A RARE recording of an interview with John Lennon is going up for auction almost 60 years after it was made by an Otley man who blagged his way into a Beatles press conference as a student.

John Hill, now a retired teacher and university lecturer, was 18 at the time and studying at Hull Art College. The band was speaking to the media on Friday October 16, 1964, ahead of a gig at the city’s ABC Cinema.

Desperate to get an interview for the college magazine, he paid to get into the cinema then bluffed his way into the press conference - armed with a massive reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Mr Hill, now 75, said: "I couldn’t do shorthand so I had borrowed a Fi Cord, an early portable reel to reel tape recorder, from a friend and took that along. I was the youngest person in the room and the only one with a microphone.

“That got John Lennon’s attention. He was really interested in the machine and we ended up in a corner doing an interview with passing newsmen throwing in the odd question.”

The eight-and-a-half-minute recording lay in a drawer for the next 50 years, until Mr Hill sold it to a collector in 2014. Now it is being auctioned on Friday by David Duggleby Auctioneers.

Auctioneer Graham Paddison 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 whilst 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.”

The recording - in which Lennon, who was assassinated in 1980 by crazed fan Mark Chapman - has never been broadcast, and will go under the hammer along with the machine it was recorded on, copies of the student magazine in which the interview appeared, and photographs of Mr Hill interviewing Lennon.

In the interview, Mr Hill asks Lennon if he considers the Beatles musicians or entertainers, and he replies: “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.”

The auction catalogue is available to view at davidduggleby.com and the auction takes place at Vine Street Salerooms in Scarborough at 2pm on Friday June 24.