'Paul McCartney's leather trousers' turn up in Bridlington

A Bridlington man is hoping a pair of half-century old leather trousers he claims once belonged to Paul McCartney could land him thousands of pounds. Mike Hoggard claims Beatles manager Brian Epstein gave them to him when he played in a jazz band at Liverpool's Cavern Club in the early 1960s. Mr Hoggard said the trousers, marked with the name "Paul", are the right size to have been the music legend's.



He now hopes he can sell the leather piece of music history to a museum. A leather jacket belonging to George Harrison sold for £110,450 at an auction in December. Mr Hoggard, who has now owned the trousers for more than 50 years, said he recently rediscovered them when he was moving house. He said his Yorkshire Jazz Band played regularly at the legendary Cavern Club between 1960 and 1961. At the time, a little-known band called The Beatles were their support group.



"The trousers were in a bag hanging up [in the dressing room]. Epstein said to take them because he wanted to get them out of the leather and into these suits. So I took them and I wore them. At the time they [The Beatles] weren't famous at all, so there was no sort of thought about 'I've got something that's massively invaluable' or anything like that, just I fancied a pair of leather trousers." His son-in-law Paul Bennett-Todd, from Leeds, said he was initially "sceptical" about the McCartney connection but after some research had become convinced his father-in-law was in possession of the genuine article.


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Mr Bennett-Todd said he had examined photos of The Beatles taken at the Cavern Club in 1961 which he believes depict McCartney wearing the trousers his father-in-law now owns. "We can see creases that are indicative of the way that a person might wear those trousers - it's like a fingerprint, almost. They're exactly the right inside leg measurement and they're exactly the right waist measurement. They [the Beatles] went to a small independent tailor in St Paul's district of Hamburg and commissioned the trousers to be made. That's what makes these trousers so very individual."