The Beatles: The new book lifting the lid on the songs they gave away - including one to Yorkshire

“It is an honour and privilege,” he says of his enviable job.

Hall, now 73, spent his formative years living in Woolton and actually attended the now famous St Peter's Church fete on July 6, 1957 - the day John Lennon first met Paul McCartney.

A renowned journalist, in 2009 Hall made a Sony Radio award-winning radio documentary about The Beatles with his friend Radio 2 presenter, Bob Harris and his wife Trudy (Harris .

“We had such fun making it,” he recalls. “We interviewed so many people we could have made a series of radio documentaries.”

Hall always felt there was a book waiting to be written with all the material they had unearthed, but he didn’t want it just to be another book about The Beatles.

“You could fill a library with all the books that have been written over the years about The Beatles. I wanted to write something different and the pandemic gave me time to do it”

The result is a 528-page book published by Yorkshire-based Great Northern Books, which explores this previously little-known aspect of the Fab Four's career.

The central focus of "The Songs The Beatles Gave Away" is on tunes John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison wrote for other artists rather than just for The Beatles themselves or songs that they decided weren’t right for them.

Such "giveaways" were unique and each song and its singer are discussed in detail and side stories and background explored.

Among the more well-known songs gifted by Lennon/McCartney to other artists which went on to become hits were: Bad To Me by Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas (a No 1 hit in 1963); A World Without Love by Peter and Gordon (which topped both the British and American charts in 1964); and Cilla Black's Step Inside Love.

But it also includes lesser known songs, including two chapters on a song Paul McCartney wrote for a Yorkshire TV series, specifically to be a brass band.

“Not any old brass band mind,” writes Hall, “but Yorkshire’s best : the Black Dyke Mills Band.”

The tune was called ‘Thingumybob;’ and was for an eight-part comedy series starring renowned actor Stanley Holloway. And although no recordings of the series seem to remain, Sunday June 30, 1968, the day Paul McCartney and his entourage (including his Old English Sheepdog Martha) is now immortalised in Hall’s book.

After struggling to recreate the brass band sound he wanted for Thingumybob, it was James Taylor who told McCartney: “Seems to me the only way to get a brass band sound on a gramophone record, is to use a brass band’.

“Paul was so fired with the notion that in order to achieve that elusive ‘big brass sound’ he so desired he should record ‘Thingumybob’ with the best brass band in the land and it so happened that that band was none other than Yorkshire’s legendary Black Dyke Mills Band,” writes Hall.

“Of all the songs given away by the Beatles it appears Paul’s ‘Thingumybob’ is the most well-documented of all.”

But for his book Hall wanted to track down the unsung heroes of the piece and give them the credit they deserve.

He interviewed John Clay, who played the cornet and flugelhorn with the Black Dyke Mills Band and participated in the recording of ‘Thingumybob’, who in turn paid tribute to the band’s conductor Geofffrey Brand who later took them on to win the World Championships.

At the time the band was sponsored by John Foster & Sons Ltd and the firm's name was added for a few years, including the McCartney recording, but was later dropped.

“Paul intended … ‘Thingumybob’ to be recorded for Apple Records who would release and promote the piece as a single. He not only asked Geoffrey Brand to expand his arrangement of ‘Thingumybob’ but to also create an arrangement for Yellow

Submarine which was to be the record’s B-side. Brand agreed to do so and arranged the latter tune as a march,” says Hall in his book.

Just three weeks later Paul McCartney was in Saltaire ready to record with the Black Dyke Mills Band at the Victoria Hall in Saltaire near Bradford.

“The session was booked for Sunday morning, 30 June. It had to be in the morning because we had a booking that same day to play in the afternoon at Thorne Park, near Doncaster,” recalls Clay. “We were booked to play twice, from 3pm to 5pm and from 7pm to 9pm. In those days before motorways it took at least an hour to get there from Saltaire and being a Sunday we anticipated it would be likely to be busy on the roads and delays highly likely, consequently we could not be late leaving.”

The actual recording gear used on the day was very simple: “A portable recording unit was used to tape our performances. Mr. Brand already knew which songs were to be performed: ‘Thingumybob’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’ and he had already arranged them for us and was going to be the conductor for the session, so once we had set up we were raring to go. I think ‘Yellow Submarine’ had been chosen as the B-side of the single because the cartoon film of the same name was being released later that year,” says Clay.

Peter Asher (brother of Jane) recalls in Hall’s book: “Paul was the producer, Paul was working with the musicians, telling the band how he wanted them to play ‘Thingumybob’. I was making sure that it was recorded properly.”

As far as John Clay recalls, “We recorded ‘Thingumybob’ about six or seven times but Paul was not satisfied with any of them. I think the problem was that because the hall was empty, there was too much echo. He wasn’t getting that full sound he was after.”

It was at this point that McCartney decided they should move to record outside on Exhibition Road to try for a good take in the open air. By now, of course, ‘word’ had got round Saltaire that there was a Beatle in the village.

There had been sightings and rumours but now it was fact for there, parked outside the Victoria Hall was McCartney’s chauffeur-driven black Rolls Royce.

“A Rolls Royce was something to behold in those days. We didn’t see many of those in Yorkshire and in itself it would have been something to see,” says Clay. “That it was Paul McCartney’s Rolls Royce and that he was there in person was something very special indeed.”

About 200 people, including at least 40 children, had assembled outside waiting to catch a glimpse of the Beatle. “Paul did not let this bother him and so we set up in the street and this time Paul was delighted. Finally he’d got the brass band sound on ‘Thingumybob’ for which he was searching. Outside we also cut our version of ‘Yellow Submarine’ and Paul got the children to participate: when he gave them the signal they had to shout out ‘Land Ahoy!’ and clap and whistle. You can hear them on the recording that was issued. We recorded both tunes two or three times each.”

John remembers that, “to add to the atmosphere on ‘Yellow Submarine’ some guests who were there that day were asked to join in. Our 2nd Horn player Kevin Wadsworth’s father Maurice played a ship’s bell. Alan Bailey, who played for the Fire Service Band, played klaxon and a homemade wind machine devised by Geoffrey Brand was operated by his son Michael.” The session went right to the wire, but finally it was done and dusted and everyone was happy. The band could not hang around, however, for almost as soon as the final take of ‘Yellow Submarine’ was in the bag they packed up very quickly and boarded the coach that was waiting to take them on their journey to Thorne Park.

Clay adds, “Paul later sent a letter of thanks to the band and we all received a 45 rpm record. I still have mine!”

The Songs the Beatles Gave Away by Colin Hall published by Great Northern Books is available from www.ypbookoffer.co.uk or Call 01274 735056