Remarkable Beatles memorabilia to go under hammer in Scarborough - here's when

The tape-recorded interview with John Lennon came to light almost 60 years after a young Hull Art College student blagged his way into a press conference ahead of a performance in Hull.

Auctioneer Graham Paddison, of David Duggleby Auctioneers and Valuers in Scarborough, said: “One of the most striking things about the recording is just how relaxed the two of them were together, just two art college students chatting.

"At one point the Beatle ended up holding the microphone while the student struggled with his kit.

"Lennon was as friendly as could be – not flippant or jokey or clever dick – treating his young interviewer’s questions with respect, which of course makes his answers interesting.”

Asked if the Beatles regarded themselves primarily as musicians or entertainers, Lennon mused: “I’ve never thought about it really but I suppose . . . we don’t count ourselves as good musicians, so I suppose we’re entertainers . . . but we don’t entertain much ‘cos we just stand there, so I suppose we must be musicians.

"We’re in the Union anyway.”

Lennon speaks about writing songs and the fight they had to record their own material.

Mr Paddison added: “It was of course another age.

"Some of John’s comments would give the PR teams that surround modern stars heart failure.

"He says that he wanted to be rich, joked that he would probably have become just a layabout had the Beatles not taken off, disclosed that he had friends do his art college exams for him when he was away touring with the group in Scotland, revealed that he never told the college he was going to Germany because he ‘wanted his grant’ and declined to send a message to art students to keep working because ‘I never did much myself’.”

the city.

John Hill, an 18-year-old student, was tasked to do a report for the art college magazine and the student rag mag.

He paid to get into the cinema (12/6) – but then bluffed his way into the room where members of the group were talking to the press.

The recording of the 8½ minute conversation, which has never been broadcast, plus the recording machine, photographs taken while they were talking and student magazine articles are to go under the hammer when a spectacular collection of Hull memorabilia goes under the hammer in a History & Memories Auction at David Duggleby.

The extraordinary recording lay, unplayed, in a drawer until 2014, when Hill, then retired after a career as a Leeds schoolteacher and Leeds University lecturer, was having a clear-out.

He sold it to the current owner, a collector of antiquities and memorabilia, whose collection has been entered in the auction.

The catalogue is available on the Internet (davidduggleby.com).

The viewing sessions are at the Vine Street Salerooms in Scarborough on Wednesday and on Thursday (10am-4pm) and from 9am until the start of the auction at 2pm.