An adorable photograph series showing a Bucks boy jamming with his dogs in 1967 has resurfaced – and TeamDogs wants your help to find him.
The sweet black-and-white photographs, taken on Friday, January 12, 1968, feature three-year-old Ashley Charlton of Bourne End, close to High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire.
Dressed in a pale woollen turtleneck and checked trousers, Ashley is seen playing music to his dogs using a harmonica, while seemingly standing on a sofa in a living room.
In the first photo, Ashley stares straight into the camera, flanked by two dark-coloured dogs.
The pup on the left, a medium-sized black breed with a white ruff, sits patiently watching his master, while the one to Ashley’s right, a smaller, curly-haired dog, has tipped back its head to let out a howl.
A second photo shows a third dog, fully black and of medium build, howling while lifting up its front paws, as if jumping in exciting, or even dancing along.
The dogs are said to have begun accompanying Ashley at Christmas, when he had played his harmonica while his brother tuned up his guitar.
December 25, 1967, had been an eventful day, with American warplanes taking a brief ceasefire in Vietnam, and nine people killed in an explosion in Moscow.
In the UK, the Queen gave her usual speech at 3pm, followed by ‘Disney Time’ with Dick van Dyke at 4.15pm and ‘Christmas Night with the Stars’, introduced by Rolf Harris.
In Buckinghamshire, the murder of 19-year-old aircraftswoman Rita Ellis at an RAF base in November 1967 – which has still not be solved more than 50 years on – had lately shocked the Aylesbury Vale.
‘Hello Goodbye’ by The Beatles would likely have played on the radio several times during the Christmas period, as well as on the day the photos of Ashley and his family dogs were taken.
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The popular song took the number one spot in the official charts on Wednesday, 6 December, 1967, and remained there for seven weeks.
It had been a big year for music, with the UK winning that year’s Eurovision contest thanks to Sandie Shaw’s song ‘Puppet on a String’.
The UK Prime Minister at the time was Harold Wilson, who served twice, from October 1964 to June 1970, and then again from March 1974 to April 1976.
He is the Labour leader to have formed Labour administrations following four general elections, one of which as a minority government.
The US president, meanwhile, was Lyndon B. Johnson, while Pope St Paul VI was leading the Catholic Church.
In Bourne End, where the photos were taken, a Community Library had been opened, on May 31, 1967.