View a picture gallery of Harry Goodwin's photography

Broad-shouldered, slim and as Mancunian as waiting for a tram in the rain, 83-year-old Harry Goodwin is the uncrowned king of pop photography in Britain. He was the official photographer on Top of the Pops from 1964 to 1973, his stills used as a backdrop when the hit-makers were away on tour and for the chart rundown, which meant no photos of moody lads on fire escapes – Goodwin’s are all classic portraits of icons.

It’s an impressive list: Bob Dylan, the Beatles, David Bowie, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Jimi Hendrix, the Jackson Five, the Supremes – and sporting legends too: George Best, Eric Cantona, Muhammad Ali, David Beckham. Harry’s photos of the Supremes have recently been republished in the book The Story of the Supremes, which accompanies an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but Goodwin is just amused by his recent elevation to fame. He insists that he’s just a working-class lad who got lucky.

Goodwin still has thousands of unprinted negatives from his Top of the Pops days. All his own heroes are sporting men. “My father was a bookmaker before the Second World War down at the dog track in Manchester. He trained me up as a youngster to be a tic-tac man. You had to be able to look after yourself at the track, so I boxed at a decent level from a young age, and could have gone pro as a footballer. When I was drafted in 1943 I was scared I’d end up cannon fodder in the Army, so my dad slipped the recruiting officer a fiver and got him to put my form in the pile for the RAF.”

His commanding officer gave him a job loading the cameras on reconnaissance planes flying over Japanese territory in Burma. “It was great training. A lot of those planes never came back and you didn’t want blokes risking their lives for photographs that you’d cocked up by not developing or loading them correctly. When we were moved to Kuala Lumpur, I’d borrow their equipment and take pictures of the local girls, and flog the pictures to the lads. That was my first paid work as a photographer.”

On his return to Manchester after the war, Goodwin worked on the beauty pageant and boxing circuits in the Fifties, getting his first front cover in the Daily Mirror. In the early Sixties he worked as a scene shifter for the BBC in Manchester. “I used to get the odd photo I could sell to the Radio Times. There was a 12-week pilot of a series called Top of the Pops in 1964, and they needed someone to photograph the bands. When the producer, the late Johnny Stewart, came up from London he thought I was streetwise and a hustler. So he gave me the job, 12 quid a week.

“I remember the first Top of the Pops, photographing the Rolling Stones. Brian Jones was arguing with me, and it got very heated, we ended up having a scrap in the dressing room. After that he was great. I’ve just found another amazing undeveloped shot of Jagger from that era. And the rest; I had to take so many photos.”

The first time Goodwin shot the Beatles was in 1963 at the Apollo in Manchester. “They were good lads but John Lennon could be a right one. A lot of it was just banter, testing you out, but people would be intimidated by him. I once did a session in the dressing room at Top of the Pops of them in their new jackets that they’d next wear for the famous Shea Stadium gig. I’d managed to sneak past their minders and John was kicking up about who’d invited me in there. Paul said that when they were on tour they’d need my photos. After the Beatles split I was asked to take some solo shots of [Lennon]. I wondered why he’d asked for me and I was a bit nervous. Then he introduced me to Yoko as the greatest photographer in Britain.”

Goodwin’s relationship with Lennon means there is a series of iconic photos which are now on permanent exhibition at John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. Yoko Ono flew in by private jet for the unveiling a year ago.

“The Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks were all great lads. Paul McCartney was a lovely feller, although when ever I bumped into him it was always Linda I’d look for. What an absolute gem she was, the most perfect woman I’ve ever met. When I’d be down Top of the Pops, she used to leave her cameras in my dressing room and we’d have a cup of tea and a laugh. She had such a big heart.”

Goodwin has fond memories of those days. “That whole era of Top of the Popsin Manchester was like New Year’s Eve every show. I’d look forward to it every week. The pubs and clubs after, the naughty goings on. It changed when it moved down to London, lost its atmosphere.” Harry’s anecdotes flow thick and fast. He almost came to blows with Bob Dylan at Sheffield City Hall in 1966 when a mischievous Goodwin doubled his flash on the last shot, to temporarily blind Dylan as punishment for his grumpiness.

But he didn’t rub everyone up the wrong way – Cher sent a stretch limo to bring Goodwin as her guest to a concert in Manchester just a couple of years ago and dedicated a song to him. One of Goodwin’s favourites was Dusty Springfield, but she was his least cooperative subject.

“She threw a shoe at my head after I’d burst into her dressing room and set my flash off. Five pictures in five years I got off her, she was an absolute nightmare. But what talent.” He always did like the members of the awkward squad, probably because he’s one of them. Eric Cantona was notorious at Manchester United for only permitting photographs of him out on the pitch, but he willingly posed for Goodwin holding an A-Z of Manchester. When asked why he made an exception, he responded: “Because Harry makes me laugh.”

The Story of the Supremes is available for £10 from theVictoria and Albert Museum,London SW7 (020-7942 2966) orfrom www.vam.ac.uk

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