Picture shows Portsmouth lads who were banned from meeting

Little Angus McCrudden, front left, alongside his 'banned' friend Mickey Lenton

He’s the little lad in the front on the left in the picture above which was taken by a News photographer shortly after the crowd was told that night’s Beatles’s gig was off because Paul McCartney had been taken ill.

Angus, who is standing beside his taller friend Mickey Lenton, says: ‘I remember this clearly as Mickey and I had been told by the police not to associate with each other (backed by our parents) as we were rather naughty boys always getting into scrapes!

‘I remember thinking the policeman knew who we were.

Ted Saunders's clocking-in/out clock which is in his conservatory

‘You can imagine the trouble when we made The News – no way could we deny it. I’m still convinced the policeman was staring at me in that crowd!’

So what were the lads doing there?

Angus recalls: ‘We didn’t have tickets to see the Beatles, we just pushed our way to the front to see what was happening.

‘I never did get to see them and never was a fan. When everyone was listening to Sgt Pepper, I was listening to Captain Beefheart.’

Can you identify this ship and when the picture might have been taken?

Angus says he did finally grow to 5ft 8in and he’s still into music, playing in a rockabilly band today.

- My piece on clocking-in and out of the dockyard reminded Ted Saunders of his apprenticeship there.

He says the clock was like a shrine and you dared not go near it until it was time to use it.

He adds: ‘It was the thing on the wall that controlled your working day, and whatever it printed on your clock card controlled how much you got paid at the end of the week.

‘If you pressed the handle on the clock one second too early you were in deep trouble.

‘There were several occasions when someone would put their card in the slot waiting for 5pm to come when one of the lads who was passing would press the handle then run off, ensuring the lad whose card it was had a lot of explaining to do to the recorder if it was stamped too early.’

Ted, from Portchester, has now got one of these clocks, pictured, which is in full working order, although the printing tape had dried.

He adds: ‘I can now sit in my conservatory and look at something that controlled the first few years of my working life.’

- Finally, Mandi Miles, from Devon, e-mailed me asking if anyone could identify the ship here and provide an approximate date.

She found it among her late father’s papers (Albert Richard Lee) and the copyright belonged to Portsmouth Newspapers Ltd.

Albert was in the navy and lived in Copnor Road, Portsmouth, until the late 1940s.