"I sat on this for years": Film crew visits Derbyshire field to unearth truth of classic Who album cover

The makers of a new documentary on renowned American photographer Ethan Russell pitched up at Brampton Brewery on Saturday, June 22, to meet John Hirst – one of the few men alive able to pinpoint a location shot for the cover of the Who’s 1971 multi-platinum classic Who’s Next.

Fans worldwide have long thought the mysterious monolith around which the band posed was somewhere in Durham, but for the past few years John has been on a mission to spread the truth that it was actually near Temple Normanton.

Walton resident John, 72, is now a director at the brewery, but his career was mostly spent working in architectural services for Chesterfield Borough Council.

He said: “Back when the album came out I was working for Clay Cross council, and someone in the office was a big Who fan said he knew where the photo had been taken. He used to drive past it every day on his way from Mansfield.

“I kept a little camera in my car, so three of us went up there and I took photo of him standing with it. I got married and moved nearby soon after and over the next couple of years I took more photos as the land was filled in around it, until the thing disappeared.”

The concrete pillar in the photo was intended as a visual reference to the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey but is in fact a drain built into the spoil heap from Bond’s Main colliery to help prevent landslips.

Today only the very top of it is visible at ground level, in what is now a farmer’s field.

John said: “I sat on these photos for years and years, and every now and then I’d hear about Who fans who said it was somewhere completely different. It’s all over the internet that it’s somewhere near Easington. If I’d changed it on Wikipedia, someone would have just changed it back.

“My other old colleague, who’d been there when we took our original photo, had tried telling his mates about it and none of them believed him, so he’d been on at me to dig out the negatives for a couple of years.

“It wasn’t helped by the fact that Ethan Russell published a book in which he gave Easington as the location too, so during lockdown I decided to contact him. The site isn’t easily accessible by road anymore but I scrambled up there, took a photo of what’s left of it and then sent it to him with my old photos.

“When we spoke, it turned out he didn’t have a clue where the photo had been taken. He was just travelling from one gig to another with the band.”

John’s case was bolstered by research which pinned down the date of the photo down to between Who shows in Sheffield and Leicester.

He said: “Ethan said he wanted to correct the record somehow, and he’s shown my photos in all these massive galleries since. Then about three weeks ago I was contacted out of the blue by the filmmakers to ask if they could interview me and visit the site.

“It’s private land now so I started ringing round trying to find the owners for permission. I ended up being passed between a few farmers and they all remembered the album cover when I explained.

“I finally reached the tenant who farms the field now, and he walked down there looked at it and phoned me back saying how brilliant it was.

“You wouldn’t think a lump of concrete could cause so much enthusiasm. It must have been about 14 feet high at the time of the photo but there’s only about 18 inches now.”

After being interviewed on camera at the brewery, the filmmakers followed Ethan and John as they hiked to the drain cover and exchanged their memories of the site.

John said: “Ethan’s known as the only rock photographer to have shot album covers for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who, as well as loads of other big names. The groups liked him because he’d sit there and record them in a natural way.

“In the days before we met, Ethan and the film crew had been to interview Bill Wyman from the Stones, Pete Townshend from the Who, and Glyn Johns who produced some of those famous albums.

“On Sunday they were going to the rooftop in London where the Beatles gig got shut down by the police in 1969. It’s nice to feel like a little part of all that.”

With the film still in production, John does not know yet where and when it will make it to the screen but he is hopeful it will be distributed somehow in the UK given all the famous names involved.

He said: “The main thing is that I wanted to get this credited to Chesterfield. That’s what this boils down to. I don’t want any personal fame out of it.

“I put something on Facebook about it yesterday and someone local replied to say her late husband had been a big Who fan and would have been so pleased to known about this. I’m from Chesterfield too, and I think this is something to be proud of for people who know.”

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