This photo has been floating about social media for years, and I tweeted it myself the other day because Jimmy Tarbuck was trending. This led to some debate about who is in it.
I have always understood that the three boys from the left are the future journalist and newsreader Peter Sissons, John Lennon and Jimmy Tarbuck. I've also seen it suggested that the tall boy at the back is the future Everton and England centre back Brian Labone.
But it's not Labone. As he explains in the video below, it's Michael Hill. He was to remain a friend of Lennon's through their teenage years and grew up to become "a well-known figure in the international business of marine insurance," according to this page promoting a book he wrote about the teenage Lennon.
He also explains the photo's provenance. It was taken in 1951 on a Dovedale Primary School trip to the Isle of Man and not discovered until about the year 2000, when the teacher who took it died.
What made me nervous is that Hill doesn't mention Peter Sissons, who was a couple of years younger than Lennon and Tarbuck and to become a good friend of Paul McCartney's at secondary school.
But it is him. A reader kindly tweeted me the cutting above from the Mail, which names all six boys. (Apparently the Mirror had it first, but didn't get further than Lennon and Tarbuck.) And also in the photo are Ivan Vaughan, who was to introduce Lennon and McCartney, and the future professional footballer Jimmy Blain, who didn't make it at Everton but was to become an Exeter City legend.
There remains only for me to remind you that Frank Duckworth, co-deviser of the Duckworth Lewis method, lodged with John Lennon and his Aunt Mimi.
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