Ever wondered why all those around John are laughing? And in particular, ever further wondered why there is a gap in the row immediately behind? Me neither. But here's why...
By all accounts, John viewed his time at school as little more than a never-ending series of opportunities for "ersing aboot". Japery, pranks and casual violence was the order of the day, but most of this "dicking" is, inevitably, lost in the etc. However, this famous school pic actually captures an example thereof.
The missing party behind John is fellow pupil Harry Gooseman. John, apparently, persuaded him to try to "get on the photo twice." I'm not sure about this, but the full, uncropped version is very long, and may actually be a composite of several pics - in which case the idea was to get your photo taken in one location, then sprint along a bit and also appear somewhere else. When the composite was put together, there would be two of you in different places.
Aaaanyway, Harry went too soon, thus not appearing in the first location, but is captured, just, popping up again further along:
Wot larks! Actually, quite amusing and a typically Lennon-esque bit of schoolboy, as I say, "ersing".
WOW
ReplyDeleteI was at a school in the 1980s in England that used the same camera that would've been used for the shot and we had a kid do the exact same thing only he managed to be in the photo perfectly, twice. It was an old panoramic camera that worked much like the way you take panoramic shots with an iPhone today. Long time lurking on this blog and finally had something of interest to say!
ReplyDeleteHello there. I have just seen this picture above and my heart has melted. My dad (Roland Glyn Parker - known as Glyn) is on the same row far left and I have heard many stories about what they used to get up to. A friend is reading a book about John Lennon and QB and I was telling her about how the boys used to run from one end to the other so they could be in the photo twice. I decided to search for some school pics and sure enough your blog came up. You don't, by any chance, have a better copy of this do you? My dad has passed away and I would love to have a copy of this! Thank you so much. Rachelx
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