John Lennon Instagram – MAD DAY OUT. Ian Whittington remembers posing for Don McCullin with the Fab Four, 28 July 1968 Ian Whittington: This is St Pancras Old Church and gardens, in north London. My grandad, Jack, was the head gardener. He was visiting family in Derbyshire that day: he always said if he had been there, he wouldn’t have allowed the Beatles in, because they were the sort of “long-haired layabouts” he disapproved of. He was upright and Victorian, dressed in corduroy trousers, waistcoat, jacket and tie, even when he was working. I’m the little boy on the left in the light blue jumper, and I’m six years old. Standing next to me is my younger brother Neil and behind us is our nan, Eunice. She’s holding paper and a pencil, as we got three of the Beatles’ autographs. Yoko Ono, who was there that day, kept calling John Lennon away, so we only got Paul, George and Ringo’s signatures. As young boys, we lived on and off with my grandparents for years, staying with them before we were finally offered a council flat in Shepherd’s Bush, west London. There was no announcement that the Beatles were coming – they just turned up, with a small group of friends, assistants, photographers and hangers-on. The other kids were just knocking about in the park that day, as we were. King’s Cross and St Pancras was a poor area then; parts of it were Dickensian. According to my nan, I sat on Paul’s knee. At one point, she brought them out tea. It was a beautiful park, much bigger than it is now. There was a Victorian bedding scheme, which my grandad was very proud of, a fountain, glasshouses, a playground, London plane trees. Sir John Soane’s mausoleum is there. In one famous picture, the Beatles are posing among my grandad’s prize hollyhocks. He had eight or nine staff, some of them in this photograph – the older man in the trilby at the back was the park keeper. He would take us to different London parks – Parliament Hill Fields, St James’s – and point out plants and birds. I got my love of the outdoors from him. #onthisday 28 July 1968