Oh Lucky Man.

I went with my friend Brian Jones to see Hunter Davies giving a talk about – what else – The Beatles. In 1967, as a young journalist with The Sunday Times, Hunter was commissioned to write their authorised biography. And he’s earned a handsome living from this association ever since. He was granted unfettered access and even sat in on the recordings of Sgt. Pepper. He was given similarly free access a few years later to Tottenham Hotspur to write the inside story of a football club. Hunter Davies has been around forever. He’s enjoyed a fabulous career but remains very down to earth. Too down to earth. He seems a very nice man but not a particularly clever one – very ordinary and provincial. Never a great writer, he’s just been incredibly lucky. Though perhaps he has been very clever. He may have worked out, back in 1967, that luck is when preparation meets opportunity.