Finally, I can reveal the most exciting thing we’ve come across for the Beatles Shop Auction in my entire working life. Yup – even better than the time we sold John Lennon’s toilet!

And I also get a chance to relate the story before it gets twisted around the press and turned into something completely different.

A few weeks ago I got into work to discover we had taken in a bunch a Cilla Black acetates in for our annual auction. We were curious as to what they sounded like so we took them home to give them a spin. When we got to a disc labelled as a demo for It’s For You we discovered that it wasn’t Cilla singing on the disc at all. It was Paul McCartney and it was a rough demo of the song he had written especially for her! A brief internet search then confirmed that this demo had been lost for decades.

According to Cilla’s autobiography the demo was sent to her while she was doing a season of shows at the London Palladium in 1964.

Once the chills had stopped it was clear that we needed confirmation that it was Paul. A recording of it was played for a couple of experts and they were in no doubt about what had been found. This is going to be a big deal!

The vendor had no idea. The sleeve it was housed in listed it as a Cilla demo and the label just lists the song title without an artist.

I feel very privileged to be involved in the rediscovery of this lost gem. It’s been amazing to hear something that was thought gone forever. I hope that it is truly appreciated by the eventual buyer.

Just to pre-empt questions. I am not allowed to provide anything other the 20 second snippet made available for publicity purposes which you can find on the official auction blog post by clicking here. And no, I am not handling the acetate with bare hands in the picture.

I’ll post the results of the sale as soon I know them on the day.