‘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.