When They Were Boys (7 page)

The family story came apart when mother Julia, leaving Mimi's house after tea, crossed Menlove Avenue and was struck and killed by a car driven by an area constable. It was July 15, 1958. John was seventeen years old, and his music was beginning to enter the magical phase. It was a loss that brought fits of rage, nightmares, and anger to John for the rest of his life.

Julia Baird, at the time shell-shocked, devastated by the loss of her mother, remembers how John tried to hide his tears.

“He was so ripped apart. He tried to hide his pain, but he had a lot of it, and it didn't go away . . . not ever, especially when it came to her.”

Nigel Walley, an original member of the Quarrymen, and later manager of the group, had left Julia Lennon at a bus stop near her home. He was the last person to see her before the fatal accident.

“John could hardly face the funeral,” Walley recalled. “John didn't want anyone to see him crying. For many months after her death he wore black in her memory.”

John, like Paul, who also lost his mother in his teenage years, may have never recovered. It was a big hole in his life, but he rarely talked about it.

On the Beatles' chartered Electra airplane in August 1964, John Lennon had heard that my mother had just died. He found out from Paul McCartney, who was sharing thoughts with me on losing a parent.

“How are you, Lawrence [my birth name is Larry but he liked to call me that]? How are you doing?” John asked.

“Okay,” I said, the memories still lingering then after my mom's death at the age of forty.

“Well, it's hard. I know. My mum was killed in our neighborhood.”

He explained the accident, the feeling of loss. It was comforting.

“What was she like?” I asked.

“Well, she loved music. Bought me my first guitar. Taught me music. We played together, laughed and sang.”

There was no mention of Aunt Mimi and her role in raising John, nor was there any outward sign of bitterness, just a bittersweet sadness in his face.

I wasn't savvy enough in those days to probe further. After all, when you're twenty-one, who thinks of writing history? Who actually believes, in the time that you are living your history, that you will pursue the recording of it in the future?

The official history of Julia's life has been studied in books, films, and hearsay. Her real effect on the future star has been minimized and discredited by the ravages of time and misconception. The truth is that the part-time mother served a major purpose and, probably outside of Yoko Ono, played the most significant role in inspiring the young and confused John. Let's be honest—it's much easier to taint and paint a woman of allegedly questionable repute than it is to discredit a seriously intense woman like Mimi, who after complaining to social services co-opted Julia and took control of John's daily life.

Well, almost. Mother Julia was always present in the background, especially when it came to music. She was dedicated and cheerfully determined. And she was a charismatic woman, with striking looks.

“She was very tiny, like me,” Yoko Ono says. “John used to make the connection between the two of us. John respected all five Stanley sisters, especially Mimi. But he had an enduring love for his mother, [who] in many ways was like a sister, while Mimi was more of the authority figure. He loved both, but his love for his mother was, as I said, enduring.”

As an adult, John would reflect on his mother's choices. With love and affection, Yoko remembers:

“‘My mom would go to bed with someone who gave her a silk stocking,' he would tell me. While he knew about his mother, he wanted to know more about his dad. But he knew his mother because of what she gave him.”

And that was a lot.

Julia Baird was eleven when her mother died. She has spent years attempting to correct the impression that Julia Stanley Lennon was an afterthought and, frankly, she has the memories to back it up.

While Mimi banned tape recorders in her house, John would often go to Julia's house and they would sway together and hold hands and listen to the music of Elvis Presley. John's sister recalls:

M
Y GRANDFATHER
J
OHN CAME BACK FROM THE MERCHANT MARINE WITH A BANJO AND A MONKEY
. H
E PLAYED THE BANJO AND IT WOUND UP IN OUR HOUSE, ACTUALLY IN MY BEDROOM
. H
E TAUGHT MY MOTHER HOW TO PLAY A BANJO AND SING
. M
OTHER TAUGHT
J
OHN HOW TO PLAY THE BANJO
. S
HE WAS VERY, VERY MUSICAL
. S
HE BOUGHT
J
OHN HIS FIRST GUITAR
. M
IMI BOUGHT HIM HIS SECOND GUITAR
. J
OHN PLAYED THE GUITAR LIKE A BANJO AT FIRST, BUT MOTHER TRANSITIONED HIM TO GUITAR
. S
HE LOVED THE TIME WITH HIM
. W
HEN HE CAME OVER
, J
ACKIE AND
I
WATCHED THE TWO BONDING MUSICALLY
. S
HE LOVED HIM LIKE A MOTHER WOULD LOVE A SON
. A
ND HIS EYES WOULD LIGHT UP WHEN HE CAME OVER
. S
O WOULD OURS
. W
ATCHING THEM TOGETHER WAS VERY SPECIAL
.

So, why, I ask Baird, would Mimi portray her own flesh and blood, her own sister, in a negative light, and falsely broaden her own role in John's life?

Baird stares straight at me and says, “She had been rigid in many ways. . . . I think that, at the end of her life, she was struggling with how she had lived her life.”

Baird feels that Mimi did give John guidance and some level of discipline, but that mother Julia gave him an emotional connection. She also pointed out that while married, Mimi had an affair. So, she says, the dignified aunt was flawed after all. The truth is that husband George had lost a small fortune to gambling. Mimi was devastated and became involved with a boarder. The affair, in Julia Baird's view, contradicts the view of Mimi as a tidy, controlled, faithful guarantor of ethical standards.

As far as her own mother, the namesake insists that the tag of a young, frivolous lover is absurd.

“Fred [John's father, Alfred] and my mother were courting on and off for ten years. How much more conventional can it get?”

More important than the subject of virtue is the effect that both women had in developing young John. Music from his mom, and something much different from her sister—together they produced a legacy of women with impact.

“When John finally took me to meet Mimi,” Yoko remembers, “Uncle George was in a corner like no one could see him. John always said that in that household, in that family, men didn't mean anything. The women at times so dominated that men couldn't voice their opinion.”

Was Mimi as stern and intense as she has been portrayed?

“First of all,” Yoko says, “Mimi was a handsome woman. Mimi said, ‘I always loved him.' It must have been tough for Mimi. She was one of five sisters. She
was
tough, but I think in a loving way. She wasn't musical like her sister Julia, but the discipline she handed out was good for John.”

It was an interesting tween and teenage environment that John Lennon lived in. Yoko continues, “Mimi was not into popular music and art, so John learned the classical music from Mimi and her art. Mimi wanted John to be a tweedy type, and she thought and told John he could be anything. She loved Van Gogh and certainly influenced John's art and drawings.”

There was another aspect of Aunt Mimi that Yoko delights in:

S
HE WAS VERY INTELLIGENT
. V
ERY PERCEPTIVE
. I
N THE HOUSE ONE TIME SHE SAW
P
AUL SITTING ON A STOOL REHEARSING AND
J
OHN WAS ON THE FLOOR
. S
HE KNEW HE
[
PAUL
]
WAS PRETTY AND TALENTED AND HAD A WAY WITH PEOPLE
. M
IMI WARNED
J
OHN
[
ABOUT
P
AUL'S AMBITIONS
]. S
HE WAS SUSPICIOUS
. J
OHN WAS NERVOUS ABOUT
P
AUL BECAUSE
M
IMI WAS WARNING HIM
. J
OHN WAS MORE OUTGOING
. L
ATER HE LOVED HELPING
R
INGO AND
G
EORGE, ESPECIALLY HELPING
G
EORGE MAKE
“S
OMETHING
”
INTO A SINGLE
. A
LL THE WHILE
, P
AUL WAS SUGGESTING THAT
J
OHN WAS REALLY DOING NO FAVOR, BECAUSE HE FELT THE OTHER THREE COULD BECOME A GROUP “AGAINST ME.”

So, the prospect of a conflict between the two giants of contemporary music was a prophecy of protective Aunt Mimi.

Of course, Yoko never met mother Julia. But she did stay in close touch with Mimi, even in the years after John's death.

About Mimi's affair, Yoko says, “That would mean she is only human, maybe not as hard and cold” as she has been portrayed.

Julia Baird, on the other hand, is emphatic about Mimi's affair—perhaps to deflect from her mother's own challenges? Maybe, but the fact is that all
of the Stanley women were attractive, and sought after by men. No surprise, then, that the central figure in our story became a young man in hot pursuit of women as aggressively as he was seeking the lore of rock 'n' roll.

The domestic education was an unusual one for the skinny boy who would have to tiptoe out of the house. When that didn't work, when Mimi heard him and would whisper through the walls, “John? Is that you, John?” he would remain undaunted and would sneak out, whether to climb the fence to visit the boys at Strawberry Field, or later, to wander out for a smoke or to meet with a girl.

Mimi scared John but also disciplined him in a productive way. Mother Julia pleased him, with valuable time spent on entertaining and enlightening him. There was no heavy lifting or tension on John's visits with his mother, but then again, part-time mothering does have its benefits.

On the key point of the impact on a child's mission into life, mother Julia had great influence, even on his art:

M
Y MOTHER HAD INFLUENCE ON THOSE FAMOUS SKETCHES
. S
HE TAUGHT
J
OHN, ME, AND MY SISTER TO DRAW IN BLACK
I
NDIA INK ON WHITE PAPER
. I
T WAS THOSE MOMENTS, WHEN MY MOTHER LOVED HER ADORED CHILD, THAT SHAPED HIM, ALTHOUGH FRANKLY, HE WAS PRETTY WELL SET WITH HIS OWN MIND
.

I
N ORDER TO WRITE MY BOOK
, I
GOT IN TOUCH WITH A SCHOOL FRIEND OF
J
OHN'S
—D
AVID
E
PSTEIN
. S
ADLY, HE GOT THIS DISEASE CALLED FARMER'S LUNG
. H
E WAS A BEEKEEPER, NOT A SMOKER
. H
E MUST HAVE GOTTEN IT FROM ALL THE PESTICIDES
. W
E GOT TO BE FRIENDS SINCE
I
WROTE THE BOOK, AND HE SENDS ME LITTLE BLACK-AND-WHITE SKETCHES OF CREATURES
. I
SAID THEY LOOK FAMILIAR
. H
E SAID
, “I
WONDERED WHEN YOU'D ASK
. Y
OUR MOM GAVE ME THE PENS
.” I
RANG HIM STRAIGHTAWAY AND SAID
, “P
LEASE SEND THEM TO ME
.” H
E DID, AND THEY ARRIVED ON MY MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY
. A
ND I RECOGNIZED THEM STRAIGHTAWAY
.

I always wondered whether the young John Lennon knew he had uncommon talent. He certainly carried himself with a swagger as a twenty-three-year-old, so I assumed that he believed in his abilities.

“He knew when he was eleven that he was a genius,” Baird says. “He said, ‘If there is such a thing as a genius, then I am one.' There are people who just know. But it still didn't come easy. They said they did eight hundred hours of rehearsal in Hamburg alone. Then they repeated it here. They were hardly an overnight sensation. They worked at it really hard. They worked it hard for seven years.”

She emphasizes, “It didn't come easy.”

Nothing came easy for John. Could life have been that carefree and consequential for a child searching for a father, torn between two adoring and dramatically different but equally volatile sisters? The apparent prodigy walked the line between ruination and reinvention all of his life. He soared and then he sank, and when barely out of his teens, he made a fateful mistake.

***

Sitting in 2010 in the old classroom in the Art Institute, at John's desk, I glance over to the row that Cynthia Powell sat in. It was this classroom, traditional in its seasoned wood and elevated rows, where the eyes of John and Cynthia first met. It was eye contact and blushing first love.

Sister Julia Baird says,

A
S FAR AS
J
OHN, IT WAS TRUE LOVE FROM THE BEGINNING
. I
REMEMBER IN THE COURTSHIP DAYS, SHE WAS
B
RIGITTE
B
ARDOT–LIKE
. [J
OHN HAD AN OBSESSION WITH
B
ARDOT
.] S
HE
[C
YNTHIA] HAS THIS GREAT BONE STRUCTURE, HIGH CHEEKBONES AND ALL
. S
HE STILL LOOKS GREAT, BUT SHE IS A GREAT PERSON INSIDE, TOO
. I
N THE DEVELOPMENT OF
J
OHN, SHE DOESN'T REALLY GET THE PRAISE SHE DESERVES FROM THE HISTORY WRITERS, BUT DURING SUCH A CRITICAL CREATIVE TIME IN HIS LIFE, SHE GAVE HIM THE ATMOSPHERE TO MAKE IT WORK
.