Hours After This Picture Was Taken John Lennon Was Dead

This is the last photo of John Lennon. Well, let's say one from the set of the last known professional photographs. It was taken by Annie Leibovitz on the morning of the day he died, December 8 1980. The very, very last photograph was a snap taken by a fan, Paul Goresh, who happened to be standing outside the Dakota building at that moment when John agreed to sign an album for another fan, Mark Chapman, who turned out to be his assassin.

Leibovitz had gone to John and Yoko's apartment that morning to take some photos for Rolling Stone magazine. She had promised John it would make the cover - but of course she was not to know the dramatic context in which it would appear.

"I shot some test Polaroids first," she wrote a month later in Rolling Stone, "and when I showed them to John and Yoko, John said, 'You've captured our relationship exactly'. I looked him in the eye and we shook on it."

The cover shot which appeared in Rolling Stone in its January 22 1981 issue shows John naked, curled up over Yoko, lying together on a bed. It was recently voted the best ever Rolling Stone cover.

But Leibovitz also took some shots of John clothed, on the same bed, one of which appears here, which were not used at the time.

I've always been fascinated by the one of John naked for it gives away something which is rarely commented upon. On his naked thigh and naked arm you can clearly see that John is covered with little reddy freckles. Through his mother, Julia, John had inherited a red headed gene. It was normally never apparent, unless he was growing a beard or moustache and a hint of ginger emerged.

There is no known colour photo of Julia, so we can't be quite sure how gingery she was. She was killed in a road accident long before he was famous. But family and friends, back in the 60s, did mention her reddish hair.

We have had saturation coverage of John's death all this week, on radio, TV and press. We'll probably always have it at this time of the year, to celebrate his life, not just his death. Some might think it overdone, but to real fans, we can't have enough.

One of the "highlights" this time has also had a Rolling Stone connection. BBC Radio 4 got itself in quite a lather of excitement over the so-called Wenner Tapes. They were originally recorded by Rolling Stone's editor, Jann Wenner, on December 8 1970. Awful, horrible irony, to have done them on that particular day. Ten years exactly before the end.

The interview has been known to all fans for almost 35 years because every word was printed - firstly in Rolling Stone in two parts, then in a book, here and in the US - much to John's displeasure. He did not want the tapes to appear as a book. There's a studio recording of John loudly whispering "Rolling Stone is a rip-off, Rolling Stone is a rip-off" which he wanted to include at the end of a song, but it was never released.

Many fans have also heard as well as read the tapes because unofficial copies have been circulating for many years. I remember first reading the printed version sometime in the early 1970s and being furious to find that John had rubbished me and my book.

"The Hunter Davies book ... was bullshit," John told Wenner. "My auntie knocked all the truth bits from my childhood ... there was nothing about the orgies and shit that happened on tour."

His aunt was Aunt Mimi, who brought him up. Just before publication of my book she had somehow heard that I had included John swearing and stealing, which of course had come from John. She maintained such things never happened in his childhood.

John wrote me a letter, which is now on show in the manuscript room of the British Library, along with some of his original lyrics. In it, he asks me to calm Mimi down. "I just rang Mimi - she's worried sick. She MUST see the book before publication. Don't let me down. Do yer, duty, Hunt, lad ... love John."

I went to see Mimi at her home near Bournemouth. I didn't change a word of what I had written, but I did put in at the end of John's childhood chapter an extra remark that as far as Mimi was concerned "John was as happy as the day was long".

As for the orgies, it's true I did not describe any, as of course in 1968, when my book first came out, the Beatles were happily married, or with partners, so it would have been unfair to them.

But even in 1968 most people knew about groupies, and what happened, without having to spell it out.

The word "fuck" did appear in the book several times, totally commonplace now, but unusual then. I also gave details of their pill-popping, taking LSD, beating people up. Reviewers did comment on the honesty and candour of the book.

I even described Brian Epstein as a "gay bachelor", knowing full well that most people in 1968 were not quite aware of the new meaning of the word gay.

Anyway, I was well pissed off by John's "bullshit" remark about the book, so I wrote to him, reminding him that no truths or awful stories about his childhood had been deleted. Which he must remember, as it was he who asked me to keep Mimi happy.

Some time later, he rang me to say he was sorry. "You know me, Hunt, I just say anything that comes into my fucking head ..."

Can't remember when that was. But it was the last time I ever spoke to him.

· Hunter Davies is the author of the only authorised biography of the Beatles, available in an illustrated edition from Cassells, £15. He is working on his memoirs, The Beatles, Football and Me, to be published by Headline next summer