Even though it's nearly half a century since the event, great-grandmother Phyllis Hilton has never spoken about the time she saw the Fab Four outside her Chorley Lane home because she didn't think people would believe her.

Now, she has lifted the lid on the surreal moment that the hitmakers helped her with her shopping.

The 76-year-old isn't the sort to go running to the newspapers but 44 years later she feels the time is right to share the experience.

"I didn't think anyone would believe me," she said. "But at the time I didn't even know who they were. I just saw these scruffy looking lads waiting for the bus outside my house.

"I'd never heard of The Beatles and then about two weeks later I saw them on the television."

The chance meeting came in 1964, just as the band were emerging as one of the country's hottest young talents.

Phyllis sent her three-year-old son Tony to the corner shop, which was just a few doors down the road, for a loaf of Rathbones bread.

When the toddler, who is now 46, struggled with the shopping a stranger stopped to help him - future superstar John Lennon.

The widow, whose husband Chris died last year, remembers: "He was very polite - a little scruffy looking but very polite. It was a different time then, he walked Tony back from the shop, patted him on the head and said 'I carried his loaf'.

"I watched him walk across the road to one of our neighbours, so later that day I said to this neighbour 'who was that nice young man?'

"She looked at me a bit funny and said: 'That was one of the Beatles'."

It is thought the singer was visiting former college friend Brian Rooney, who used to live in Charnock Richard.

Phyllis, a former weaver and mother-of-two, said: "After that we kept seeing them, particularly George (Harrison) and John (Lennon). There were no airs and graces with them, they would come on a regular double decker bus, which dropped off right in front of our house.

"The Kinks used to come too but you knew it was them because they had a big tour bus with their name on it."

"One day I remembered seeing the Beatles fleeing because a group of neighbourhood kids cottoned on."

Grandmother-of-five Phyllis believes the band even talked about buying a house in the village but changed their minds once they made it big.

Do you remember when the Beatles were in Charnock Richard? Call the Guardian on 01257 264911 or email karl.holbrook@lep.co.uk