Ballad of John & Cynthia
2: Wedding Day Blues
Read Part One
News of the engagement between John Lennon and Cynthia Powell did not go down well at the Mendips.
Mimi, predictably was furious. She screamed, raged and threatened to never to speak to him again if he went though with it
Nor was Brian Epstein punching the air with joy. Since becoming The Beatles manager in the previous November, he had worked relentlessly to get them onto the national stage. Now they finally had a record contract and a marketable image. An image that did not include a married singer or a baby.
Traditional show-business wisdom at that time was that potential pop stars needed the appearance of availability. Evicting the current wife was a heavy lift for even the most besotted teenage fan.
Yet despite this apparent setback to his business plan, Epstein responded with good grace. At John’s request, he agreed to be Best Man, despite having known Lennon for less than a year. He also discreetly made the necessary practical arrangements. The wedding was not secret exactly but not publicised either.
August 23 1962 Mount Pleasant Registry Office, Liverpool
Like Linda, in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, Cynthia finds that the option of a grand ’wedding in a pantomime’ is not available to her. She has no bridesmaid, for example, because best friend is away on holiday. She chooses her ‘best’ dress, rather than buying a new one. And it is Brian who steps into the shoes of her late, father, collecting her in a chauffeur-driven car.
Other members of Cynthia’s family, including her mother, are noticeably absent. In John she is touchingly grateful that her brother and sister in law deign to turn up for at least part of the occasion. On the Lennon side of the aisle, Aunt Mimi leads a complete boycott.
John does, however, have George and Paul with him. Ringo, the recent usurper of Pete Best, does not attend. Perhaps he is keeping his head down, as news of Best’s sacking has just been published in the Mersey Echo.
John & Cynthia shout out their vows
The wedding ceremony is brief.
Perhaps fittingly, a workman in the street outside, ‘starts up a pneumatic drill’ just as they are about to take their vows.
According to Cynthia ‘the noise is ear splitting’. With nobody able to hear anything above the racket, George steps forward when the registrar asks for the bridegroom. The ‘dour, solemn’ official is not amused. Nor does he approve of John and Cynthia shouting out their vows.
In her memoir, John, Cynthia is anxious to correct the impression of a grim shotgun wedding. She describes the occasion with warm affection, and expresses particular gratitude for Bryan Epstein’s personal kindness. What strikes the reader, however, is the poignancy of her situation and the portents of trouble to come.
The other Beatles are dressed in “alarmingly dark suits” while the weather is “awful … the sky overcast and grey.” Even the impromptu lunch arranged and paid for by Bryan has ominous undertones. The Reece Café is the same venue used by Fred and Julia Lennon at the start of their brief, ill-fated marriage, more than twenty earlier.
The low-key, no-frills celebrations end long before the sun goes down. John travels with the band to play a Beatles gig at the Riverpark Ballroom in Chester. He is not accompanied by his new bride.
She waits alone for her husband to return — as she will so often do in the coming years. Married life begins in a flat that Bryan has thoughtfully provided.
There is no honeymoon.
The Sad Ballad of John & Cynthia -Part One
Why was John brought up by his Aunt Mimi?
Summer of 62: Recording of Love Me Do * Replacement of Pete Best
