‘On 15 June 1968, John Lennon and I planted
two acorns for peace at Coventry Cathedral. It was the first of our many Peace Events’. (Yoko Ono, 1 June 2008).
Between June and August 1968, the first
National Sculpture Exhibition was held in the ruins of St. Michael’s Cathedral,
Coventry. The exhibition was sponsored by the Arts Council and by invitation of
Canon Stephen Edmund Verney.
The Cathedral had been destroyed during the
Luftwaffe raid on Coventry on 14 November 1940, and in common with St. Luke’s
Church in Liverpool was left as a permanent memorial to the Blitz.
In early June, John and Yoko managed to
secure an invitation via Anthony Fawcett who was a member of the organising committee
to display their work alongside such renowned sculptors as Henry Moore, Barbara
Hepworth and Roland Piche.
Very much in the early stages of their
relationship, both physically and creatively, John’s idea was informed by an
earlier work of Yoko’s he’d seen at the Indica Gallery on the day they first
met. Yoko’s ‘sculpture’ was an apple on a perspex display stand, an organic,
evolving piece representing the life cycle of birth, decay, death and rebirth
(the fruit gradually decomposing until only the seeds remained).
John decided to plant two acorns as a living
sculpture alongside all the ‘heavy old sculptures’ explaining that ‘in fifty
years’ time, people will understand what we’re trying to say when there are a
couple of lovely great oak trees up there’.
Fawcett warned the couple that they might
face resistance from Canon Verney who was troubled by the couple’s out of
wedlock relationship. Both were actually married at the time, but not to each
other.
The day before the exhibition opened, John’s
driver Les Anthony and Anthony Fawcett arrived in a car towing a trailer where they
were outside the Cathedral by Canon Verney.
On the trailer was a large, white, garden seat in wrought iron, a number
of plant pots and acorns. Verney flatly
refused to allow them to unload, and a huge argument ensued.
After ‘much nastiness’ and several phone
calls to some of Britain’s top sculptors, the Canon realised he could not go
back on his work and relented.
Two acorns were ceremoniously planted in plant
pots facing easterly and westerly positions in a hole dug for the occasion by
John and Yoko, both of whom arrived sensibly dressed for gardening work in
their white suits, much to the amusement of onlookers. The circular iron seat was designed to slot together, surrounding the acorns which would then grown inside the bench. On the seat was an engraved silver-plated plaque reading ‘Yoko’ by John Lennon, ‘John’ by Yoko Ono, some time in May 1968.
Lennon told the Daily Express that
the planting was to symbolize that ‘East and West have met in Yoko and me’.
As late comers to the Exhibition, John and
Yoko’s acorn piece was not included in the official catalogue and so they made
their own, arranging to be photographed by Keith McMillan at the appropriately
named ‘Sprout’, a basement next to Gregory Sam’s macrobitotic restaurant in
Notting Hill Gate. The resultant image made clever use of perspective to give
the impression that John and Yoko were sprouting from the plastic flowerpots.
 |
| Coventry Telegraph, 17 June 1968 |
Two days after the exhibition opened, the Coventry
Telegraph reported that Mr Norman Pegen, part of the group responsible for staging
the event had claimed he had taken the decision not to include John and Yoko’s
submission inside the consecrated ground of the Cathedral, which incidentally
had been visited by three of the Beatles – Paul, George and either John or Ringo,
and Kenny Lynch on Sunday 24 February during the Helen Shapiro tour.
The bench and acorns had been moved about 50-feet to the Cathedral's gardens. Pegan was
quoted as saying ‘the Lennon-Yono (sic) piece is very good – but only as a
garden seat and is being used as such by visitors’. Another member of the
Cathedral staff noted that fans had already stolen the plaque.
 |
| Coventry Telegraph, 20 June 1968 |
On 22 June 1968, it was reported that the acorns had been stolen.
 |
| Coventry Telegraph, 22 June 1968 |
 |
| More coverage in the Coventry Evening Telegraph, 25 June 1968 (both) |
On Friday 28 June John wrote a letter in
response to Canon Verney’s stance prohibiting the installation of John and
Yoko’s sculpture within the grounds of the Cathedral, and the
distribution of their privately produced catalogue.
The letter finds John at times angry, at
others thoughtful and seeking appeasement: ‘Thank you for your Christian
attitude….do you have to explain an acorn? I don’t understand why you can’t
distribute our leaflet unless you worry about gossip...You talk about young people as if you know something about them - you obviously don't or you wouldn't be worried about our influence on them. Jesus would have loved our
piece for what it is… could we not substitute something that is not worth
stealing… ‘Sit here and think of a church growing into a bigger church’.
Failing to reach a compromise, a driver was
sent to retrieve the bench. It was returned to Kenwood, John's home and was seen briefly in the 1988 'Imagine' film.
