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Home | The Beatles: 1957–70 | Solo career | Murder | Political activism
Early years: 1940–57
John Winston Lennon was born in the Liverpool Maternity Hospital, Oxford Street, Liverpool, to Julia Lennon (born Stanley) and Alfred (Alf, or Freddie) Lennon, during the course of a German air raid in World War II. Julia's sister, Mary "Mimi" Smith, ran through the blacked-out back roads to reach the hospital. During the two-mile trek to the hospital, she used the explosions to see where she was going. Lennon was named after his paternal grandfather, John 'Jack' Lennon, and Winston Churchill. Alf was a merchant seaman during World War II, and was often away from home, but sent regular pay cheques to Julia, who was living with the young Lennon at 9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool, but the cheques stopped when Alf went absent without leave in 1943. When Alf eventually came home in 1944, he offered to look after his wife and son, but Julia (who was pregnant with another man's child) rejected the idea. After considerable pressure from her sister, Mimi Smith (who contacted Liverpool's Social Services to complain about Julia), Julia handed the care of Lennon over to Mimi. In July 1946, Alf visited Mimi and took Lennon to Blackpool, secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia followed them, and after a very heated argument, Alf made the five-year-old Lennon choose between Julia or him, and Lennon chose him twice. As Julia walked away, however, Lennon began to cry and followed her. Alf then lost contact with Lennon for twenty years until the height of Beatlemania, when father and son met again.
Throughout the rest of his childhood and adolescence, Lennon lived with his Aunt Mimi and her husband George Smith, who had no children of their own, in Woolton, in a house called "Mendips" (251 Menlove Avenue). Mimi bought volumes of short stories for Lennon, and George, who was a dairyman at his family's farm, engaged Lennon in solving crossword puzzles, and bought him a harmonica. (Smith died on 5 June 1955). Julia Lennon visited Mendips almost every day, and when Lennon was 11 he often visited her at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool. Julia taught Lennon how to play the banjo, and played Elvis Presley's records for him. The first song he learned was Fats Domino's "Ain't That A Shame".
Lennon had a large affiliation with Fleetwood where he regularly visited his cousin Stanley Parkes, the 'big brother' to the young John, the son of his Aunt Elizabeth (known as Mater). Unfortunately George Parkes, the husband of Elizabeth and father of Stanley, died young and they moved to 33 Galloway Road where they lived with a local Fleetwood solicitor Mr Hodson. Stanley recalls he would often visit Liverpool and return to Fleetwood in the school holidays with his othe cousin Leila, Aunt Harriet's daughter. Stanley recalls they would all go up to Blackpool on the tram two or three times a week during their summer holidays to see separate shows. They would visit the Blackpool Tower Circus and see artists such as Dickie Valentine, Arthur Askey, Max Bygraves and Joe Loss and his big band. However, Stanley recalls it was George Formby who John particularly liked. The duo used to pass Formby's house regularly on the bus journey from Preston to Fleetwood where he and his wife would often be sitting in deck chairs in their garden at the front of their house. Stanley recalls he and John would wave and they would wave back. Stanley and the young John were keen fans of Fleetwood Flyers Speedway Club and Fleetwood Town FC.
Lennon was raised as an Anglican and attended Dovedale Primary School until he passed his Eleven-Plus exam. From September 1952 to 1957, he attended the Quarry Bank High School in Liverpool, where he was known as a "happy-go-lucky" pupil, drawing comical cartoons and mimicking his teachers.
Julia bought Lennon his first guitar in 1957, which was a Gallotone Champion acoustic (a cheap model that was "guaranteed not to split"). Julia insisted it be delivered to her house and not to Mimi's, who hoped that Lennon would grow bored with music; she was sceptical of Lennon's claim that he would be famous one day, often telling him, "The guitar's all very well, John, but you'll never make a living out of it". On 15 July 1958, when Lennon was 17, Julia was killed in Menlove Avenue (close to Mimi's house) when struck by a car driven by an off-duty police officer. Her death would be a bond between Lennon and McCartney, who also lost his mother (to breast cancer) on 31 October 1956.
Lennon failed all his GCE O-level examinations, and was only accepted into the Liverpool College of Art with help from his school's headmaster and Mimi. There, Lennon met his future wife, Cynthia Powell, when he was a Teddy Boy. Lennon was often disruptive in class and ridiculed his teachers, resulting in their refusing to have him as a student. Lennon failed an annual Art College exam despite help from Powell, and dropped out before his last year of college.