I'm the boy in Freud painting (not him)

It was billed as the portrait of the sneak thief who had posed for Lucian Freud after the artist found him breaking into his flat.

But after Boy on a Sofa sold for a record £1.5 million this summer, the true story behind the work - the most expensive Freud on paper yet auctioned - began to come to light.

Experts believed the portrait, originally sold for £18 at Freud's first public exhibition in 1944, showed Billy Lumley, who had become the artist's model after the alleged break-in at Delamere Terrace in Paddington.

But today the Evening Standard can reveal that the portrait is not of Billy, but his brother, Charlie.

And the "boy", now 79 and living in Ham, near Richmond, claims the entire story is a misunderstanding - and describes how the man he knew as "Lu" became a bosom pal.

Charlie said his tale has been confused with that of George Dyer, the burglar who became the lover and muse of artist Francis Bacon.

In Mr Lumley's case, the appellation was a joke bestowed by the local greengrocer because the young Charlie would climb the drainpipe to his
family's flat when he had no keys.

At the top, a balcony adjoined that of the next-door flat, where one day Charlie met Freud, who had escaped from Germany a few years earlier. A firm friendship began.

"We used to give him a sandwich because he was so hard up," Charlie said. "He became my best friend and we were constant companions until I got married in 1960."

Freud painted Charlie three times and they shared wild nights out, sometimes pretending to Freud's first wife, Jacob Epstein's daughter Kitty, that they were working late. "I was in the West End every night with him. He used to try to make conquests, which he invariably did," Charlie said.

He was there in the bad times, too, such as Freud's split from his second wife, Lady Caroline Blackwood. "I had to be with Lu on the roof of his apartment in Dean Street. Francis Bacon asked me to keep with him because they were frightened he was going to jump. He was suicidal for a while."

Bill Lumley, 72, sometimes worked for the artist, running bets to bookmakers and even serving drinks at his wedding to Lady Caroline. He was painted as Boy with a Cherry, a work that was destroyed in a fire in South Africa.

The retired decorator recalls the artist as "strange" but "a very nice bloke", adding: "He used to come right up close to you and look at your eyes and paint every shadow in your eyes."

Bill's modelling sessions were interrupted when he was hit in the face with a crate. "Lu done his nut. He had to wait until it went down," he said. "But he used to buy me breakfast."
Both men were saddened by Freud's death aged 88 in July. "I would like to have seen him again," said Bill.