вЂњI realised right then that I was cutting off all my exits. Talking about fame, McCartney once told me about a moment in the 1960s when he had been recognised on holiday on an isolated Greek island.

It was a reminder that McCartney was the Beatle who still liked to ride on buses when the Beatles were recording Let It Be, and who went on a driving trip to France in 1966 disguised by a false moustache and glasses (which he whipped off when declined entry to a Bordeaux nightclub). I had to look around to spot a discreet security guard lurking 10 yards behind. Perhaps even odder, I have come across McCartney in the wild вЂ“ or at least strolling on Hampstead Heath with one of his children. I have interviewed him several times for the Telegraph, and encountered him in studios and backstage areas, when he has always been unfailingly pleasant and engaged, at ease chatting with anyone.

IвЂ™ve been doing this job a long time now, and IвЂ™ve probably met most famous musicians of our time, and I genuinely believe that McCartney may well be the nicest, coolest, most well-adjusted superstar the world has ever seen. But the thing is, you donвЂ™t have to be nice to be a genius. His megahit era may have tailed off in the mid-1980s but last year his 18th solo studio album McCartney III (of 47 if you count all bands and side projects) went to number one in the UK. And he has gone on making fantastic music ever since, at a rate of productivity and creativity almost unrivalled in his field. We all know what he achieved with the Beatles, writing and performing songs the world still sings today, becoming a transformative figure in the popular culture of our times. He has been world famous since he was 21, and for very good reason. I came away from that encounter so happy and impressed that McCartney turned out to beвЂ¦ exactly who we always expected him to be. So we had a drink and I peppered him with questions about a band who had broken up decades before, and he graciously answered, with a lot of humour and anecdotal detail. But McCartney reassured me there was no need to rush off and said we could chat about the Beatles if I wanted. We shook hands, and I was about to move away, not wishing to impose. As I recall, I blurted out something gormless like: вЂњHi Paul, I just want to say вЂ¦ I LOVE THE BEATLES!вЂќ It was a discombobulating experience, but I plucked up the courage to pay my respects. And there he was in the flesh, exactly the same open, friendly face that used to wink at me from my sisterвЂ™s Beatles-themed bedroom wallpaper. I was born in the age of the Beatles, a child of the 60s who grew up with McCartney as a larger-than-life fixture of existence. I spotted the great man in the bar, and I was as star-struck as I have ever been. I was a struggling young musician, and one of McCartneyвЂ™s band members was tying the knot with a singer I was friends with. The first time I met Paul McCartney was at a wedding reception in 1992.

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