FOLLOWING our mystery photograph three weeks ago which showed second year students from Bolton School of Art sketching outside and antique shop on Newport Street in November, 1953, we were contacted by reader Graham Holstead, 79, who reckons he knows the names of some of the boys in the photo and thinks the great Fred Dibnah could be among them because he was in that class back in the year the photo was taken.

Graham said: “I was 13 at the time and was in the first year at the time and I know Fred was in the second year and could be in the photograph. Coincidentally, the art master in the photograph Mr J. Wardle (left) lived at the Two Cats, Radcliffe Road, which would later become the home of his former student (The Haulgh).

According to Graham, who went on to become an artist at Bury firm Transparent Paper, the lad stood to the left of the doorway with the dark jacket was nicknamed ‘Yappy’ Yates because he was always talking. The lad immediately to his left, kneeling and looking directly at the camera was Michael or William Ashton, while the boy immediately to his left with ‘the Tony Curtis quiff’ was Johnny Mills, who father had a butcher’s shop in Tonge Moor Road. The student at the extreme left of the photograph with dark hair and spectacles is Trevor Lofthouse and the boy to his left is Gordon Reece.

Can anyone offer more information and if a young Mr Dibnah is in this photograph?