Flashback

Tom Bussmann remembers goofing about with The Beatles on the set of A Hard Day’s Night

I WAS WORKING AS a copywriter when I met the film director Dick Lester, in the 1960s. He was big in advertising at the time, making TV commercials. He was so intelligent – I felt very lucky to be working with him.

One day, while we were on set, he asked me if I’d like to come and watch him making a film with The Beatles. To be honest, I was more of a jazz fan, but Beatlemania was in full swing by then: everybody would go and buy their latest record, so of course I said yes.

Lester had given me the location for the shoot – a field in south-east London. At least I think that’s where it was, because it was in the middle of nowhere and I got completely lost trying to find it on my scooter. When I arrived, Lester joked that if I’d been on time, he would have put me in a costume and had me stand in for Paul Mccartney, because Paul was always late for filming, too. I don’t think any of them were very good at getting up in the morning, in their line of work.

The scene they were filming that day was where the boys escape from a television studio, run down a staircase and out into a field, where they act wild and leap about. Lester was really good at motivating them, because none of them were natural actors. It was fascinating to watch him goofing about, trying to relax them – I think he even improvised a game of cricket at one point. I could see that he really wanted the idea of them breaking loose, charging into that moment of freedom, and he got it in the end, but they needed a lot of reassurance.

I had a tiny little camera with me and took some snaps – nothing like the great work the official set photographer made, of course, but I still think the pictures convey something of what it was like to be there. I didn’t get to meet the boys themselves, though; they were all in their own little world.

Funnily enough, I’d already met Mccartney once before. I was going out with an actress at the time, and she was starring in a film with Jane Asher, then Mccartney’s girlfriend. The four of us went out on a double date at the Establishment nightclub, in Soho. I seem to remember recommending Dick Lester to Mccartney then. I also remember that I offered to pay, which, looking back, was a bit stupid, wasn’t it?

I’d met Paul Mccartney once before, on a double date with Jane Asher at the Establishment in Soho