Unseen Lennon on show

Mum with a mop, dad with a hoe and baby playing with a gold spoon - it is hardly a conventional portrait in the front room but hey, it was the Sixties.

And, of course, this was the family of one of the most famous men in the world at the time - John Lennon.

This intimate portrait of the late former Beatle John, his first wife Cynthia and their son Julian paints a loving picture at their home in Weybridge, Surrey, in May 1965. It is published for the first time today.

Photographer Bob Whitaker, who took the image, said of the shoot: "I thought John and Cynthia were brilliant together. They seemed to be a perfect couple. I decided to shoot them as a kind of emblematic family: Cynthia with a mop, John with a workman's tool, and Julian with a gold spoon, as the child who has been born into this rich set-up.

"We set it up as a theatre-piece and John loved it. He grabbed the hoe and said: 'I'm the breadwinner here, you know.'"

However a different side to family life in the Lennon household was to emerge in later years. Twelve weeks after the photo session Lennon wrote an emotional letter home that revealed the cost of fame at the height of Beatlemania. The singer admitted he was "a thoughtless bastard" and did not pay enough attention to Julian. He ends the note: "I really feel like crying."

It was written in August 1965, when the Beatles were enjoying a break at a hideaway in Benedict Canyon, Hollywood, during a high-pressure US tour.

He wrote about being an absent father to Julian: "I really miss him as a person now ... He's not so much 'the baby' or 'my baby' any more - he's a real living part of me now."

This image is part of a Beatles In Pictures edition of Mojo magazine, out in conjunction with The Beatles, Classic, Rare And Unseen, from 25 March to 8 May at Redferns Music Picture Gallery in Bramley Road, London W10.

Lennon divorced Cynthia in November 1968. He married Yoko Ono in March 1969, with whom he had a son, Sean.