‘My early photos of John Lennon are still loved by fans’

Early photographs taken of John Lennon in a band that evolved into the Beatles are “still loved by fans” of the Fab Four, the man behind the camera has said.

Charlie Roberts said he used to “knock about” with The Quarrymen growing up and captured them on a borrowed Kodak Brownie camera as they played at a street party in Toxteth, Liverpool, on 22 June 1957.

Of the first snaps he ever took, he said: “People ask, ‘how did they turn out so good if you weren’t a photographer’, but I just clicked the camera.”

Two original members of The Quarrymen, performing that day, will play music from the late 1950s – and share memories of the time – on the Isle of Man on Saturday.

Lennon formed the skiffle and rock ‘n’ roll group in early 1957 alongside Rod Davis, Pete Shotton, Colin Hanton, Eric Griffiths and Len Garry.

The group was later joined by Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

McCartney, Lennon and Harrison evolved into The Beatles, along with Pete Best, until he was replaced by Ringo Starr in August 1962.

Mr Roberts, who moved to Kirk Michael in 2023, first met Lennon at a practice session his friend and drummer Hanton had invited him to.

“He said to me, ‘alright Charlie, what do you play?’.”

“I answered, ‘I can’t sing and don’t play anything’, to which he responded, ‘you’re in good company with this lot’.

“That was typical of John because he was always having a laugh, he was good fun to be with.”

Mr Roberts said it had been “really exciting” for the group to play at the street party, hosted by his mum, as it was one of their first professional bookings.

“I’d never seen the camera before and I’d never taken a photograph before that day.

“I took as many as I could, but one full roll of photographs, which had been taken to the chemist to be developed was lost, they never surfaced.

“Luckily I had three on another so we managed to salvage them.”

After borrowing a book from a library to learn how to develop photographs himself, he made a dark room in his bedroom by drawing the curtains and using the chemicals needed to process the remaining images under his bed.

Mr Roberts said: “Since then, I’ve taken up photography. I was a printmaker by trade and worked in the art college that John and I went to as lads.

“John had the charisma, and when Paul came along a couple of weeks after this gig I thought they were going to be big in England, maybe. I never thought they’d have such worldwide success,” he said.

“The music got better and better, there’s a song for everything by The Beatles.”

A lifelong friend of the Quarrymen, Mr Roberts said he was looking forward to welcoming original members Hanton and Davis to the island for the first time for the gig he had organised at the Centenary Centre in Peel.

Alongside the rock ‘n’ roll the group will perform, he said he expected the audience to ask about the early days of The Quarrymen and playing alongside Lennon and McCartney in a planned question-and-answer session.

It was set to be “very nostalgic” for people who lived through the 1950s and 1960s, he said.

“I’m looking forward to having a good night with the lads, it’ll be like the old days,” he added.