

773
01:04:24,170 --> 01:04:29,390
and say to him, look, Steve, just tell
me what happened.

774
01:04:29,850 --> 01:04:33,510
You know, I know you know, because you
wouldn't have sent me all this stuff.

775
01:04:33,890 --> 01:04:35,550
And I know you were in the house.

776
01:04:35,890 --> 01:04:37,130
Just tell me what happened.

777
01:04:39,110 --> 01:04:40,710
My dad used to come and watch me play
football a lot.

778
01:04:42,610 --> 01:04:45,610
He was never complimentary about the way
I played. There was always something I

779
01:04:45,610 --> 01:04:50,550
could have done better than that. So he
was coming home one day and I had the

780
01:04:50,550 --> 01:04:51,550
radio on in the car.

781
01:04:53,500 --> 01:04:54,720
How old do you think you were at this
point?

782
01:04:55,040 --> 01:04:58,500
I may have just had the kids, so
mid-20s, something like that.

783
01:05:00,520 --> 01:05:01,520
This song come on.

784
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:03,800
And I just said, oh, it's the Beatles.

785
01:05:04,360 --> 01:05:05,218
I like these.

786
01:05:05,220 --> 01:05:09,960
And I'd done it more if the louder the
radio was, unless he could talk.

787
01:05:10,720 --> 01:05:13,880
And I was getting a bit fed up with it
all now. So I just sort of turned the

788
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:14,880
radio up.

789
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:20,220
And he said...

790
01:05:23,390 --> 01:05:25,250
He said, did I ever tell you about that
guitar then?

791
01:05:29,050 --> 01:05:30,050
I said, what guitar?

792
01:05:31,570 --> 01:05:33,490
He said, the one, Paul McCartney's
guitar.

793
01:05:35,450 --> 01:05:37,910
So I said, no, and he started to laugh.
So I turned the radio down.

794
01:05:38,970 --> 01:05:42,350
He said, um, well, he said, I nicked it.

795
01:05:43,950 --> 01:05:45,350
I said, what do you mean you nicked it?

796
01:05:48,650 --> 01:05:52,270
He said, I didn't even know it was a
guitar. He said, I just opened this fan

797
01:05:52,270 --> 01:05:53,270
up.

798
01:05:53,930 --> 01:05:58,470
He said, when I realised what it was, I
thought, oh, you know, Paul McCartney,

799
01:05:58,510 --> 01:06:00,590
it's the obvious shape, that proper
shape guitar.

800
01:06:03,730 --> 01:06:05,370
I can just imagine blessing his face.

801
01:06:06,910 --> 01:06:09,750
Nick, the Mona Lisa, what are you going
to do with that? You can't sell it. You

802
01:06:09,750 --> 01:06:10,750
know, it's just one of those things.

803
01:06:12,010 --> 01:06:13,810
It was that family up on the top floor.

804
01:06:14,730 --> 01:06:17,450
They were ignored by Ian and Trevor on
the day.

805
01:06:17,870 --> 01:06:19,090
Nobody went with a wrench.

806
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:21,120
to those people up on the top floor.

807
01:06:21,420 --> 01:06:24,720
And to be honest, they were ignored by
us in the early days of the search.

808
01:06:24,960 --> 01:06:28,860
And that is perhaps one of the most
extraordinary things about this whole

809
01:06:28,860 --> 01:06:29,860
story.

810
01:06:30,980 --> 01:06:35,760
It got given to a pub landlord who run
the Admiral Blake.

811
01:06:37,520 --> 01:06:39,880
The landlord at the time was a chap
called Ron.

812
01:06:40,940 --> 01:06:44,200
He said, I just said to Ron, yeah, I'll
tell you what, give this to one of your

813
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:46,400
kids, they can learn it. He said, just
give us a couple of drinks.

814
01:06:46,880 --> 01:06:47,738
I said, what?

815
01:06:47,740 --> 01:06:52,060
He said, well, I just had a cut. He said
he bought me a Daze with a light out.

816
01:06:52,960 --> 01:06:58,280
So this guitar ended up with Ron and I
think one of his kids, Graham, ended up

817
01:06:58,280 --> 01:06:59,280
with it.

818
01:07:01,020 --> 01:07:05,920
It had gone to a pub landlord called Ron
Guest.

819
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:12,360
We knew that it had then been passed on
to his son, Graham, who unfortunately

820
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:14,060
had died in this terrible car crash.

821
01:07:15,060 --> 01:07:19,980
But then we decided to look at... the
other children, and I was able to

822
01:07:19,980 --> 01:07:24,740
contact Elaine Guest, who was the
youngest of the children, and talk to

823
01:07:24,740 --> 01:07:25,740
her.

824
01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:32,900
That's me on the roof of the two dogs,
because the roof was our garden.

825
01:07:33,340 --> 01:07:36,260
I mean, I grew up with Graham always
having a bass.

826
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:39,220
I can't remember a time when it suddenly
appeared.

827
01:07:40,320 --> 01:07:41,820
It was always Graham's bass.

828
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:44,340
It was just always playing, you know.

829
01:07:45,150 --> 01:07:48,690
And he didn't mind if I plopped myself
down and listened to it.

830
01:07:49,890 --> 01:07:51,070
And where was it kept here?

831
01:07:52,230 --> 01:07:54,050
In the little bedroom.

832
01:07:57,050 --> 01:07:59,890
You don't think he would have known it
was Paul McCartney's?

833
01:08:00,850 --> 01:08:01,850
Definitely not.

834
01:08:02,430 --> 01:08:03,430
Definitely not.

835
01:08:04,130 --> 01:08:08,570
I mean, when you think about it, who in
their right minds would buy a bass and

836
01:08:08,570 --> 01:08:10,690
know it was Paul McCartney's and then
give it to his son?

837
01:08:11,380 --> 01:08:14,480
Who's going to take God knows where and
somebody's going to say, but that's Paul

838
01:08:14,480 --> 01:08:15,480
McCartney's bass.

839
01:08:16,479 --> 01:08:17,479
But no.

840
01:08:18,580 --> 01:08:19,939
Do you wish you'd played it a bit now?

841
01:08:20,460 --> 01:08:21,460
Not now, I know.

842
01:08:21,800 --> 01:08:23,040
It was serious, yes.

843
01:08:26,080 --> 01:08:27,160
Were you into the Beatles?

844
01:08:27,479 --> 01:08:32,500
No. No, no. I always thought the Beatles
were like a girly band.

845
01:08:35,680 --> 01:08:39,740
After Graham had died, her brother
Hayden...

846
01:08:40,170 --> 01:08:43,029
took the bass from their family home.

847
01:08:43,770 --> 01:08:49,069
Hayden got divorced in the 1990s and
then married someone else and then ended

848
01:08:49,069 --> 01:08:50,529
up in Hastings.

849
01:08:52,790 --> 01:08:57,609
He left his wife and kids and then got
involved with somebody, and that's hence

850
01:08:57,609 --> 01:09:00,050
why there's been no communication at
all.

851
01:09:04,130 --> 01:09:08,189
From what I can gather, the bass was
just in the loft in the house at

852
01:09:08,189 --> 01:09:09,189
Hastings.

853
01:09:18,510 --> 01:09:21,050
We were in Los Angeles. We were
rehearsing, I think.

854
01:09:23,430 --> 01:09:30,109
And I got a phone call from a colleague,
said, somebody's turned up at the farm

855
01:09:30,109 --> 01:09:35,350
with a bass, and they think it might be
Paul's, this lost bass that everybody's

856
01:09:35,350 --> 01:09:38,069
talking about all of a sudden, because
it had been in the press by then.

857
01:09:39,010 --> 01:09:43,550
And she'd left some photos and then took
the bass back.

858
01:09:44,510 --> 01:09:46,189
So I was emailed the photos.

859
01:09:46,800 --> 01:09:51,479
And I just had a feeling. I could feel
it. I just thought, ooh, this is really

860
01:09:51,479 --> 01:09:52,479
interesting.

861
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:58,600
And the next day, I was with Paul in the
morning, and I had my laptop, and we

862
01:09:58,600 --> 01:10:01,140
were about to leave for the studio, and
I said, I've got something I need to

863
01:10:01,140 --> 01:10:03,920
talk to you about. And he thought a
second, but he said, oh, is it bad? I

864
01:10:03,920 --> 01:10:05,120
said, no, it's not bad.

865
01:10:05,600 --> 01:10:09,260
And I opened up my laptop, and I was
shaking. I was literally shaking.

866
01:10:09,600 --> 01:10:14,600
The minute I saw the case it was in, I,
whoa, I've got it back.

867
01:10:15,480 --> 01:10:16,480
Oh, my God.

868
01:10:17,220 --> 01:10:19,820
And I'm checking it, and I'm thinking,
well, yeah, that's it.

869
01:10:20,040 --> 01:10:23,900
And, you know, that's how it looked, and
this is definitely the case.

870
01:10:24,160 --> 01:10:26,480
I remember carrying it in that case.

871
01:10:27,220 --> 01:10:29,840
So I organized for somebody to go and
pick it up.

872
01:10:31,840 --> 01:10:34,740
And then I said, have you got it?

873
01:10:34,960 --> 01:10:41,360
And he said, yep, it's here. I said,
keep it. Don't let anybody... Just put

874
01:10:41,360 --> 01:10:42,360
it away.

875
01:10:50,090 --> 01:10:51,770
We partly let it out of our side.

876
01:11:04,590 --> 01:11:11,450
I'm sitting at home on my

877
01:11:11,450 --> 01:11:16,730
sofa. Kathy's sitting over there and my
mobile phone goes and this voice comes

878
01:11:16,730 --> 01:11:19,310
on and say, hey.

879
01:11:19,710 --> 01:11:21,550
we've got the bass back, we've got the
bass.

880
01:11:22,310 --> 01:11:26,710
And I think, who's that, who's this, who
are you? Then Penny dropped the accent,

881
01:11:26,830 --> 01:11:29,270
the Liverpool accent, and I realised it
was Paul McCartney.

882
01:11:29,850 --> 01:11:32,850
We didn't quite know who to tell.

883
01:11:34,570 --> 01:11:40,150
There were factors that meant we should
keep it a secret for a bit longer till

884
01:11:40,150 --> 01:11:45,110
we got our act together, till we've
absolutely had everyone verify that it

885
01:11:45,110 --> 01:11:46,690
was mine, people like Nick.

886
01:11:48,860 --> 01:11:53,720
So it was sweet to be able to ring him
up and say, guess what?

887
01:11:54,620 --> 01:11:55,920
It was stunning.

888
01:11:56,160 --> 01:11:59,100
You know, it was like, wow, what,
really?

889
01:11:59,560 --> 01:12:03,480
And I think I said to Paul, I think I'm
going to go and get a beer out of the

890
01:12:03,480 --> 01:12:04,480
fridge for this.

891
01:12:04,660 --> 01:12:08,780
And he said, I would. He said, yeah. Is
it a German beer like I used to drink in

892
01:12:08,780 --> 01:12:14,420
Hamburg? It was just amazing because I
could hear Paul on the phone to Nick and

893
01:12:14,420 --> 01:12:15,700
it was just amazing.

894
01:12:16,510 --> 01:12:20,670
That was incredible for us to just sit
here thinking that Nick was in Germany,

895
01:12:20,810 --> 01:12:26,110
Paul was in L.A., the bass was in
Sussex, and we'd done it.

896
01:12:29,930 --> 01:12:36,010
What happened for me over the last year,
I've had two strokes, which has

897
01:12:36,010 --> 01:12:42,390
certainly changed things for our life,
and the bass has certainly

898
01:12:42,390 --> 01:12:44,230
lightened that situation.

899
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:48,680
For us, I would say. Yeah, sure. Focus
is the mind.

900
01:13:00,780 --> 01:13:05,760
Paul McCartney's most treasured bass
guitar that he had played throughout the

901
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:11,320
early days of the Beatles vanished
without trace. Now, 51 years later, it

902
01:13:11,320 --> 01:13:12,320
has been found.

903
01:13:13,010 --> 01:13:16,990
James Dunham went to meet the mother of
two who was unaware she was holding on

904
01:13:16,990 --> 01:13:18,530
to an iconic instrument.

905
01:13:18,890 --> 01:13:25,010
I was actually cataloguing lots of
guitars that I've got and when I googled

906
01:13:25,010 --> 01:13:26,270
it, it immediately came up.

907
01:13:26,610 --> 01:13:32,670
I panicked and then went straight to his
house because I knew he lived nearby and

908
01:13:32,670 --> 01:13:35,910
I eventually found it after going
through a lot of fields.

909
01:13:36,570 --> 01:13:40,110
It had broken in the press that we were
looking for this lost bass, and that

910
01:13:40,110 --> 01:13:44,290
might have been one of the reasons Kathy
thought, I better give it back.

911
01:13:45,070 --> 01:13:50,850
There's this little side life it's gone
off and living with all these people I

912
01:13:50,850 --> 01:13:51,850
don't know.

913
01:13:52,930 --> 01:13:55,790
And it ends up with Kathy.

914
01:14:01,050 --> 01:14:03,670
Just remember, this is Paul's bass. This
is that.

915
01:14:04,190 --> 01:14:08,210
He really, truly cares and loves, and if
you leave a guitar in a loft, it will

916
01:14:08,210 --> 01:14:09,410
destroy a guitar, you know.

917
01:14:10,990 --> 01:14:12,290
You've got to put it all together.

918
01:14:14,050 --> 01:14:17,430
Put the strings on and then just play
that first chord and just hope that you

919
01:14:17,430 --> 01:14:18,430
got it right.

920
01:14:19,050 --> 01:14:22,770
That's where the craftsmanship is, and
Martin obviously is. An old-school

921
01:14:22,770 --> 01:14:25,990
craftsman in the way he works, the way
he does things.

922
01:14:27,410 --> 01:14:31,590
He's poor people, it means a lot to you,
but he doesn't really sort of, I'm not

923
01:14:31,590 --> 01:14:32,590
that fussed about it.

924
01:14:32,880 --> 01:14:35,140
I just think, obviously, it's just a
guitar.

925
01:14:35,480 --> 01:14:40,160
You know, now I get it. I get it now,
but I still don't get it, get it,

926
01:14:40,180 --> 01:14:42,100
really. You know, just leave it.

927
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:45,760
Leaving's nothing to be proud of, full
stop.

928
01:14:46,240 --> 01:14:48,060
But that said, we've all done it.

929
01:14:48,860 --> 01:14:49,860
We've all done it.

930
01:14:50,640 --> 01:14:57,240
But it's the iconic guitar that he

931
01:14:57,240 --> 01:14:58,780
had in his hands.

932
01:15:02,160 --> 01:15:09,100
The implication, the size of it, its
meaning

933
01:15:09,100 --> 01:15:15,420
to obviously Paul McCartney and other
people, the enormity of it all is just a

934
01:15:15,420 --> 01:15:16,860
bit sort of blimey.

935
01:15:17,520 --> 01:15:19,000
Overwhelming. Yeah, a little bit, yeah.

936
01:15:19,540 --> 01:15:26,360
I don't want anyone to think of Dad
anything but a nice

937
01:15:26,360 --> 01:15:29,740
lad, because that's what he was. He was
a lovely, lovely lad.

938
01:15:31,980 --> 01:15:34,480
But there wasn't always a receipt in the
house for what we had.

939
01:15:35,980 --> 01:15:39,280
It was just to make ends meet a little
bit.

940
01:15:42,820 --> 01:15:44,600
I don't blame him too much.

941
01:15:45,340 --> 01:15:48,080
You know, I think it's just petty
thievery.

942
01:15:49,880 --> 01:15:53,220
It's the kind of thing we would have
done a little bit of in Liverpool.

943
01:15:53,680 --> 01:15:59,780
Just, you know, just... It's there and I
could nick it, so I will.

944
01:16:01,390 --> 01:16:07,610
We got out of that pretty quickly
Because luckily the Beatles took over

945
01:16:07,610 --> 01:16:13,790
and we found an honest profession But I
can sympathize with people who don't

946
01:16:13,790 --> 01:16:17,850
have that kind of look So I don't blame
him too much

947
01:16:17,850 --> 01:16:25,750
I'm

948
01:16:25,750 --> 01:16:26,509
not comfortable.

949
01:16:26,510 --> 01:16:29,690
I'm not all right with it

950
01:16:32,220 --> 01:16:37,400
You sort of you're taking the name or my
dad through muddy waters and that's not

951
01:16:37,400 --> 01:16:44,160
what you do Growing up anyway, I don't
remember my dad ever telling me he loved

952
01:16:44,160 --> 01:16:49,180
me Not that that was a problem for me.
It was just how it was

953
01:16:49,180 --> 01:16:55,320
When We had a little boy

954
01:16:55,320 --> 01:16:59,360
And I rang home he

955
01:17:09,320 --> 01:17:10,320
He never told me.

956
01:17:10,600 --> 01:17:11,600
Mum told me.

957
01:17:12,160 --> 01:17:16,280
But I later found out that he cried.

958
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:20,400
Which, Dad never did that.

959
01:17:20,780 --> 01:17:24,380
Dad never cried. I never saw my dad tear
out my dad's eye.

960
01:17:26,340 --> 01:17:28,340
God, I can't remember, I think.

961
01:17:28,940 --> 01:17:32,560
But apparently he cried, because to Dad
it meant the name would never go.

962
01:17:44,590 --> 01:17:46,310
Did you just see the one I sent you?

963
01:17:46,630 --> 01:17:47,870
The one with the glue?

964
01:17:48,110 --> 01:17:49,230
Have you seen that one yet?

965
01:17:50,010 --> 01:17:52,570
No. Oh, I've just sent... Oh,

966
01:17:53,350 --> 01:17:56,950
I've just sent you another one with
Martin actually gluing the neck back on.

967
01:17:58,070 --> 01:17:59,430
Oh, lovely. Is that Martin?

968
01:17:59,790 --> 01:18:00,790
Yeah, say hi.

969
01:18:00,810 --> 01:18:01,810
Hello, Paul.

970
01:18:02,010 --> 01:18:04,510
Hi, Martin. Your bass is saved.

971
01:18:05,750 --> 01:18:08,650
I know. Thanks for doing this, man. It's
great.

972
01:18:08,990 --> 01:18:09,829
You're welcome.

973
01:18:09,830 --> 01:18:10,830
I like his workshop.

974
01:18:11,500 --> 01:18:14,360
Oh, yeah, lovely workshop. Well, look at
his garden.

975
01:18:15,360 --> 01:18:17,020
Oh, yeah, there you go.

976
01:18:17,240 --> 01:18:18,340
How beautiful is that?

977
01:18:19,100 --> 01:18:20,100
A little pond.

978
01:18:20,700 --> 01:18:21,700
Beautiful.

979
01:18:22,020 --> 01:18:23,960
Yeah, I can't wait to play it.

980
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:25,200
Yeah, it won't be long.

981
01:18:25,800 --> 01:18:27,900
Have a good one, Paul. Thank you. Bye.

982
01:18:33,540 --> 01:18:36,540
I feel that over the last 20 years or
so...

983
01:18:36,780 --> 01:18:41,280
Paul, to me, seems to appreciate more
and more how good they were and how good

984
01:18:41,280 --> 01:18:42,280
the songs were.

985
01:18:42,760 --> 01:18:46,780
When he plays them, he really enjoys
them. He thinks, this was a great song.

986
01:18:46,840 --> 01:18:50,380
We really, really did well. And he's so
proud of what they achieved.

987
01:18:50,760 --> 01:18:54,860
So I think now him playing them on stage
is big for him. I think he loves it.

988
01:18:56,200 --> 01:18:57,700
He's come that full circle.

989
01:19:05,130 --> 01:19:08,190
Okay, cool. I've actually got something
you might want to see. You've got

990
01:19:08,190 --> 01:19:11,330
something for me. A little something you
might want to see. I believe it belonged

991
01:19:11,330 --> 01:19:12,330
to you.

992
01:19:12,350 --> 01:19:13,610
Do you want to come this way?

993
01:19:18,750 --> 01:19:19,910
Oh, here it is.

994
01:19:21,450 --> 01:19:22,450
Look at that.

995
01:19:22,850 --> 01:19:23,850
Look at that.

996
01:19:24,810 --> 01:19:26,630
He's done a brilliant job as well,
hasn't he?

997
01:19:32,750 --> 01:19:34,350
Oh, yeah. I wanted to show you that.

998
01:19:34,780 --> 01:19:39,760
that's a little note from martin from
martin many times i've had the pleasure

999
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:45,420
of putting music back into old broken
instruments it's been an absolute joy to

1000
01:19:45,420 --> 01:19:51,540
do that with your bass so thanks and i
hope you like it keep on trucking well

1001
01:19:51,540 --> 01:19:56,900
thank you martin you've done a great job
yeah i love those kind of guys

1002
01:20:11,060 --> 01:20:13,300
50 years ago since you last played that.

1003
01:20:15,160 --> 01:20:17,100
It's crazy. It's true, isn't it? Yeah.

1004
01:20:17,440 --> 01:20:19,700
It's over 50 years, yeah. That's crazy.

1005
01:20:20,240 --> 01:20:22,520
But I'd love to know what you were
doing.

1006
01:20:23,040 --> 01:20:27,000
Maybe rehearsing for something. Yeah,
and if the van had been parked. I don't

1007
01:20:27,000 --> 01:20:30,420
know, yeah. I know, it was a long time
ago. Well, the van's parked and the guys

1008
01:20:30,420 --> 01:20:36,380
go in for a couple of pints and they
decide they should leave the van and go

1009
01:20:36,380 --> 01:20:38,920
home and come back in tomorrow morning.

1010
01:20:39,160 --> 01:20:45,150
Oops. slight mistake big mistake so it
gets nicked yeah and then ends up with

1011
01:20:45,150 --> 01:20:52,150
the local uh is that a bit short strap
yeah it's kind of a

1012
01:20:52,150 --> 01:20:54,070
bigger rounder sound yeah

1013
01:20:54,070 --> 01:21:01,210
there

1014
01:21:01,210 --> 01:21:08,050
she

1015
01:21:08,050 --> 01:21:09,050
is yeah

1016
01:21:10,410 --> 01:21:11,790
Welcome home, honey.

1017
01:21:12,690 --> 01:21:13,690
Look at that.

1018
01:21:13,830 --> 01:21:14,830
Wow.

1019
01:21:15,550 --> 01:21:16,750
Crazy story.

1020
01:21:17,090 --> 01:21:18,410
Yeah. Yeah.

1021
01:21:20,190 --> 01:21:24,650
You've got to go a long way to find
somebody that's grown up without the

1022
01:21:24,650 --> 01:21:25,650
Beatles.

1023
01:21:26,310 --> 01:21:30,950
And I think there's something about the
relationship between us all, you know,

1024
01:21:30,970 --> 01:21:35,730
normal people and the Beatles, and you
sort of think you know them because you

1025
01:21:35,730 --> 01:21:36,730
know the music.

1026
01:21:38,190 --> 01:21:39,970
Good to see force chasing as well.

1027
01:21:40,190 --> 01:21:46,770
The music went global, but the bass, by
going off on that weird route, the

1028
01:21:46,770 --> 01:21:51,510
minute it went from that van in
Cambridge Gardens, it's gone into that

1029
01:21:51,510 --> 01:21:54,050
ordinary British world.

1030
01:21:54,950 --> 01:22:00,970
It's gone missing here, it's ended up
here, in ordinary streets, ordinary

1031
01:22:00,970 --> 01:22:02,910
pubs, ordinary families.

1032
01:22:03,610 --> 01:22:06,350
And there's something incredible about
that in its own right.

1033
01:22:20,990 --> 01:22:26,690
I'm trying to be humble, but, you know,
I think I was an important jigsaw puzzle

1034
01:22:26,690 --> 01:22:31,970
piece, because, you know, I guess if I
hadn't been a Beatle fan, if I hadn't

1035
01:22:31,970 --> 01:22:37,370
have met Steve, if I hadn't have played
the guitar, these little things that

1036
01:22:37,370 --> 01:22:40,430
fall into place, it might just have been
a different story. I might never have

1037
01:22:40,430 --> 01:22:41,430
found it.

1038
01:22:42,310 --> 01:22:44,150
Cheers to the old man. Absolute friends.

1039
01:22:47,500 --> 01:22:51,600
We didn't get it back just for Paul. We
got it back for everybody who was a

1040
01:22:51,600 --> 01:22:52,599
Beatles fan.

1041
01:22:52,600 --> 01:22:55,900
All the kids like me were little kids
back then.

1042
01:22:56,500 --> 01:22:58,140
We're old farts now, you know.

1043
01:22:59,060 --> 01:23:02,160
They could see that face once more, you
know.

1044
01:23:20,760 --> 01:23:21,760
I did take it.

1045
01:23:22,400 --> 01:23:23,400
Yeah.

1046
01:23:24,320 --> 01:23:27,540
It's much better. The logo is totally
different. Yeah, but that's the old

1047
01:23:27,540 --> 01:23:30,300
logo. Oh, yeah, early logo.

1048
01:23:30,640 --> 01:23:31,640
Yeah, right.

1049
01:23:32,080 --> 01:23:33,080
How does it feel?

1050
01:23:33,220 --> 01:23:34,039
It feels great.

1051
01:23:34,040 --> 01:23:37,060
Does it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on,
we've got to open the doors.

1052
01:23:42,520 --> 01:23:48,140
Hello. Oh, good to see you there. My
love, fantastic to see you.

1053
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:49,660
First time ever. Hello.

1054
01:23:50,220 --> 01:23:51,220
We meet at last.

1055
01:23:51,380 --> 01:23:53,900
Maybe he's going to play the bass. Who
can tell?

1056
01:24:06,600 --> 01:24:09,620
So a little tale to tell you here.

1057
01:24:10,280 --> 01:24:16,940
A while ago, I had a bass besides

1058
01:24:16,940 --> 01:24:17,940
this one.

1059
01:24:17,960 --> 01:24:19,320
My original bass.

1060
01:24:20,000 --> 01:24:23,480
And it got nicked, to tell you the
truth.

1061
01:24:23,840 --> 01:24:26,440
And we've been looking for it for 50
years.

1062
01:24:27,020 --> 01:24:30,200
Well, I got it back.

1063
01:24:32,880 --> 01:24:38,960
And here to make its first stage
appearance in 50 years is my original

1064
01:24:38,960 --> 01:24:39,960
bass.

1065
01:25:20,350 --> 01:25:21,350
Well,

1066
01:25:21,570 --> 01:25:25,950
we'd love to see it in your hands if
you're happy to grab it. I have it right

1067
01:25:25,950 --> 01:25:26,950
here.

1068
01:25:28,550 --> 01:25:29,630
There she is.

1069
01:25:30,570 --> 01:25:31,730
That's my old baby.

1070
01:25:32,730 --> 01:25:36,030
Do you find yourself getting a bit more
reflective as you get older? Yeah.

1071
01:25:36,270 --> 01:25:38,310
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely.

1072
01:25:40,130 --> 01:25:42,690
Because it's so special.

1073
01:25:43,600 --> 01:25:44,880
Now, I don't have an amp.

1074
01:25:51,440 --> 01:25:55,660
These are just four guys in Liverpool
who didn't know each other.

1075
01:25:56,360 --> 01:26:00,040
I got introduced to John via a
schoolmate of mine.

1076
01:26:00,880 --> 01:26:03,140
And, yeah, I really liked him.

1077
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:04,540
It's lovely to play.

1078
01:26:05,760 --> 01:26:09,320
And then George I knew off the school
bus.

1079
01:26:10,160 --> 01:26:14,250
Then John was... looking for someone
else to play guitar.

1080
01:26:15,730 --> 01:26:20,170
And I said, I've got this mate, you
know, he's pretty good.

1081
01:26:21,570 --> 01:26:25,170
Yeah, he can get right up there and you
wouldn't normally use that. I said to

1082
01:26:25,170 --> 01:26:26,870
George, go on, play it, he's looking.

1083
01:26:27,310 --> 01:26:31,230
So I encouraged George, so George got it
out of the case and he plays a thing

1084
01:26:31,230 --> 01:26:35,230
called Raunchy, which is good and he did
it great.

1085
01:26:35,970 --> 01:26:40,610
Then suddenly we had three other Beatles
then and it only needed...

1086
01:26:40,960 --> 01:26:44,840
Ringo to show up for us to be complete

1087
01:26:44,840 --> 01:26:51,520
Jojo

1088
01:26:51,520 --> 01:26:57,020
was a man who thought he was a loner but
he knew it couldn't last

1089
01:26:57,020 --> 01:27:03,680
Jojo left his home in Tucson, Arizona
for some California

1090
01:27:03,680 --> 01:27:04,680
grass

1091
01:27:21,070 --> 01:27:22,070
Sit back JoJo.

1092
01:27:32,190 --> 01:27:33,190
Go home.