With A Little Help From My Lens

Tommy Hanley was a professional photographer all his career. On the 6^{th of} September in 1963, he first met The Beatles at the Odeon cinema, in Luton, Bedfordshire, UK, where he took the iconic ‘4 ties’ photo. That was the start of a relationship with the fab four, until he left them in 1995.

This is his story about his time with The Beatles, the conversations, the events, and how he saw things quite a while back, however, almost at its completion, he suffered a massive stroke that stole his effervescence and everyday energy for life. Over time he managed a partial recovery, but never really got his ‘mojo’ back. Typically, he put a brave face on his circumstances, and tried his best to pick the project back up, however, amongst other things, I could see this was becoming a major frustration that he was struggling with, so in 2018, I took it upon myself to promise that I would, one day, get this thing done, but couldn’t say when, as my own family and business commitments always come first.

Tommy’s health gradually declined with time, so I took up the mantel and commenced my own research, including scouring his journals, work assignments and finances, going back to 1956. No one really understands what their parents world is really like, as you will only get what they want you to see and hear, besides no parent wants to burden their kids at any time, with anything. What I discovered from the journals was that there certainly was pretty much zero glamour and glitz traveling the length and breadth of the Country, including Europe (he met my mum in Padova, Italy), in a Morris Minor with hardly a penny to your name, but I suspect that he was as happy as a pig in thingy, as this life was his true passion that despite its trials and tribulations, took him around the world using up five passports in 40 years. Work that out!

The pandemic created a window of opportunity for me to extract Tomm’s draft book from his PC, and as I have never done anything like this before (and never will again), I enlisted some external support, and dug deep into the coffers. I commissioned the production of a concept book, just to share for general feedback amongst a cross section of friends and family, to see if what he had written, had appeal. The encouraging news was that there wasn’t a great deal of criticism for the actual story, so I decided to press on with the project, and dig even deeper into the coffers once more.

As I say, producing a special book is a million miles away from my ‘day job’, so I needed to organise the digitisation of a lot of Tommy’s original image archive, also prepping (and somewhat straightening out) his original words, as well as finding an expert book designer that would specify the presentation, paper types and finishes, and sourcing a high-quality book printer that would recreate the images as accurately as the digital proofs, and finally, a (Liverpudlian) PR company to whip up a frenzy with the hardcore global Beatles following, which I am pleased to say, after so many ‘Beatles Fests’ on both sides of ‘the pond’ is still very much alive today.

I wanted this to be a photographer’s story about his time with The Beatles, and not just another Beatles book with sensationalism or bias. I curated best part of 350 images, virtually all of which were taken by Tommy. There are a few images that I ‘fell over’ during the research, taken by others that include Tom well in the press melee, which proves he was definitely there. I also tracked down professionals from the photographic / music world to contribute a nice testimonial or two about Tom, (including world renowned album cover photographer, Jill Furmanovsky).

I didn’t want the book ‘lost in the noise’ of all the other Beatles books, so made it ‘one off’ collectable coffee table style publication, limited to just 1000 copies. The book concept and design was by Emily Benton, she designed the hessian book cover and slip case, Emily also proposed the book pages to be printed on Italian paper Fedrigoni, and explained that to achieve a premium presentation, with no stone left unturned, there was only one specialist printer who is Albe De Coker of Antwerp. I am genuinely lucky to have so much great talent to help make this as special as it is, and a true labour of love, to my late dad, Tom.

I have no intention of doing anything else as now the book is done, despite offers, it won’t be diluted into paperback or a cheaper version. It’s been a mammoth task, most of which I completely underestimated, time and investment to get to completion, however, that’s over now, my promise is fulfilled, and yes, I’m not embarrassed to say that I need to get the investment back at least. So far so good.

With so much turmoil on our doorstep, there are many deserving charitable causes, and I have had to distil a commitment to donate some proceeds to two charities. The first of the two I am a fund raising ambassador for which is Burns camps, Cambridge, UK. This is a small charity devoted to getting children with major burns injuries back in the race, via a week long residential camp amongst other children with similar injuries. The second is the Royal Star & Garter charity, https://starandgarter.org which I understand my Grandad benefited from when he needed it.

So, my next job is clearing the archive of vintage prints that Tom produced and kept experimenting with. There are quite a few and I will keep adding more as we go.

Best wishes to you and yours,

Tony Hanley

(Tommys Son)

Your individually numbered limited edition copy of ‘With a Little Help From My Lens’ awaits. This unique collector’s item is not available anywhere else on the planet. With only 1000 in circulation, buy your copy here, before it’s too late.