Spending time with The Beatles — arguably Britain’s most famous band — and delving into the private lives of football stars such as Wayne Rooney and Paul Gascoigne, it’s little wonder he is listed as one of Johnstone’s most notable sons.

Yet, despite this, there was some naivety on my part when I received a vague email from the author, along with the catchline, ‘Visit Johnstone,’ and very few details from this mystery man who claimed to have ‘interesting documents’ about his birthplace, Thornhill Hospital.

My inner cynic, so used to receiving messages like this almost daily, refused to think too much of it.

However I was happy to respond to this chap who was requesting a mini tour of Johnstone to find out a bit more about his background.

Fast forward several days later and after few minutes of introducing ourselves at Johnstone Railway Station, I had the joyful opportunity of finding out just how notable Davies’ achievements actually are.

As an aspiring novelist myself, I was in awe after learning that, in his lifetime, the 79-year-old has published more than 60 books, including the only authorised biography of The Beatles.

Working also as a ghostwriter, he has written the autobiographies of footballers Wayne Rooney, Paul Gascoigne, Dwight Yorke and politician John Prescott’s 2008 autobiography, Prezza, My Story: Pulling no Punches.

It would be an understatement to say that Davies has been a success in his writing career.

But within the avalanche of books and articles that he has had published, Davies admits his involvement with The Beatles has provided him the most attention.

Davies, who is married to acclaimed author Margaret Foster, raised the idea of a biography of The Beatles with Paul McCartney when he met him to discuss the possibility of providing the theme song for a follow-up film. Beatles star McCartney liked the idea and advised him to obtain the approval of the band’s manager Brian Epstein, which he did.

“If you Google me you’ll see all the books I’ve written,” Davies says. “My best known one is the official biography of The Beatles, which is the only authorised book for them.

“I’ve been writing since I was 22 and I do a column in The Sunday Times on money and a column on The New Statesman on football.

“For my book on The Beatles, that came out in 1968. I lived with them for 18 months and I was in Abbey Road during the whole making of Sgt Pepper’s.

“And, you know the famous photograph on Sgt Pepper? I was there in the studio at the time when it was being shot and they were going to have Hitler and they were going to have Jesus and they had a Hitler cut out — but last minute people said it might be bad taste.” His memories of living with the band are retold with meticulous care and most of the time Davies has a wistful smile on his face whilst sharing them.

Davies admits to still being a huge fan of The Beatles. And he is still good friends with Paul McCartney, who he regularly catches up with in London.

“When the 1966 song Eleanor Rigby came out, I thought the words were brilliant and I thought the whole song was terrific,” Davies smiles.

In 1969, Paul McCartney turned up unexpectedly with his new American girlfriend, Linda Eastman, and her daughter, Heather, during a family holiday in Portugal.

On that very holiday, Paul discovered that Hunter’s first name is Edward.

Davies recalled: “He went off to the lavatory and when he came back he played us a charming little song on his guitar, which went, ‘There you go, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie; there you go, Eddie, Eddie you’ve gone.’” Years later Davies heard it on a bootleg tape, recorded during one of the ‘Let It Be’ sessions.

“Paul sings and plays it to John Lennon, who seems quite impressed. But it never appeared on any album. What a shame — I would love to have been the inspiration and subject of a Beatles song,” sighs Davies.

“Linda stayed with us for two weeks on that holiday. And while we were there, Mary, his oldest child, was conceived. She was born exactly nine months later.

“I saw her at a party last year when I went to his party and it was the first time I’d met Mary since she was grown up.

“She gave me a cuddle and said, ‘Oh, you must be my step, step god-father,’ because she was conceived in our house in Portugal.” When asked what it was like to work so closely with The Fab Four, Hunter summed it up by reminiscing about a prank played on him by Ringo Starr.

“This one day Ringo gave me a ‘reefer’ to try in the 60s, I don’t smoke and I’d never taken any drugs my whole life, but I took it home to my wife.

“Well, we closed the curtains, took the ring off the hook and puffed away for half an hour, but felt no different and worked for the whole evening.

“The next time I saw Ringo I said, ‘I didn’t think much of your reefer.’ “That’s when he told me it was just cabbage leaves.” One thing I noticed about Davies is that, in typical journalistic fashion, he asks a lot of questions.

He enquired about what the people of Renfrewshire think of Paisley MP Mhairi Black, how people perceive his hometown of Johnstone, to the history of Paton’s Mill.

Davies visited Thorndene, the former site of the hospital where he was born, the library of Johnstone’s new £14.5m town hall and the Johnstone History Museum in Morrisons, although unfortunately the museum was closed at the time.

But all the while he was bursting with enthusiasm to explore and learn, perhaps one of the main reasons why his is such a successful writer.

He continued: “I’m here to learn more about Johnstone as I’m writing a memoir about my life and it will begin from when I was born here to growing up in the 60s.

“My father was a clerk in the RAF but apparently Abbotsinch, that was a little airport before it became Glasgow Airport, was where he worked.

“In 1939 we moved to Carlisle, then to Dumfries, but both of my parents brought me up in Scotland.

“I’m thrilled to be back here. The first chapter of my new memoir will be about the experience of me going back to Johnstone today.” Davies’ up-and-coming memoir, ‘The Co-op’s got bananas,’ will be published by Simon and Schuster next year.