Iconic images from Harry's treasure chest of swinging '60s shots capture the stars as seldom seen before, mostly in Blackpool or on tour. Cliff Richard with his mum on the Summer Holiday run.

A 1963 letter from Brian Epstein, Beatles manager, cutting a deal regarding picture rights.

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Candid shots, happy snaps, posed studio images of The Beatles, Stones, Billy Fury, Billy J Kramer, Spencer Davis, Who, Kinks, Adam Faith, Walker Brothers, Troggs and hundreds more.

They were taken by the late John Vale, a Poulton photographer who put his Valex promotion agency stamp on to hundreds of pix of rising stars.

he was part of the Brit beat boom himself, backstage, and on the road, from that first Cliff tour back in 1959, later travelling the world as chauffeur, photographer, minder to bands.

Harry bought the pictures from John's mother, £100 for two cardboard boxes full of pictures. He didn't look at them for two or three years, until he started to collate them. He found a pic 'n' mix of hard rock and soft melody, even pictures from the old Arnold Girls' School.

No negatives, but lots of contact sheets, and letters, including Epstein accepting a small percentage for the Beatles' copyright sales of Vale's pictures.

Harry explains: "I put the boxes by for a few years, then I saw all these pix of the Beatles, even Cliff and his mum, taken on a cheap camera on the tour bus, and being in a bit of a pop group myself, I was hooked."

Bit of a pop group? Big understatement.

Harry called us after hearing of the Showtown posters' exhibition at the Olympia Balcony, Winter Gardens, which ends on Sunday.

He could stage something similar himself. Here are the singers, songwriters, bands who redefined pop and rock, their influence felt to this day, right up to the Brits Awards last night.

There's John Barry, relative unknown when he came with Cliff to Blackpool. Pop's Peter Pan may have been knighted but Barry's the man whose powerhouse compositions came to symbolise 007's iconic appeal and he's now acclaimed one of our best contemporary classical composers.

Sermon over. It helps to know Harry's antecedents, too. Today customers assail the Layton Toyota dealer with the greeting "Hello Harry, got a new motor?" but he rocked the '60s as Reverend Black and the Rockin' Vicars (or The Wild Ones).

Later renamed the Rockin' Vickers out of deference to Decca (I Go Ape, '64) and the sensibilities of Christians offended by their donning of clerical costumes and dog collars for the stage set.

Harry, with one of the hardest rocking live bands, was up there in the heady heyday of The Who's Who of the '60s.

His own band's later recordings included It's Alright by The Who's Pete Townsend – which inspired The Who's The Kids Are Alright – and Dandy ('66), a Ray (Kinks) Davies composition.

"We were famous for filling places rather than topping the charts – and even got banned from telly," he admits.

Harry, 63, still plays for family functions but says photography's his passion.

Of the Rockin' Vicars, Nicholas Gribbon still performs as Nick Unlimited locally today. And this was the band which propelled Ian Willis (aka Ian Kilminster) to become Lemmy of Hawkwind and Motorhead.

Confused? You're supposed to be. The Sixties, remember!