Alright, allow me to summarise the suggested scenario for now.
Paul Cairns joins Iron Maiden at some point before they record The Soundhouse Tapes. The band record the demo and right away decide they must forever keep Cairns' involvement a secret. They do not print his name or picture on the back of the record sleeve. Paul Cairns apparently never notices this, despite the band selling the EP at their gigs, even signed copies. Cairns never sees a signed copy, or the back of the record sleeve, or never thinks anything of it. The secret is so important to the band that Doug Sampson, and even Paul di'Anno never, ever make mention of it despite being interviewed about their time in the band for thirty years, and despite di'Anno willing to talk anything about the band, true or not.
Paul Cairns is not written out of the band history, probably because people would notice. However, he is moved forward in the chronology to a point after the recording of The Soundhouse Tapes, and conveniently in a time frame which is quite obscure, with few gigs, photos, bootlegs and whatnot.Of course, memories are hazy, and get hazier the more time progresses.
25 years later, despite everybody involved back then keeping silent, Dave Murray, of all people, casually slips the information in an interview made for the Early Days. Luckily, this is discovered, and edited out of the video.
Thirty years later, Loopy discloses the information, again casually, for no other reason than to tell his story. His memory is everything but hazy, but actually astonishingly detailed for a time that lies thirty years back. Interestingly, while Loopy gets some mention in Paul di'Annos "autobiography" (I use this term loosely here), Paul Cairns isn't, although di'Anno is committed to telling the truth (in his own words, that is).
Even Paul Cairns never talked about this to anyone else except his brother, who now wants to know why he isn't mentioned anywhere as a member in the recording of The Soundhouse Tapes. He has a photo which he claims was taken at the time of the recording sessions, but is too grainy to make out anyone in particular (except Steve and the famous dog), and really could have been taken at any time during the winter. Conveniently, Doug Sampson even mentions in Run to the Hills that Cairns joined at a time when there was a lot of heavy snow... as if he knew the picture would surface at some point.
Did I get all of this right?
Also wouldn't you say that the photograph you posted above could be Smiler instead of Maiden? When the only two recognizable people are Harris and Doug, who both played in Smiler?
