The son of actor Donald Sinden tells Emma Pinchabout his schoolboy experience with The Beatles on film

MARC SINDEN never knew the Beatles; he’s never even been to Liverpool. But the Fab Four, in one guise or another, crop up in his life with remarkable regularity, as Wikipedia notes.

Under trivia, it says he was “Part of the La-La chorus on Hey Jude . . . “

If you’re famous, Wikipedia-ing yourself is the guilty pleasure that lesser mortals get from doing the same with Google.

And, despite himself, Marc has become fascinated by a debate raging on one off-shoot site speculating on whether he did or did not appear in the only TV footage of the Beatles singing Hey Jude.

This rare footage has been shown only a handful of times and recently became a YouTube hit.

“It’s very strange seeing the debate around whether I was on it, and some people saying Twiggy was there,” says Marc, 54, who has the mellifluous voice of his famous father, the veteran actor Sir Donald Sinden. “Well she wasn’t. That day is crystal clear to me, because I was the geek with the horn- rimmed glasses and school blazer behind Ringo.”

The day was September 4, 1968. A pal at boarding school’s father who worked for Apple asked his son to round up some friends.

“He said ‘We’re doing a thing and we need some bods’ and would you come down’”, recalls Marc. “I was told to come in ordinary clothes, not “pretty” ones and meet at 10am at the Savoy.”

Clad in his school uniform, along with his older brother Jeremy, he turned up.

“ There were probably 20 of us there and it was quite a hot day. Most were aged up to 25, except for one elderly man with no teeth – who I’m still convinced just tagged along from the Savoy.”

The mystery thickened when a man came out and asked if they were for ‘the group’. “Nowadays, you’d call him a media type,” says Marc. “He took us through the hotel to the Thames side entrance saying he didn’t want to be followed.”

The group were then whisked off in a coach. Marc and his brother recognised the route to Twickenham Film Studios from watching their father on set.

The studio resembled an aircraft hangar, bland on the outside, inside massive and empty, except for four podiums set up with an orchestra stand.