Hunter Davies: 'I always tell them they have to tell the truth'

Hunter Davies has more than one reason to celebrate this summer. The polymathic journalist and author of around 40 books has reached his 50th year in newspapers, seen his ghosted John Prescott memoir do a roaring trade with the help of some energetic press coverage, and been spared an unwelcome trip to the High Court.

As the ghost-writer of Wayne Rooney's first volume of autobiography, Davies was named two years ago in a libel action (alongside Rooney and publishers HarperCollins) by David Moyes, the Everton manager. Moyes was incensed by the book's suggestion that he'd leaked details of a confidential conversation with Rooney to the press before the player moved to Manchester United. Last week, he accepted a public apology and an out-of-court settlement for damages.

"Getting your name on the title page of a book gives you status and, in theory, brings in other work," says Davies. "But when someone like David Moyes decides to sue, they sue the people on the title page. I had hysterics at first, wondering if I'd have to sell the family jewellery." Instead, much to his relief, HarperCollins is footing the bill.

In the latest chapter of a long and distinguished journalistic career, Davies has swiftly, and somewhat unexpectedly, become Britain's best-known ghost-writer, crafting quality reads from the reminiscing of Rooney, Prescott and Paul Gascoigne. Though they may have considerable political or sporting skills, neither Prescott nor Rooney are famed for their eloquence. So how does a writer go about putting convincing words – 100,000 or more – in their mouths? "Prescott is articulate," Davies counters. "I rarely misunderstood what he was saying, though often his sentences were mangled or words mispronounced. But Wayne is very young, and he's not in the team because he's a fluent talker. On the other hand, he was diligent and respectful. He was never late for our sessions, never cancelled, never spoke on his mobile phone. Even if his replies were monosyllabic, he didn't get annoyed when I kept on asking him questions to get a better picture of what happened."

Over the course of the year it takes him to complete his books, Davies learns not only the chronologies of his subjects, but also some of their unexpected character traits. Rooney, foul-mouthed on the football field, never curses at home; "his mother would've slapped him." Prescott (left), on the other hand, swears like the sailor (well, ship's steward) he once was. Much of his bad language had to be removed from the book after Alastair Campbell, and more importantly Pauline Prescott, read early drafts and disapproved. But Davies was also surprised to find that the former Deputy PM didn't drink, a revelation that ran contrary to the loutish reputation Prescott enjoys in the media.

Prescott and Rooney could be forgiven for sharing a suspicion of journalists, both having been at the sharp end of some unpleasant (and often untrue) personal stories. Yet both were persuaded to discuss their past indiscretions with Davies, however briefly.

"I always tell them they have to tell the truth; they can't lie because it'll get too complicated and they'll forget their lies," Davies explains. "As the year goes on you get more and more trusted. When you're the authorised biographer you're like a member of staff. You witness private family things or business discussions with the manager, and obviously your big ears are taking it all in. I know things about Rooney, Gazza and Prescott that I've picked up on my travels and can't reveal. They know that when I write the book, they'll get to see it first and say, 'Oh no, you have to take that out, it's going to upset my auntie.'"

After spending so much time inside their homes and their heads, Davies also finds himself becoming quite fond of his subjects. "I'm a friend for the year I do the book, but I haven't been invited to the Rooney wedding and I wouldn't expect to be. I'm old enough to be his granddad. When I first met him I said, 'Look upon me like Fergie or Bobby Robson. I'm not going to go clubbing with you, but I do know about football.' Prescott is my contemporary, so I know all about his wartime experiences, or about the secondary modern he went to – I went to a similar school. His wife and children warned me that he was bad-tempered, but we never had a cross word. He's a moaner and a groaner, but he's very funny. He tells very good stories and has a great sense of humour. He doesn't take himself too seriously, even though he's a serious politician."

The biggest news story to emerge from Prescott's book turned out to be not a political one, but the admission that he had long suffered from bulimia. Davies explains that this detail emerged at the very end of the writing process, when the book was all but finished. "But the minute he came out with it, I knew it would be a story. It was so dramatic and unexpected and strange. I didn't necessarily see it as a front-page revelation, but that's what it became."

Paul Gascoigne, another of his former subjects, continues to be a source of fascination for the tabloids. "Gazza's got it into his head that the tabloids are dying to see him in the gutter, because for years they've predicted it. But he's wrong. The tabloids love him, but they exaggerate every little thing that happens too him, which just makes it worse. During the year I was writing his book, I didn't meet one person who had a bad word to say against him."

Davies, now "71 and a half", published his own autobiography, The Beatles, Football and Me, in 2006. It's 50 years since he left Durham University and took up his graduate trainee spot on the news desk of the Manchester Evening Chronicle, which in those days boasted a million readers. "I've still got the telegram giving me the job. I was on £14 per week," he recalls. "In those days there was no proper training. You were supposed to go to evening classes to learn to type, but I thought I could do that on my two fingers (which I still do). I was supposed to learn shorthand, but I only attended a few classes. When I was finally sent out to report on my own, it took me two or three hours to write a story. I'd write it in longhand and end up getting a bollocking from the news editor for missing the early editions."

Despite his deficient reporting skills, Davies was soon bound for London – first to the now-defunct Sunday Graphic and then, in 1960, to The Sunday Times, where he began by working on Atticus, the paper's gossip column. "When I first arrived, I had to do boring stories about who would be the next master of Balliol, or who would be our next ambassador to Washington. But by the time I was put in charge of the column, everything had started to change: I could cover pop stars like the Beatles, or working-class photographers."

It was the Beatles that gave Davies' publishing career its first major boost, when they agreed to let him write what is still the band's only authorised biography, in 1968. During the 70s, he juggled journalism with his prolific book-writing, and in 1975 was appointed editor of The Sunday Times Magazine by the paper's then-editor, Harold Evans, who Davies "adored".

In the years since, Davies' newspaper and magazine journalism has been as varied as his books. He has written regularly for most of Fleet Street, and completed books on everything from William Wordsworth to stamp collecting.

His 1972 book The Glory Game, a warts-and-all backroom portrait of Tottenham Hotspur, is now regarded as a classic of sports writing. "When I was following Spurs in the 1970s, footballers were famous. But they didn't get the paparazzi. And they didn't get the money: their salaries were about £200 per week, only double what a good, quality craftsman or teacher would get. None of them had agents, lawyers or accountants. They were totally in thrall to their managers, their coaches and their clubs.

"Now that's all changed. When I first met Wayne Rooney, his PR manager was there, his agent was there, and a woman called his brand manager was there. It's hard luck for the hacks, because you can't get interviews with the superstars now unless it's a brand event, tied to a product from Nike or Adidas. In the old days you could just interview them."

Today Davies and his wife, fellow author Margaret Forster, divide their time between London and the Lake District. Davies maintains four regular columns: writing on football for New Statesman; on collecting for The Guardian; on money for The Sunday Times; and on local themes for Cumbria Life, a Lake District magazine. Cumbria Life, he admits wryly, pays the most. But it is the New Statesman column that gives him the perfect excuse to watch Euro 2008, despite the absence of Scotland and England. "I'm supporting Portugal," he says. "It'll be a pleasure not to have to worry about Rooney's metatarsal, or Beckham's bad back, or Gerrard's poorly knee."