All language subtitles for McCartney The Hunt for the Lost Bass

This programme contains some
strong language

Hey, guys. How's it going?
OK. Right.

HUMMING: Do-do-do, do-do...

The Lost Bass! Yay!

It's a story. It is a story.
You know, it's a quite a thing.

Yeah. And this being my first bass

that I'd got in Hamburg,
um, all those years ago.

I had an attachment to it. You know,
it just went off into the universe.

You know, it's like,
"Where did it go?"

There must be an answer, you know?

Somebody's got it.

# Oh, darling

# Please believe me

# I'll never do you no harm

# Believe me when I tell you

# I'll never do you no harm

# Oh, darling

CROWD CHEERS

# Please believe me

# I'll never make it alone

# Believe me when I beg you, ooh!

# Don't ever leave me alone

# When you told me

# You didn't need me any more

# Well, you know, I nearly broke
down and cried

# When you told me

# You didn't need me any more

# Well, you know, I nearly fell down
and died. #

Fantastic, isn't it? And as you see,

you can see what's been written
in...

This was one of the main
places where they used

to sit and write songs.

They'd sneak, bunk off school,
come in here, eat some fried eggs.

There's a thing about fried eggs.

I don't know why. Everywhere...
If you go to Hunter Davies' story,

they're all eating fried eggs.

It must have been just
after the war.

They must have just loved fried
eggs.

LAUGHTER

This is where we used to live.

Our humble abode in Forthlin Road,
Allerton, Liverpool.

And this is where we used to live
as a little family.

And, uh, there's people out there.
What are they doing now?

That's why we left.

Lots of lovely memories.

Not enough of my mum
and the smells

that would have come from
the kitchen

when she did Sunday dinners.

She'd do off-cuts of lamb
or beef and sneak them in to us,

her little boys.

"Sh. Don't tell your dad. Sh."

See, whenever I talk about my mum,

it's always dangerous
because this is where she went from.

This is our kid's little room.

Yeah, I stopped them going in there
for many years,

because it
was too important to me

and my brother.

I was 12, my brother was 14,
and she died of cancer.

When you're 12 or 14,
you don't understand.

You have to get on with life.
It's... You have to survive.

And because Dad had been in

his own band, at
the back of his mind,

he always thought,
"Well, that was a way out."

And so he bought me a banjo

and my brother a guitar,
a Spanish guitar.

I took that out the back window.

Our kid was sitting
in the back garden,

lost, just miles
away with his guitar.

My brother was 14
in that photograph.

Beatlemania came six years later.

PAUL: If I'm in a not very good
mood,

a great thing to do is just take
a guitar.

Because you think about it,
you sort of hold it to you,

you know, a guitar, and it's kind
of comforting thing to do.

You go off into a little
room somewhere,

you know, on your own and tell

the guitar your troubles,
kind of thing.

It's like a cheap psychiatrist,
really.

And, uh, it turns round
and the guitar

sort of sends it back to you
and it comes back as a song somehow.

MUSIC: Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey
by the Beatles

Well, it started in Hamburg.

# Ah, Kansas City

# Going to get my baby
back home... #

You had gangsters, pimps.

You had prostitutes.

You had all you could imagine.

ARCHIVE: Hamburg is echoing to the
invasion

from the latest beat groups
from Britain who've taken over.

I heard the music through a window,
a cellar window.

I just wanted to see
that rock and roll music.

The next band came on
and that was The Beatles.

Paul came
up and I think he was the one

who talked to the audience first
because he could speak German.

"Hallo, wie geht es?

"Guten Tag, sir."

HE LAUGHS

It was really sweet.

I mean, they were young kids.
George was 17,

you know, and I was a little older
then, you know?

We became friends
and they came to the house.

They got great food.

Put them in the bathtub.

Because they didn't have any mother
or father to look after them.

It was a friendship. A friendship
grew up, you know?

ANSWERPHONE SPEAKS GERMAN

Oh, danke schon. Hey, Klaus.

Paul here, and trying to reach you

so we can have a nice
telephone conversation.

So I'll try again. Lots of love.

Bye-bye.

ANSWERPHONE BEEPS

Hmm.

He is still that same little Paul he
was when he was 19 years old.

You know, it's the same guy.

I'm a graphic designer.
I had the job to do the cover

on Revolver.

I'm a bass player,
but now I can't

play any guitar chords without
cramp,

this cramp...hand. I can't do a
fist.

Can't do a fist, you know?
It doesn't work.

It doesn't work.

Luckily enough,
I can still hold my pencil.

I'm going to do drawings of
the story of his bass.

I decided to start with the Top Ten.

That's the first time I actually saw
the bass.

RECORDING: Well, it's...
So what do you want to talk about?

We want to talk about you as the
bass player, really.

So I've got... You've got Paul's
guitar.

And next to it,
Stuart Sutcliffe's guitar.

And... PAUL: My bass guitar

days go back to
when Stuart was the bass player.

Stu had fallen in love
with this girl called Astrid.

Stu decided he was going to stay
in Hamburg,

and so that meant we didn't have
a bass player,

and John and George said,
"Well, I'm not doing it."

So that left me.

RECORDING: Eventually then, I found
a nice little shop

in the centre of Hamburg,

and I saw this bass in the window,

the violin-shaped bass,
the Hofner.

I don't think it was very expensive,
something like about £30.

Then once I got my own bass,
then I was the bass player.

GUITAR STRUMS, INDISTINCT CHATTER

I remember it was the last day

the band played in the Top Ten Club,

and Stuart, it was his last night
of playing.

And we were sitting outside.
The sun was shining.

I think it was Sunday morning.

And we were all sitting there, being
all pretty stoned.

Stoned meaning Preludin.
Pills and stuff.

Talking, talking, talking.

John was sitting next to me

and I said,
"Well, Stuart isn't playing.

"I could play the bass."

And he said, "Oh, sorry, Klaus.
Paul already bought a bass.

"He's going to be the next
bass player."

PRODUCER: It could have been your
moment, Klaus.

You could have
become Beatle number five.

Yeah. All right.

I don't know. Anyway,
I don't even want to think about it.

I lived in Hamburg through my
brother's letters.

Suddenly they came back one day
and he had that Hofner.

It's so unique.

We were the roadies.

I probably held that bloody thing.

And then our kid got a
Ford Classic.

Looked cool.

ENGINE REVS

And their music then...

..you know, going to The Cavern...

..the difference was unbelievable.

It was like,
"Whoa. How...? What happened?"

We knew we were going somewhere.

We always felt
that we had something.

Then you've got John Lennon.

You know, he was a very witty cat.

With me, he could hold his own.

With George, who was, like,
spectacular.

And then finish it all
up with Ringo.

So we had a kind of magic.

# Some other guy now has taken
my love away from me, oh now

# Some other guy now has taken away
my sweet desire, oh now

# Some other guy now, I just don't
want to hold my hand, oh now

# I'm the lonely one, as lonely as I
can feel all right

# Some other guy... #

I'm the least
technical person you'll meet.

So I don't know what I do.

I just play with it.

It's a lovely instrument to play,

and it's kind of easy to play.

And so I got, I got very used to it
and loved it.

CHEERING

# Close your eyes
and I'll kiss you

# Tomorrow, I'll miss you

# Remember I'll always be true. #

This Hofner bass really
suited Paul's style of playing.

It's very rhythmical,

but at the same time it's very,
very melodic.

# All my lovin' to you

# I'll pretend that I'm kissing

# The lips I am missing... #

ISOLATED BASS BOUNCES

You can hear in lots of songs
that the songs are very,

very simple and the bass

does more movement than
any other instrument.

# And I'll send all my lovin'
to you... #

I'm a big fan of James Jamerson,

who was the Motown bass player.

Because normally bass is...

IMITATES PLODDING BASSLINE

But he was going...
IMITATES MORE MELODIC BASSLINE

I was going, wow, that's a great
way to use the bass.

# All my lovin'... #

That set me free. I was like,
"Great.

"OK, I can make up melodies."

So as the guys were doing
the main song,

I would just try

and put something imaginative
behind it.

And it was a great feeling. I mean,
I still remember it the moment -

bingo.

# I will send to you. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

MUSIC: Day Tripper
by the Beatles

# Got a good reason... #

The first time I was aware of
the Beatles,

I'd have been about nine years old.

My clear memory of that is seeing
them

on the 6 o'clock television news,

when all the girls

were screaming outside the cinemas
and that kind of thing.

They were playing electric guitars.

And let's face it, you know,
electric guitars are so sexy.

My mother would have thought it not

the right thing to have
an electric guitar.

That was for bad boys, you know?

Years later, I was the

electric guitar manager with Hofner,

a small German guitar company.

Subsequently, I've met Paul
McCartney.

It was at his studio,
down south in England.

He just walked in and said,
"Oh, hello, you're Mr Hofner.

"Do you know where my old Hofner's
gone?"

And I knew
what he meant straight away.

"My old Hofner" - he meant the '61
bass.

# And I found out... #

ENGINE REVS

We'd been looking for my old bass
for years, but that's

what happened with Nick.

I started talking about it
and just saying,

"Yeah, we're looking for it.

"I don't know if we'll
ever find it."

And of course, I had to say to him,
you know,

I've got no idea where it's gone.

It's all a bit of a mystery.

It's the most important bass
of any bass ever, anywhere.

In terms of anybody actually

totally associated with
an instrument,

yeah, McCartney and the Hofner bass.

There's just something
in the soul of the two of them.

Here's the old Hofner factory
down in Bavaria.

It's still standing.

Poor old place.

And it was here, in these premises,

that they built
the bass all those years ago.

That moment, that turn in history...

..you almost had to be there,
really,

to feel the electricity in the air.

SOUND OF CHEERING

I was probably bored on a wet
Wednesday,

I designed and put up the web
page on the on the Hofner website.

The usual sort of things - if you've
got any information, email us.

And I think Cathy came up with

the name #TraceTheBass

with the hashtag on the front.

Yes. I think it was you,
was it? It was me.

Well, there you are - genius.
It's catchy.

Very catchy. It's good.
Genius, you see.

#TraceTheBass.

The whole of our marriage,
you know, for the last 20-odd years,

Cathy's just supported me with one
lunatic scheme after another,

you know? And she used to be
a bank manager, you see,

so she's good at filing stuff.

We talked about it endlessly.
Endlessly. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't think there was one purpose
in searching for the bass.

There was 100 million fans out there
who I knew would be

thrilled to bits to know
that this thing had come back.

So it was for everybody,
not just Paul.

# She loves you,
yeah, yeah, yeah... #

I was in Liverpool so I could go
every game

that I could afford to go to.

27,000 people used to be on the Kop.

And very emotional sound.

# Pride can hurt you, too
Apologise... #

Among the many things I memorised
before I picked up an instrument

were the harmony parts.

I can't sing in Paul's register now,
but I could then,

when I was a kid!

# And you know you
should be glad... #

Ooh!

And we would
cut out cardboard likenesses of

the guitars we liked

and draw the controls on them,

and then mime along with records.

It was a perfect apprenticeship
for being on Top Of The Pops.

You know, pretending to play.

The hardest thing was to make
a Hofner bass,

because you needed a longer piece
of cardboard for the neck.

This is like when I'm nine
or something you know?

# Be glad
Ooh!

# She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

# She loves you,
yeah, yeah, yeah... #

Well, the thing about the Hofner

is it's very lightweight,
which is great.

It makes it easier to play.

So that was the one on all the early
Beatles records.

It was a very rich period -

for music, for us,

particularly for making records.

# Yeah, yeah, yeah

# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. #

That bass was used an enormous
amount

and it started to fall to bits.

And we don't know when -

again, because all the records are
long gone -

they ordered another Hofner bass.

We think it gets delivered

into his hand on October 4th, 1963.

They did a gig on an old TV
programme called Ready Steady Go!

And there's pictures of him
at rehearsal

and pictures of him actually

doing the performance to camera,
and both basses are there.

He's got the '61 from Hamburg -

it has two pickups close together.

And he's got this new one.

They've moved this pickup
down to near the bridge.

And in some of the shots, he's got
the new one and he's holding it up

and it hasn't even got
a strap on it.

So we're kind of concluding

that it arrived that very day.

And the '61 gets put
on backup duties, poor thing.

Within a couple of months of that,
the February,

they're playing in front
of 70 million people in the USA.

# I read the news today
Oh, boy

# About a lucky man
who made the grade

# And though the news was rather
sad... #

Meanwhile,
the '61 bass is away being repaired.

# But I just had to look... #

Our roadie, Mal, took it off

and brought it back like new,

but with a completely
different paint job on it.

When it returned,

it had been completely resprayed
and it came back

with what's now called
a three-part sunburst,

which is more or less black, red,
yellow.

It's very distinctive
when you look at this bass now.

RISING DISCORDANT STRINGS

For me, the whole charm of
that instrument was gone.

I don't know how Paul
feels about it.

I think he was a bit pissed off,
too.

# Woke up, fell out of bed

# Dragged a comb across my head

# Found my way downstairs
and drank a cup

# And looking up
I noticed I was late

# Found my coat and grabbed my hat

# Made the bus in seconds flat

# Found my way upstairs and
had a smoke

# And somebody spoke
and I went into a dream... #

Coming from a look point
of view, I think the '63 is nicer.

Maybe even better. Better pickups,

better sound, louder. Whatever.

He's very singular. He played

that '63 bass then continuously

and you never see him playing
the '61. You know,

he didn't swap and change
between the two or anything.

They went back to America in 1965.

The '61 is being used
as a backup but not played.

At Shea Stadium,
if you look really careful,

you see Ringo up on the drum riser.

Just down below Ringo on the back of
the amp, there's the bass.

You have to look very eagle eyed,
but it's there.

What happened to it
after that is a mystery.

It's just luck and a lot of sort of

peering at grainy old
black-and-white pictures.

# Jojo left his home in Tucson,
Arizona... #

The only time you see it again,

you have to wait till a quick
shot of it

by the coffee table
in the Let It Be sessions.

And then we don't see it any more.

It's just not around.

# Get back, get back

# Get back to where you once

# Get back. #

The event is so momentous
that historians may one day view it

as a landmark in the decline of the
British Empire.

The Beatles are breaking up.

And when they split up, I mean
all the rancour starts - you know,

the lawyers are in
and it was chaotic.

There were guitars here,
there were guitars there

and nobody was really taking care
of stuff.

This is the remarkable thing, it's

from the end of the Beatles,
nobody had ever seen this bass.

It just wasn't there any more.

I was never able
to establish any firm basis

as to when it disappeared.

I put my hand up absolutely and say,

I started this from nowhere,
not knowing how to do it.

So I was kind
of a bit handicapped, I suppose -

as green as a cabbage as well.

RISING DISCORDANT STRINGS

It had got to the point
where it needed somebody

better than me
to start poking about.

FINAL SUSTAINED PIANO CHORD

It was June 2022 and I was watching

Paul McCartney
headline at Glastonbury.

But there was one moment in the show
where the stage just went black,

apart from one light
just picking out Paul's Hofner bass.

And it just caught the varnish
and the wood and everything.

It was almost like shining like gold
for this split second.

And I thought,

"Is that the original Hofner bass?"

And so I googled it and saw
that it wasn't - the original bass

that he'd got in 1961 was lost.

And I instantly started googling

to see and find out more about
that story.

But in terms of an investigation
and then thinking,

"I want to find this thing,"
I thought,

"Well, if no-one else is doing
that and that guitar

"is so important, we need to do it."

Who do you mean by we?

Me and my wife - we work together.

And we convinced ourselves

that we may not find the bass,

but we'd find stories
about the bass.

We'd find
what the bass meant to people.

You know,
that sort of Beatlemania fan thing.

By July 2023, I'd seen
that Hofner

over in Bavaria had ran a search

and I was really curious to find out
what they know.

So I wrote this very polite email
to introduce myself,

thinking he was German
and being conscious of the sort of

the English language
that I was using.

And then within 24 hours, I realised
that Nick was from London

and he was on the end of the phone
and we were talking like old mates.

And I thought, "Oh, my God,
these are exactly the people

"I've been looking for for a long
time."

We got together and I said,

"Scott, well, look, I've got a lot
of emails,"

and I passed him the lot over
for him to read

and get a sense of
what we were dealing with then.

All of these leads that came in,
you knew it was people

that had lived with this story
for a long, long time.

It's just that it was, it was wrong.

"A man claiming he had one of
Paul's guitars walked into

"a pawn shop in Las Vegas
called the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop

"to sell it. There's a television
programme called the Pawn Stars,

"where it was aired. Hope it helps."

"I definitely saw the bass
in an auction of music equipment

"in the mid '80s in London.

"It sold for £100 to a
music rental studio company."

"I've heard that the bass is in
Japan

"in the possession
of a Japanese banker."

This information was given me to
a guy that knows the Beatles

and the Beatles gear website well.

I had this vision of,

I used to say to people,
I know what's happened.

Some German guy,
rich German guy, has nicked it,

and he's got a big castle
in the Bavarian mountains,

and he invites you up. And then,
after a few drinks, he says,

"Come, I show you something
special."

And there, over the mantelpiece,

is hanging my bass.

So it's a treasure hunt.

But also people love the Beatles

and love Paul McCartney
and wanted to help.

THEY PLAY DAY TRIPPER

# She's a big teaser

# She took me half
the way there... #

I've always admired Paul McCartney
as a bass player.

He made the bass guitar cool.

Beatle fans know that the bass
disappeared

and no-one knows where it's gone.

So, um, it'd be amazing
if somebody ever did find it.

Because that's history,
isn't it? It's history.

# Day tripper

# Day tripper, yeah... #

Yeah. Ever since I can remember
I've been a Beatles fan.

There's only ever been one band for
me, I think.

First time I ever opened
the Sgt. Pepper's,

and you opened it up,
and they've all got moustaches.

And I thought, "When I get older,
I want to have a moustache,"

you know?

HE LAUGHS

So I bought it second-hand.
Only paid £80 for it,

which is not much more
than Paul paid for his, probably.

Can you play anything on it?

A little bit of Day Tripper but...

APPROXIMATION OF BASSLINE

Only a little bit!

I need a plectrum.

HE LAUGHS

I've always wanted to play
the guitar.

I've tried for years
and I thought it might be easier

to play bass
because there's only four strings.

It's a Vox.

The Vox. You have to have a Vox,
don't you,

if you have a Beatles bass?

Oh, no. After all that, mate,
it's broken.

Cut!

NOTE RINGS OUT

It works.

HE PLAYS DAY TRIPPER

That's it.

Got there in the end. Yeah.

Practice makes perfect, doesn't it?

HE LAUGHS

# One-way ticket, yeah

# It took me so long to find out

# And I found out... #

RIFF BLARES

School drop-off time, innit?

I work for the Ambulance Service.

I've been doing it 23 years now.

So I'm on the
patient transport side.

So it's all non-emergency.

There's a guy, Steve, I work with,
he's a lovely guy.

Known him for two, three years,

so we always have a good laugh
when we're crewing up together.

You know, we bounce off each other
quite nicely.

I'm always looking online
for guitars and things.

And I think I just - might have been
by accident -

went on to the Hofner website, saw
that Nick Wass was looking for it.

And that was like the,
yeah, the Holy Grail for me.

It was, you know,
like finding the Bible,

trying to find Paul
McCartney's bass.

You know,
if you're a fan, that's like, wow.

Well, I was with Steve one day
and I said,

"Well, I've still got a bass
that's a bit like Paul McCartney's."

And he just sort of said,
"I think I know where that is."

You know.

And I said, "You're joking,
aren't you?" You know.

So I just said to him, I said,

"I've got an idea
where that might be, you know."

And he sort of looked at me
and I went...

.."Right, I'm going
to tell you something.

"I don't know if it's
right or proper,

"but I'm going to tell you
something.

"It's only a story I've heard."

He said, "Where?" So I said,
"Well, it don't matter where,"

I said, "but...I think it
was nicked from a house in London."

So I said, "Steve,
can I tell the story?

"Can I tell Nick what
little bit you've told me?"

I said, "Don't put my name on it."

"No," he said, "what we'll do,"
he said, "I'll email it in and say

"it's a story that someone told us

"on the back of the ambulance -
a patient."

I mean, the emails were quite mixed,
if I'm honest.

One of them in particular was from

these two guys
who are a crew on an ambulance,

and they told me this bullshit story
about having

a client in the back of the
ambulance, as they described it...

A patient?

Yeah, but I think they call it
client now, don't they?

Who'd given them some story about

the fact
that the bass had been stolen.

And that it had been given to a guy

in a pub up at Ladbroke Grove,
London.

And I thought,
"Yeah, a bit more bullshit."

But I wrote a polite reply,

"That sounds like a really good
book -

"Tales from the
Back of an Ambulance."

And I left it there.

I had a call from the news editor

at the Telegraph looking for
stories, and I said,

"Well, look, we're looking
for Paul McCartney's lost bass."

And the minute I said it,

Ben commissioned the story
on the spot.

The story in The Telegraph went live
on the 2nd of September.

It was a Saturday. It was around
about 4 o'clock online.

Within minutes,
the BBC were in touch.

They said they wanted us
on BBC Breakfast.

Well, delighted to say
We're joined now by Nick Wass,

who is a Hofner
and lost bass expert,

and he's provided Paul McCartney

with many of his iconic
instruments...

Lots of interviews and radio station
interviews...day and night.

I realised why being famous
must be absolutely awful.

The difference with the lost bass is

Paul McCartney had it refinished
in 1964,

and the two pickups are now mounted
in a big black piece of wood here.

But I think you've shown your
audience

some pictures of what we're after.

Yeah. This is it. Yeah.

And the thing is,

it is distinctive
and it should be identifiable.

CONTINUES FAINTLY: Yeah. But, of
course, it may have been destroyed

somewhere along the line.
It may have just been chucked away.

It could have been taken
by someone at the Apple offices.

We just don't know, do we?

No, we don't know.
This is the problem.

Um, it was put away,

presumably, after they
finished filming Get Back.

And after that,
nobody has any clear idea of

what happened.

Where it was actually stored...

It might be there.
We're just not clear about...

Well, I really wish you luck
on your search,

because I think it's a wonderful
story, Nick.

In the first 24 hours,

we must have had more than a dozen
major newspapers

and radio and TV stations on -

NBC in America and The New York
Times and Le Monde.

Le Monde... Der Spiegel in Germany.

Yeah. And it just went on and on.

And then TV channels
that we'd never,

ever heard of were getting in touch

from Brazil and other places. Yeah!

TV CHATTER PLAYS

We thought that we'd almost plugged
into

that spirit of the Beatles. Yeah.

You know, we thought
that we had connected with

that positive vibe around

peace and love and the band

and what the music meant to people.

We got 600 emails
in the first 48 hours,

and the emails were just
landing and landing and landing.

That's when the journalists
in us took over

and we started to pick out
what could be really important.

# I heard the news today
Oh, boy

# About a lucky man
who made the grade... #

When we read Ian Horne's email,

we knew instantly
that we had to speak to Ian.

# I just had to laugh... #

And Ian's lead was the only lead
that said,

"I know Paul McCartney." Yeah.

And it was the only lead

that said, "I worked for
Paul McCartney."

After he broke up with the Beatles,
we met up.

I think Paul
was definitely getting back

in the saddle, I'd call it,
which was a big step

because I think he hid away
for a while.

Yeah, you know,
it was very depressing,

you know, because you were
breaking from your lifelong friends.

You weren't going to see them again.

It was depressing.

And not knowing whether I was going
to continue in music.

Suddenly I wasn't having
a good time. It wasn't working.

It was Linda who sort of said,

you know, you just, you've got to
get it together

and we've got to do something.

So we ended up, um, forming Wings.

I knew that, if I kept playing
Beatles songs,

which I knew people wanted,

then I would become
a Beatles tribute band.

I thought,
maybe that's not the greatest look.

He was experimenting with things
he hadn't done before.

He had a Yamaha bass, a Fender bass.

LAUGHS: So he went through all the
basses people are playing, you know.

# And all the people

# Say that people must be free

# But meanwhile

# Back in Ireland

# There's a man who
looks like me... #

We went on the road.
Boy, did we go on the road.

Tell us about it.
I mean, well, cos the thing is,

you know, normally, you go on the
road, at least you book hotels.

You know, anyone books hotels.

But we decided to really just
busk the whole thing.

So we had a tranny and we just
headed off up the motorway.

We had the kids, a couple of dogs,
a whole group.

All our instruments. Oh, there was,
there was a U-Haul

following behind
with the roadies.

And we literally turned up
at universities and stuff.

We turned
up at Nottingham University,

was the first one, and we said...

In fact,
WE didn't - I didn't say anything.

I stayed in the van.

THEY LAUGH

One of the lads - Ian Horne,
actually- went in.

"I've got Paul McCartney
out in the van,

"do you want him on
lunchtime tomorrow?"

"Really?" They come out
in the van to sort of check.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, we'll have him."

# Give Ireland back to the Irish

# Make Ireland Irish today... #

All right, Henry.

GUITAR SOLO

He was loving it,
being back in the saddle.

And he never played the Hofner,
as far as I know. It was around.

Still lugging it around from place
to place?

Yeah, but maybe that's more me than
him.

Me thinking, "If he asks for it,
I've got it."

We'd just finished the university
tour

and we were recording
an album called Red Rose Speedway.

Well, on this particular day,

we'd been in the studio.
We didn't leave till quite late,

so we drove back to Trevor's. Yeah,

Trevor's my brother-in-law.

He was my assistant.

So we had a truck full of gear,

which we had the Hofner bass,
acoustic guitars, some amplifiers.

I couldn't park at Trevor's
because opposite

Trevor's house was a school,

so it was restricted parking.

Just went up the road a bit,
turned right

and there's a T-junction there,

which is Cambridge Gardens.

There's a parking place
right on the edge, so I thought,

I'll put it there, with the back
of the truck visible to everybody.

Basically, I had a big
heavy-duty padlock on the back.

It was a roller shutter on the back.

So I felt fairly secure.

I walked back to Trevor's
and we went to sleep.

And then, of course, in the morning,
the nightmare began.

You could see that the padlock
was off and I went,

"Oh, God."

You know, a cold sweat.

So I throw the roller door up...

..and immediately notice there's
stuff missing, you know?

Uh,
which was a couple of amplifiers,

two guitars,
including the Hofner bass.

I was beside myself with worry

and anger and pain.

Right opposite
where the truck is,

so the back of the truck's there
and it's 100 Cambridge Gardens.

At the time, it seemed kosher.

But all these hippies and people
that lived around

Lancaster Road and Cambridge Gardens

in these squat houses.

There were a lot of musicians.

You know,
obviously, thieves amongst them.

And...Trevor thought it was this guy
Dik Mik, who was a bit iffy,

you know. Why? I don't know why,
really.

He flagged him up.
I didn't flag anyone.

I did feel it was one of that mob,

because they all knew
we worked for Paul.

And so, you know, we sort of
got tooled up in case it got nasty.

So, wait, hang on -
in case what got nasty?

I decided we'd go and check this guy
out

so we could end this thing there.

So we went in there,
quite threatening behaviour.

Dik Mik was still in bed
but he was shitting himself.

We looked round - no stuff.

And, eventually, you know, we had
to go to Paul and tell him the news.

Knock on the door
and he comes to the door.

"The truck's been broken into
and the Hofner bass has been stolen

"and a few other things."

And I sort of took a deep breath
and stood there thinking,

"Well,
what's going to come back at me?"

And he was absolutely amazing.
He just turned round and he said,

"It's all right, Ian,
I've got another one."

I had a feeling in me -
did he think I've done it?

So we rang the police.

And the police didn't seem
that bothered.

I think all the papers
used to have contacts in the police.

Their friends on the news desk,

maybe they'd get a small payment -
that's the way it used to work.

So in this particular case,

the Standard had got a tip-off
that this had happened,

but they didn't know very much
about it, or even if it was true.

Obviously,
the best person to confirm

whether a guitar
of his had been stolen would be him.

I set off for his house and I didn't

feel very comfortable
about doing this.

I didn't think that this was the
kind of journalism

I really wanted to do.

And I thought that, if he did come
out,

he's going to tell us to fuck off.

HE LAUGHS

Probably an hour passed,

standing around in the road,
chatting to the photographer.

Suddenly,
without any warning,

a wooden gate swung open
and there was Paul.

I can clearly remember his first
words were,

"What do you want, boys?"

And the first
question I think I asked him,

first of all to confirm
that the guitar had been taken,

and he said it had
so that confirmed the story.

And he confirmed
that it was the original one

that he'd bought back in Hamburg,

which I knew about
because I followed the Beatles.

So then I suddenly realised

that I was actually
in the middle of a very big story.

The most famous
or iconic instrument

of that era had been stolen and I
was talking to the guy who owned it.

And he was quite happy,
happy to chat about it.

He posed for pictures
for the photographer,

and I think we probably spoke
for maybe four or five minutes.

Um, and at that stage,

our presence has started
to get noticed.

A small crowd of people had started
to gather,

so he politely thanked us,

and closed the gate
and went back into the house.

This was the first time I had met
a Beatle.

The Beatles' music has enriched my
life enormously,

and I just kind of felt - maybe this
sounds a little bit sycophantic -

but I just really felt
that I would like to have said,

"Can I just thank you
for everything you've done?

"I think your music's great.

"It's something which will stay
with me forever."

Just something like that,
just a thank you.

I think that would have been nice,

but I was in a rush
and I never got to do that.

Paul had given a quote
to a newspaper at the time.

And so we thought
that you would remember

that or you'd remember,
you know, it was his favourite bass,

it had been stolen.

Nick was scratching his head
as to why he hadn't been told,

that that information
hadn't been passed on.

I have to presume
that he'd forgotten.

I mean, this is a guy who's
actually done quite a lot, isn't it?

You know, he's been a few places
and around,

so it may well have
just not registered with him.

I don't know.

There has been a report recently
that you have said

that you might get back with
the Beatles. Is this true?

No, I wouldn't think so.

I don't think any of us fancy it,
to tell you the truth.

Perhaps the bass wasn't
as important to Paul in 1972

as it was to him when he asked Nick
to start the search.

I think, in a way, the Beatles have
done it, you know?

The Beatles started
from nothing and got everywhere.

The thing is, you know, I don't know
whether anyone really would even

like to even try
and push it any further, you know?

The Hofner was a Beatle bass,
and he wasn't a Beatle any more.

And I don't blame him, you know.

Those guys had had a hell of a life.

For all their fame and their money,
they'd had a hell of a time.

I think the Hofner was part of
that time,

and they just wanted it gone.

Ian thought that the bass
had gone into 100 Cambridge Gardens.

So we were interested to find out
more about this character,

Dik Mik, that at that time

certainly Trevor suspected
and Ian did as well.

Dik Mik was a roadie
and he'd been a weed dealer.

And we were able to find that,
in the basement flat

of 100 Cambridge Gardens,

a band called Hawkwind

and a lot of members of the band
called the Pink Fairies lived.

That's a good girl.

Trevor and Ian, they were both
very good friends of mine.

It was the next day

when I saw Trevor and he just
said, "Fuck."

He says, "Paul's bass got stolen
out of the van last night,

"outside Cambridge Gardens."

I said, "What?!"

They said, keep your ears peeled
and, you know,

see if there's any word coming out
or any word on the street or...

Dik Mik - who was Dik Mik?

Dik Mik was one of the people
in the original Hawkwind.

Dik Mik was, unfortunately,

most of the time
out of his head on Mandrax.

But he could have
been outside blagging away

or leaning against the van
or whatever,

having a smoke, you know,

and somebody could have said,
"Oh, whose van's that?"

"Oh, it's Wings' van,"
you know.

I heard reports
of Hawkwind's gear going missing,

but that's only the tip of
the iceberg.

The whole dynamic around

Hawkwind is,
you know, somewhat troubled.

In May 1972,

Hawkwind had had £10,000 worth
of kit stolen from THEIR van.

In old newspaper searches,
we found out that they'd been banned

from the BBC because they'd stolen
a microphone.

I think, didn't they write a song
that was sort of anti-the Beatles?

They were anti-the Beatles.

They were anti-the Beatles,
so they felt quite anarchic.

It felt like Hawkwind had a motive,

and it also felt like they
had the personality to go and do it.

Ladbroke Grove was...pretty funky.

You know, there was the hippies,

there was the, all the people
who had the fruit and veg stalls.

But a lot of thugs
showed up on Portobello Road,

and that's when things started
to go downhill. You know,

rougher
and people started injecting.

People started getting stuff stolen.

Paul Rudolph described a place with
a lot of poverty,

a lot of people really clinging on,

that it wasn't a big deal

for something to be stolen out of
the back of a van.

It happened all the time.

The bass did feel like that's the
last place on earth

it should really be.

Which is a long, long way

from these dark, poorly lit streets.

You know, lots of political banners
written on bedsheets

sort of hanging out the windows,

anarchists and theft.

To picture the bass
in the middle of all of

that makes you feel like
this little thing is out there...

It does feel very vulnerable. ..that
desperately needs saving. Yeah.

But then a penny dropped.

I thought, "Ah." I got an email
about six months

before this from a guy talking about
the bass being stolen

in Ladbroke Grove.

So I naturally
went and dug back through

the pile of emails and found it.

It was from a guy called
Andrew - Andrew Dickinson.

And so, yeah, I contacted him and
said,

look, you know,
something's occurred.

We didn't tell them what, but that
further information's arisen,

can they tell me more?

I didn't think we were going
to hear any more, to be honest.

You know,
it was a very small story to tell.

Whereabouts are you struggling?
Oh, just my neck.

It's like really digging in hard,
you know?

Yeah. I think he was using his elbow
or something.

I think they do a lot
with their elbow. Yeah.

Dig in, you know.
Did you get a happy ending?

No. No.
No, I didn't fancy it.

VOICE-OVER: I got back to
Steven's and said,

"This Nick, he's emailed me again."

Next time. Yeah.

I think, uh, you know,
it's your story to tell,

do you want to, um, get involved
and say a little bit more?

Oh, God. Straight away, I thought,

I've opened my mouth here and he's
not going to let this go now.

What I didn't want to come out
was our first house

was just off of Ladbroke Grove,

not far from Grenfell Tower.

It was quite a carousel
of people coming and going, really.

I think I was made aware of

who you could talk to
and where you could go.

You had boundaries

of where you could go
and where you couldn't go.

So there was only so many people

you were likely to get to meet
or likely to get to see.

Dad had a couple of jobs.

He played a lot of football

Saturdays and Sunday mornings.

Dad's mates, they would always tell
me how good my dad was

as a semi-pro footballer.
Because he was good, Dad.

And there was a pub, um,

it's called The Admiral Blake,

And that's
where they all used to congregate,

my dad and his mates.

So occasionally
I'd get taken across.

It was a good place,
it was a good source of information.

It was a good source of recreation.

It was just a good way
of socialising

and getting around and getting to
know what was going on

and who was doing what
around the area and stuff like that.

And there was racketeering going on
and people going around.

And if you want a garden fork
or a spade,

there's a couple in the back of

that lorry that no-one knows
are there, if you want that.

If you couldn't get rid of it
or you hadn't sold it,

take it out at the pub -
someone will have it off you.

Someone, you know,
will buy it off you.

Because obviously I wasn't
always crewed up with him, so I was

getting little bits of information

here, there and everywhere,
you know.

So it got to a stage where,
when I was looking at the rota,

I was like, "Oh, no,
I'm working with him again.

"I know what's coming here."

HE PLAYS SNIPPET OF DAY TRIPPER

I'm just going to have to try and
muddy the waters a little bit here,

because he's not going to let it go.

He'd heard that it had been stolen

from the road that they were in.

They sold it to the barman
in the pub,

and then they'd sort of dumped it
in the canal.

Just because they knew it was
Paul McCartney's

and they'd never be able to
get rid of it.

We got an A to Z out the van.

I said, "That was the pub.

"So there's the canal there,
so I'm assuming there."

So he said, "So whereabouts do you
think?"

I said, "Andy, I don't know.
I wasn't there,

"so I have no idea."
I said, "But that's the canal."

I said, "If I lived in that pub,

"I would have walked over that
bridge and just lobbed it there."

And then he said, "Do you reckon
we could get a boat

"and go and find it?"
I said, "No.

"No," I said, "I don't think we can

"go and get a boat and go and find
it."

I think Andrew...replied to me,
saying

he would ask his partner. And it's
then I get an email from Steve.

NAOMI: Now we had a strong lead -

it's been stolen
and it went on to this pub.

The email had said that it
had been thrown into the canal.

SCOTT: That was quite a low point,
really. It was almost like,

you know, the body of the guitar

had been dumped into
the water there.

And I remember feeling

that the result isn't
what we wanted,

but we might actually have a story
now,

that we know
where Paul McCartney's bass is.

But sadly, it's at the bottom of
that canal

and probably gone forever.

Three, four.

# My... #

My manager at the time got a call
from Paul's manager at the time.

"Richard wants you to go
down to work with Paul."

I said, "You're kidding."
It was like, you know,

I was 33, I think,
when we started doing that.

He wasn't calling
up an eight-year-old kid

who was in the fan club.

One, two, three, four.

# My brave face... #

We got off to a flying start,
you know.

# Unaccustomed as I am... #

And we just recorded
with two guitars and vocals

and it was good fun.

# ..didn't hit back

# I've been doin' the rounds... #

There's a version
of me singing My Brave Face

where I'm singing lead

so Paul could fly around
on the bass.

And he's doing all these moves
that I...

But I never felt like I could
hear the voice.

LAUGHS: # Tell anybody
when I'm gonna get back... #

Because this bass was just too...

It was too big sounding.

At some point I asked the
whereabouts of the Hofner and...

..it suddenly appeared.

Elvis Costello said,
"What about your Hofner bass?

"You know, your violin bass,
the Beatle bass?"

And I was saying,
"Well, I can try it,

"but it's not very good at
keeping in tune,"

which it isn't because they're
not very expensive instruments.

So I had given up
recording with it, really,

in favour of more
sort of modern instruments.

But he said, "Oh, but I love
the sound of it," you know, "Go on."

But it wasn't the lost
bass, the '61 bass.

This was his '63.

But I think at that point, he,

things changed for Paul.

# Ever since you left
I have been trying to compose

# A "Baby, will you please come
home?" note meant for you... #

And it recorded great.

It's got a lovely tone for a little,
little bass.

# My brave, my brave,
my brave face... #

Honestly, I felt vindicated
when I heard the part.

You could hear his personality
really clearly,

and it had the tone.
It had the tone.

It was like...like somebody singing,
you know?

# Face. #

CHEERING

Elvis Costello suggested
bringing out the '63.

Maybe that kind of like,
he might have thought,

"Yeah, what happened?"
Maybe that's when the whole

conversation sort of started up
again about -

where is the original one?

By the time we got to '89, '90,
when we were about to embark on big,

massive world tour and Paul said,

"What are people going to want
to...?"

You know, "They're going to come to
a gig, what are they going to want?"

They're going to want Beatles.

They're going to want some big,
big moments.

# Close your eyes and I'll kiss
you... #

CHEERING

# Tomorrow, I'll miss you

# Remember, I'll always be true

# And then while I'm away

# I'll write home every day

# And I'll send
all my loving to you... #

SONG CONTINUES FAINTLY

Paul's quite nostalgic about things.

They're important to him.

Not maybe in a collectable way,

but just emotionally

and they're part of his history
and they're part of his life.

And he... And he...

Yeah, he probably missed the bass.

He just wanted it back.

Yeah, well, I think anything
that's nicked, you want back.

You know, especially
if it has a sentimental attachment.

Plus, I was annoyed
that someone nicked it.

You know, it's just like, "How dare
you? Give me it back," you know?

SCOTT: Very often in investigations,
there's a breakthrough moment

where you're effectively
given something on a plate.

NAOMI: Who's Steven? Who's this
person?

And how does he know so much
about the theft of this guitar?

I made an inquiry about

the residents of
100 Cambridge Gardens.

So who was on
the electoral register?

And I just remember reading through

the list of names,

and we got to the name Glenister.

Oh, my God. His parents are on

the electoral register
in 100 Cambridge Gardens.

We was on holiday in Spain
and my phone went.

"Is that Steve Glenister?" "Yeah."

"It's Nick Wass from The Lost Bass."

I said, "Oh, right, hi.
You all right?"

He said, "Um...

"..I think you know a little
bit more than you're letting on.

"Are you prepared
to say anything?"

I said, "Not really. I don't know
anything other than I told you."

And he said, "Well, I think you do."

I knew I had to ask him the question
and say to him,

"Look, Steve, just tell me
what happened.

"You know, I know you know,

"because you wouldn't have sent me
all this stuff.

"And I know you were in the house.
Just tell me what happened."

My dad used to come and watch
me play football a lot.

He was never complimentary
about the way I played.

There was always something
I could have done better and that.

So we was coming home one day

and I had the radio on in the car.

How old do you think you are
at this point?

I may have just had the kids,
so mid 20s, something like that.

This song come on. I just said,

"Oh, it's The Beatles.
I like these."

And it was...
I done it more.

The louder the radio was,
the less he could talk.

And I was getting a bit
fed up with it all now,

so I just sort of turned the radio
up.

And he said, um...

He said, "Did I ever tell you
about that guitar, then?"

I said, "What guitar?"

He said, "The one -
Paul McCartney's guitar."

So I said, "No,"
and he started to laugh.

So I turned the radio down.

He said, "Um..."

Well, he said, "I nicked it."

I said, "What do you mean,
you nicked it?"

He said, "I didn't even know it was
the guitar."

He said, "I just opened this van
up."

He said, "When I realised what it
was, I thought, "Oh...

"..you know, it's Paul McCartney's.

"It's the obvious shape -
that proper-shaped guitar."

I can just imagine, bless him,
his face. "Ugh."

You've nicked the Mona Lisa,
what are you going to do with that?

You can't sell it. You know,
it's just one of those things.

It was that family
up on the top floor.

They were ignored
by Ian and Trevor on the day.

Nobody went with a wrench
to those people up on the top floor.

To be honest, they were ignored by
us... And they were ignored by us.

..in the early days of the search.
And that is perhaps one of the most

extraordinary things about
this whole story.

It got given to a pub landlord
who run The Admiral Blake.

The landlord at the time was a chap
called Ron.

He said, "I just said to Ron,
here you are, I'll tell you what,

"give this to one of your kids,
they can learn it."

He said,
"Just give us a couple of drinks."

I said, "Well..."
He said, "Well," he said...

He said, "He bought me a day's worth
of light ales."

So this guitar ended up with
Ron and I think one of his kids,

Graham, ended up with it.

It had gone to a pub landlord called
Ron Guest.

We knew that it had

then been passed on
to his son, Graham,

who unfortunately had died
in this terrible car crash.

But then we decided to look at
the other children,

and I was able to contact
Elaine Guest,

who was the youngest
of the children, and talked to her.

That's me on the roof with the two
dogs.

Because the roof was our garden.

I mean, I grew
up with Graham always having a bass.

I can't remember a time
when it suddenly appeared.

It was always Graham's bass.

He was just always playing.

You know, and he didn't mind

if I plonked myself
down and listened to it.

Where was it kept here?

Um, in the little bedroom.

You don't think he would have known
it was Paul McCartney's?

Definitely not!
Definitely not!

I mean, when you think about it,

who in their right minds would
buy a bass knowing it was

Paul McCartney's and then give it
to your son, who's going to take it

God knows where and somebody's going
to say,

"That's Paul McCartney's bass!"

But, no.

Do you wish you'd played it a bit
now?

Now I know whose it is, yes!

Were you into The Beatles?
No. No, no.

I always thought
The Beatles were like a girlie band.

After Graham had died,

her brother Haydn took the bass
from their family home.

Haydn got divorced in the 1990s

and then married someone else,
and then ended up in Hastings.

He left his wife and kids
and then got involved with somebody,

and that's hence why there's been
no communication at all.

From what I can gather,

the bass was just in the loft
in the house at Hastings.

We were in Los Angeles.
We were rehearsing, I think.

# Oh, yeah... #

And, um,
I got a phone call from a colleague,

said, "Somebody's turned
up at the farm

"with a bass
and they think it might

"be Paul's. This lost bass
that everybody's talking about

"all of a sudden." Cos it
had been in the press by then.

And she'd left some photos
and then took the bass back.

So I was emailed the photos

and I just had a feeling.
I could feel it.

I just thought, "Ooh, this is,
this is really interesting."

And the next day I was with Paul
in the morning

and I had my laptop
and we were about to leave

for the studio and I said,

"I've got something I need to talk
to you about."

And he thought it was something bad.

He said, "Oh, is it bad?"
I said, "No, it's NOT bad."

And I opened up my laptop
and I was shaking.

I was literally shaking.

The minute I saw the case,
it was, you know...

HE GASPS

Whoa!

"I've got it back.
Oh, my God."

And I'm checking it and I'm
thinking, "Well, yeah, that's it."

And you know, that's how it looked

and this is definitely the case.

And I remember carrying it
in that case.

So I organised for somebody to go
and pick it up.

And then I said, "Have you got it?"

And he said, "Yep, it's here."

I said, "Keep it.

"Don't let anybody...

"Don't... Just put it away."

# And in the end, the love you
take... #

LAUGHS: We've hardly let it
out of our sight!

# Is equal to the love

# You make... #

And I'm sitting at home on my sofa.

Cathy's sitting over there
and my mobile phone goes.

And this voice comes on and says,

"Hey, we've got the bass back.
We've got the bass."

And I'm thinking, "Who's that?
Who's this? Who are you?"

Then the penny dropped - the accent,
the Liverpool accent,

and I realised it was
Paul McCartney.

Well, we didn't quite know who to
tell. Um...

There were factors that meant we
should keep it a secret

for a bit longer
till we got our act together.

Till we've absolutely had
everyone verify that it was mine -

people like Nick. Um...

..so it was sweet to be able to ring
him up and say, "Guess what?"

It was stunning!

You know, it was like,
"Wow. What? Really?"

And I think I said to Paul,

"I think I'm going to go and get
a beer out of the fridge for this."

And he said, "I would."

He said, "Yeah, is it a German beer
like I used to drink in Hamburg?"

It was just amazing
cos I could hear Paul

on the phone to Nick
and it was just amazing.

That was incredible
for us to just sit here thinking

that Nick was in Germany,
Paul was in LA,

the bass was in Sussex

and we'd done it.

What happened
for me over the last year,

I've had two strokes,

which has certainly changed things
for our life.

And the bass has certainly lightened
that situation for us, I would say.

Yeah, sure - focuses the mind.

BIRDSONG

SOPHIE RAWORTH: Paul McCartney's
most treasured bass guitar

that he had played throughout

the early days of The Beatles
vanished without trace.

Now, 51 years later,
it has been found.

James Dunham went to meet the
mother-of-two who was unaware

she was holding on to
an iconic instrument.

I was actually cataloguing lots
of guitars that I've got.

And when I googled it,

it immediately came up.

I panicked and then, uh,

went straight to his house,
because I knew he lived nearby.

And I eventually found it,
after going through a lot of fields.

It had broken in the press that we
were looking for this lost bass.

And that might have been one of the
reasons Cathy thought,

"I'd better give it back."

There's this little side life

it's gone off and living

with all these people I don't know.

And... And it ends up with Cathy.

This is Paul's bass.
This is something

he really, truly cares and loves.

And if you leave a guitar in a
loft, it will destroy a guitar,

you know.

You've got to put it all together.

Put the strings on

and then just play that first chord

and just hope that you've got it
right.

That's where the craftsmanship is,
and Martin obviously

is an old-school craftsman
in the way he works,

the way he does things.

These poor people that it means
a lot to you,

but it doesn't really sort of...

I'm not that fussed about it.

I just think, "Get over
yourself. It's just a guitar."

And I, you know, now I get it,
I get I get it now,

but I still don't GET IT get it,
really. You know, just leave it.

Thieving's nothing to be proud of.
Full stop.

But that said, we've all done it.
We've all done it, so...

But it's...the iconic guitar...

..that he had in his hands.

The implication, the size of it.

Its meaning to obviously
Paul McCartney, and other people.

The enormity of it all is just
a bit sort of, phew, blimey.

Overwhelming?
Yeah. A little bit, yeah.

I don't want... I don't want anyone

to think of Dad anything
but a nice lad,

because that's what he was. He was
a... He was a lovely, lovely lad.

But there wasn't always a receipt
in the house for what we had.

It was just to make ends meet
a little bit.

I don't blame him too much,
you know.

I think it's just petty thievery.

It's the kind of thing
we would have done

a little bit of in Liverpool.

Just, you know, just... It's there
and I could nick it,

so I will. Um, we got out of
that pretty quickly.

Because, luckily, the Beatles took
over

and we found an honest
profession.

But I can sympathise with people
who don't have that kind of luck.

So I don't blame him too much.

I'm not comfortable.

I'm not all right with it.

You're sort of... You're taking
the name of my dad through

muddy waters,
and that's not what you do.

Growing up anyway, I don't remember
my dad ever telling me he loved me.

Not that that was a problem for me.

It was just how it was.

When we had a little boy,

and I rang home, he, uh...

He never told me.

Mum told me. But, um...

..I later found out that he cried.

Which Dad never did that.
Dad never...

I never saw... I never saw a tear
out of my dad's eye.

God, I can't remember, I think...

But apparently he cried
cos, like, to Dad,

it meant the name would never go.

Did you just see the one I sent you?

The one with the glue?

Have you seen that one yet?

No. Oh, I've just sent...
I'm watching the dowels going in.

Oh, I've just sent you another one

with Martin actually glueing
the neck back on.

Oh, lovely. Is that Martin?
Yep. Say hi.

Hello, Paul. Hi, Martin!

Your bass is saved.

Yeah, I know. Thanks for doing this,
man. It's great.

You're welcome.

I like his workshop as well.

Oh, yes. Lovely workshop.

Well, look at his garden.

Oh, yeah, that's... There you go.

How beautiful is that? Yeah.

Little pond. Beautiful.

Yeah. I can't wait to play it.

Yeah, it won't be long.

Have a good one, Paul.
Thank you. Bye.

I feel like, over the last 20 years
or so,

Paul to me seems to appreciate

more and more how good they were
and how good the songs were.

When he plays them,
he really enjoys them

and he thinks, this was a great song
and we really,

really did well, and he's so proud
of what they achieved.

So I think now him playing them
onstage is big for him.

I think he loves it.

He's come that full circle.

SOULFUL SONG PLAYS

We could have a little breakdown.

OK, cool. I've actually got
something you might want to see.

You've got something for me.

A little something
you might want to see that

I believe belonged to you.

If you want to come this way.

Whoa! Here it is.

THEY LAUGH

Look at that. Look at that.

He's done a brilliant job,
hasn't he?

Oh... Oh, yeah, I wanted to
show you that.

That's a little note from Martin.
It's from Martin.

"Many times I've had the pleasure

"of putting music back
into old broken instruments.

"It's been an absolute joy to
do that with your bass.

"So thanks, and I hope you like it.

"Keep on trucking."

Well, thank you, Martin.

You've done a great job.

Yeah. I love those kind of guys.

PLAYS AMPLIFIED

50 years ago
since you last played that.

HE CHUCKLES

That's crazy, isn't it? It's true,
isn't it? Yeah.

It's over 50 years, yeah.
That's crazy.

But I'd love to know
what you were doing. Hmm.

Maybe rehearsing for something.

Yeah, and if the van had been
parked. I don't know.

Yeah. I know, it's a long time ago.
Well, the van's parked

and the guys go in
for a couple of pints,

and they decide they should leave
the van

and go home and come back in
tomorrow morning.

Oops. Slight mistake. Big mistake.

So it gets nicked and then ends up
with the local, uh...

Is that a bit short, the strap?

Yeah. It's kind of a bigger rounder
sound, I feel.

HE PLAYS DAY TRIPPER BASSLINE

LAUGHS

Yeah.

Wow.

There she is. Yeah.

Welcome home, honey.

Look at that. Wow.

Crazy story. Yeah. Yeah.

INDISTINCT

SCOTT: You've got to go a long way
to find somebody that's grown up

without the Beatles.

And I think there's something about
the relationship between us all -

you know, normal people -
and The Beatles,

and you sort of think you know them
because you know the music.

Good to see Floss chasing as well.

VOICE-OVER: The music went global,

but the bass, by going off
on that weird route,

the minute it went from that van
in Cambridge Gardens,

it's gone into
that ordinary British world.

It's gone missing here. It's ended
up here, in ordinary streets,

ordinary pubs, ordinary families.

And there's something incredible
about that in its own right.

BIRDS CAW

Dad used to say something to me.

I was only about four or five, I
think. But he used to pick us up,

pick me up
and I used to sit on the bar.

VOICE-OVER: I'm trying to be humble,
but, you know,

I think I was an important
jigsaw puzzle piece because,

you know, I guess
if I hadn't been a Beatle fan,

if I hadn't have met Steve...

..if I hadn't have played the
guitar,

these little things
that fall into place,

it might have just been a different
story.

We might never have found it.

There you go, mate - for your dad.

Cheers. To the old man.
Absent friends. Yeah.

We didn't get it back just for Paul.

We got it back for everybody
who was a Beatles fan.

All the kids like me.

We were little kids back then and
we're old farts now, you know.

They could see that bass once more,
you know?

BASS PLAYS

I did take it down a bit. Yeah.

It's much better.
The logo is totally different.

Yeah, but that's the old logo.

Oh, yeah! Early logo. Yeah, right.

How's it feel?

It feels great. Does it?

THEY LAUGH

Come on, we can go and open
the doors.

HE LAUGHS

LAUGHS: Hello!

Always. Oh, good to see you, Nick.
My love. Fantastic to see you.

First time ever. Hello.
We meet at last.

Maybe he's going to play the bass.
Who can tell?

CHEERING

So, a little tale to tell you here.

Um...

A while ago, I
had a bass besides this one.

My original bass.

And, uh, it got nicked,
tell you the truth.

And we've been looking for it
for 50 years.

Well, uh...

..I got it back.

And here to make its first stage
appearance

in 50 years is my original bass.

CHEERING

Get Back. All right! Are you ready?
Yeah!

Come on then.

# Jojo was a man who thought he was
a loner

# But he knew it couldn't last

# Jojo left his home
in Tucson, Arizona

# For some California grass... #

Well, we'd love to see it in your
hands, if you're happy to grab it.

I have it right here.

HE CHUCKLES

There she is.

That's my old baby.

Do you find yourself getting a bit
more reflective as you get older?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
Yeah, definitely.

Um...because it's so special.

I don't have an amp.

These are just four guys in
Liverpool

who didn't know each other.

I got introduced to John
via a schoolmate of mine and,

yeah, I really liked him.

It's lovely to play.

And then George
I knew off the school bus.

And John was looking
for someone else to play guitar.

And I said, "I've got this mate,
you know, who's pretty good."

Yeah, you can get right up there
and you wouldn't normally use them.

I said to George, "Go on, play it."
He's looking at me.

So I encouraged George.
George got it out of the case

and he plays a thing called Raunchy,

which is good and he did it great.

Then suddenly we had three of
the Beatles then.

And it only needed Ringo
to show up for us to be complete.

# Jojo was a man
who thought he was a loner

# But he knew it couldn't last

# Jojo left his home
in Tucson, Arizona

# For some California grass

# Get back

# Get back

# Get back to where you once
belonged

# Get back

# Get back

# Get back
to where you once belonged

# Get back, Jojo

# Go home! #