Why was John Lennon brought up by his Aunt Mimi?
An emotionally turbulent, if financially comfortable childhood
Julia was a beautiful girl, headstrong. I loved Julia. She was so witty and amusing, always laughing. Aunt Mimi
He was taken from our mother, and notice the word ‘taken. Not given up. Torn away was more like it. Julia Baird, half-sister of John Lennon¹
Contrary to Aunt Mimi’s later recollection, John Lennon was not born during an air-raid. On October 9, 1940, Liverpool was experiencing a brief respite from the intense bombing that had begun in August and would continue until January. The city would suffer 4,000 deaths, the highest number of casualties outside London.
Perhaps Mimi was remembering the ever-present expectation of an imminent raid during those months. In the end, however, the son of Julia Lennon (née Stanley) was delivered without incident at Liverpool Maternity Hospital. She named him John Winston — the Winston being a patriotic tribute to Winston Churchill, Britain’s new Prime Minister.
John’s parents were married but did not live together. His father, Alfred (Freddie) Lennon, went back to sea before John was born. He never really came back. Alfred (known as Alf to his family and Freddie to the rest of the world) and Julia Lennon were legally separated in 1942.
Aunt Mimi Intervenes
During John’s earliest years, Julia Lennon was a lone parent. She was one of the five Stanley sisters from Toxteth, a working class area. From an early age, Julia had been ‘given licence within the family as the wild one, free spirited’. Her innate musicality had also been recognised — her father taught her banjo and she could play the popular songs of the late Twenties by ear.
It was after she left school at fifteen that Julia’s vivaciousness became problematic for her family. She soon met one Alfred Lennon (AKA Alf, Fred and later Freddie). He soon went off to join the merchant navy but would hook up with Julia on shore leave.
In many respects the relationship was casual — Julia ‘never went to the docks to see him off’ (Lewisohn, p.17). Nor, according to the memory of the not always reliable Mr Lennon, did she respond to his letters.
Alf was popular with his peers, ‘a rascal. An absolute character’ said one pal. The Stanley clan were less impressed. They saw him as ‘low’, an archetypal ‘scally’.
The Stanleys always believed they were several notches above the Lennons, claiming better breeding, education, nationality, religion, refinement resources and aspiration…
Julia, now a cinema usherette, was letting the side down. They reacted with horror when she married Alf on a whim, or more precisely to fulfil a dare. Then the War and a baby came in quick succession.
We were all shocked. She just thought it was clever to defy the family. We all make mistakes. The only good thing to come out of it was John. Mimi
In October 1940, Alf and Julia Lennon took their new-born baby home. On paper, they would be living with their (Stanley) in laws on Newcastle Street. Within weeks, however, the façade of a settled family began to crumble.
Freddie returned to sea, where his ship would soon be chased by U-boats. Back at Stanley HQ, they were in no hurry to see him back. The sisters were managing the baby, with the eldest, Mary — universally known as Mimi — taking a central role. She lived two miles away in a modest cottage inherited by George Smith, her sensible new husband. They had no children or plans to have any.
Alf and Julia stayed with the Smiths during his sporadic shore leave. He later claimed to be shocked that ‘during his time at sea, Julia had been going out most nights to local pubs and to dances…a married woman living the life of one unmarried.’ (Lewisohn)
The Stanleys did not approve of Julia’s party-loving lifestyle, either, though not on her husband’s account. The only useful purpose Alf Lennon served was to entitle his wife to ‘family allotment’ pay. One day Julia went to the Merchants Mercantile Offices to find that this had been stopped.
Was Freddie dead? Nobody knew — but his marriage certainly was.
In fact, Alf Lennon had been in one of his periodic tangles with the authorities, a proclivity he passed down to his son. On this occasion, he had served a month in prison for a ‘misunderstanding’ or desertion as the fussy officials insisted on calling it.
It was a further eighteen months before he reappeared in Liverpool. In the meantime, Julia took a job as a barmaid.
Taffy Evans & John ‘Bobby’ Dykins (aka ‘Twitchy’)
When he called at Newcastle Road in November 1944, Alf made an optimistic bid for a resumption of carnal relations. ‘I’m in the family way,’ Julia responded.
Who was the father? Clearly not merchant seaman, A. Lennon. Unsurprisingly, the subsequent scene, which took place in front of the four-year-old, was not adult, constructive or pleasant. It revealed that a Welsh soldier named Taffy Evans was the man concerned. He had now re-joined his unit and would not be returning
The following months were an unseemly mess. Alf demanded custody but then left John with his brother and her wife. They were baffled that Julia chose not to visit her son. In April 1945, there was another abrupt change when Alf reclaimed only to hand him back to Julia. Julia then had a daughter, Victoria, who was put up for adoption.
Towards the end of 1946, Julia further scandalised the Stanley family when she took up with John ‘Bobby’ Dykins, who she met while working in a cafe. While Dykins, a wine steward at the posh Adelphi Hotel, was a modest upgrade on Freddie, he was no catch. The couple moved into a tiny flat in which there was literally one bed.
‘Living in sin’ was still very much frowned upon in the genteel English suburbs. Julia seemed to be sliding into irrevocable social disgrace. There were also legitimate concerns for the five-year-old John’s welfare. Mimi told Julia bluntly that John sharing a bed with his mother and her new partner was suboptimal. ‘Let him live with us,’ she said. ‘We can offer John a better life.’
At first, Julia bitterly resisted this ‘rescue plan’ and was determined to keep John with her. Dykins threw Mimi out of the flat. Mimi returned with an official from Liverpool Social Services.
Eventually, Julia agreed to Aunt Mimi and Uncle George informally taking custody of her son. From this point on, John entered a more emotionally stable and materially affluent childhood. There would, however, be one more major family drama involving all the principal characters.
Freddie’s back
In the summer of 1946, Alfred Lennon briefly reappeared on the scene. Jealous of Julia’s relationship with Dykins, he also objected to John living with Mimi. Freddy suspected (correctly) that Mimi was unlikely to prove flexible regarding access.
This lead to the most notorious and disputed episode of John’s childhood: when he was (allegedly) forced to choose between his biological parents on Blackpool Promenade — see below (02.45–05.50).
According to Mark Lewisohn, the reality was less melodramatic. Alf Lennon was in fact about to return to sea after shore leave. He had no remotely firm plan to emigrate to New Zealand was not in a position to look after his son.
John returned to 251 Menlove Avenue and his father went back to sea. He did not see his son again for more than fifteen years. When he did get in touch with John, at the height of Beatlemania, Freddie received a frosty reception from his now world-famous son.
By this point, the prodigal father was down on his luck. Various scrapes had left him him was pecuniary. This was perhaps a little harsh but the now Freddie Lennon did not help his own case. His plea for filial forgiveness was first expressed in an exclusive interview with a tabloid newspaper.
John settled permanently at 251 Menlove Avenue and the custody issue was effectively closed. It was accepted by all that Mendips was John’s home. He was still living there when The Beatles first became famous.
¹ Interview in Concord Monitor, 2016
Which Beatle had the most difficult childhood?
What happened to Julia Lennon?
What was life like at Mendips?
The Beatles Tune In by Mark Lewisohn. *Lennon by Phillip Norman * The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies * Lennon Remembers by Jann S. Wenner * The Beatles Teaching Pack (free to download)
