Monday 28 December 2015

Mackets! Mackets! Mackets!***

174 Mackets Lane
Hunts Cross
Liverpool 25

On New Years Day 1950 the Harrisons moved in to their new house in Upton Green, Speke. Unfortunately they hated it almost from the moment they arrived.

Having spent nearly twenty years in Wavertree on a Liverpool Corporation house waiting list the Harrisons promptly put themselves on another one.

It was another twelve years before they were able to move.....



174 Mackets Lane. George Harrison's third home from August 1962.


Mackets Lane shops (built 1936) in 1954. That the area was a work in progress is evident by the condition of the road. The photo below shows the reverse view, looking in the direction of George's house, 1954 blended with 2015. There weren't many nail bars, sun-bed shops and tattoo parlours when George lived here.


The area is named after the ancient cross-roads at Speke Road, Hillfoot Avenue and Woodend Avenue, which formed the southern boundary of (Much) Woolton. Evidence indicates that the cross-roads was called Hunt's Cross because of fox hunts meeting there before setting off.


Hillfoot Avenue looking towards Higher Road, Hunts Cross in 1937. On the left is the original Hunts Cross Hotel. Speke Road leading up to Woolton is on the left, the undeveloped Woodend Lane (now Avenue) on the right.

To the left of the man walking towards the Hunts Cross Hotel are some railings protecting the village cross.

In the distance is the shop owned by actress Rita Tushingham's family which faced the end of Mackets Lane on the left. Council houses and shops would be built on the field between Tushingham's and Woodend Lane during the 1950s.


Tushingham's shop, photographed from the end of Mackets Lane.

In the 1960s the medieval stone pedestal of the village cross had to be moved a short distance, to the corner of Hillfoot Road and Speke Road, to allow Hillfoot Avenue to be widened. According to local folklore, whosoever takes the stone shall be possessed with the power of the Hunt. It is also said that legendary highwayman DIck Turpin stayed in Hunt's Cross on his way to York and stabled his horse Black Bess there.


George was very familiar with the area long before he moved there in 1962. Whilst living in Speke he had taken a Saturday job working as a delivery boy for E.R. Hughes, a butchers shop just around the corner from Mackets Lane at the junction of Hillfoot and Woodend Avenue.

Cycling around Hunts Cross and Speke with bleeding white paper parcels of meat he became friendly with Tony Bramwell who lived at 26 Hillfoot Avenue, and would often call in at his house for a cup of tea and a jam buttie. George had taken the job to pay for his Hofner President guitar and it was whilst working for E.R. Hughes that he learned that one of the other lads there called Tommy Askew had a Dobro resonator guitar.  Askew went to college with a lad from Tuebrook called Les Stewart who had his own quartet, and around this time in early 1959 George would join them, whilst still remaining in a group with John and Paul.


26 Hillfoot Avenue, where George would stop off during his meat delivery round.

Hunts Cross was considered "posher" than Speke, sharing its L25 (Woolton) post code with properties such as "Mendips" on Menlove Avenue, and the Harrisons would always tell people that they lived "in Woolton" but this was still very much a Corporation house in a new overspill development and George still had bare lino on his bedroom floor. Nonetheless, this was by far the best house the family had lived in - bigger, semi-detached with front and back gardens and a garage and driveway for George and his brother Peter’s cars, and close proximity to the local shops, something they never had in Speke.


The shops on Hillfoot Avenue at the junction with Woodend Avenue (on left). The Butchers where George worked was at number 92.  Today it's the premises behind the blue shutters.


The photo below shows the reverse view and was taken during the 1950s. The girls are standing where the red car is parked on the above photo and the butchers is on their left. On their right is Woodend Avenue. This is how it would have looked to George, cycling from Speke up Woodend to get to work every Saturday.



Woodend Avenue, 1951 - George's approach from Speke

In George’s 1980 autobiography “I Me Mine” he would remember Mackets Lane as the place where he was living when his career was “getting going”. As a consequence, although the house was much preferred to the one in Upton Green it was never as much a “home” given the long periods George was away from it with the Beatles. He would only live in the house around 16 months before work commitments forced the group to move down to London at the end of 1963.


A postcard from George to his next door neighbours, circa May 1963 and a reply to a fan called Jill, March 1963. 

The new house quickly became known to local fans and before “Beatlemania” made such things impossible it was not unusual for some of them to be invited inside. 

Towards the end of 1962, Susan Houghton (a Cavern regular known to the Beatles as “Sue Cement Mixer”) and a friend were hanging out with George at home when he decided he wanted the songs “Chains” and “Keep Your Hands Off My Baby” for his record collection and asked the girls if they wanted a ride into town where he could buy them. 

According to Sue “We went into NEMS together and he got (the two records) and the Beatles sang them that night, I think for the first time. Then (George) said, “I need to go and pick my mother up now,” so we got back in the car and drove out to some big factory where she worked, way out of Liverpool (it was the magazine printer Bemrose, in Aintree), then he took her home and then he drove each of us home. He had a gentleness with us which I could never have envisaged." (from The Beatles - All These Years - Extended Special Edition: Volume One: Tune In by Mark Lewisohn)


Louise Harrison in the kitchen at Mackets Lane

There appears to be only one photo of George inside 174 Mackets Lane but he was photographed at least twice in front of the house.

When the Beatles woke up on the morning of Saturday 7 December 1963 they must have known the day ahead of them was going to be hectic even by their standards. That night they would perform two “houses” at the Odeon Cinema in London Road, the first of eight consecutive nights on a tour which would take them to Lewisham the following day, continue through Southend on Sea, Doncaster, Scarborough, Nottingham, and Southampton before concluding at the Wimbledon Palais, London on 14 December.

Before all that there was only the small matter of taping an episode of the BBC television show “Juke Box Jury” at the Empire Theatre in Liverpool between 2.30pm and 3.15pm, in front of an audience of 2,500 members of the Northern Area Fan Club before performing a special concert appearance in front of the same crowd and BBC televison cameras between 3.45pm and 4.30pm. The concert was broadcast this same evening between 8.10pm and 8.40pm in a television programme entitled “It’s The Beatles”.

If that wasn’t enough, the group then left the Empire and travelled the short distance across Pudsey Street to the Odeon Theatre, giving two performances as part of their Autumn 1963 tour, the only occasion when they would play this venue. The Empire concert and the two Odeon houses on this night were the Beatles first homecoming shows in four months.


The calm before the storm: It must have been nice for George to wake up in his own bed that morning and share some normality with his parents, albeit one apparently shared by a press photographer who snapped George eating his breakfast and later saying goodbye.


George saying goodbye to his dad Harold. Within a year George would be able to buy Harold a second sweater vest, the following year, even more.


Two months later it was George's 21st Birthday. With Beatlemania in full swing both in Britain and America the men from the press descended on Mackets Lane on Tuesday 25 February to capture a special mail delivery for George.  He received so many cards and presents that the baskets of mail were delivered by THREE whole postal workers.



My family changed, but in a nice way. They were so knocked out with the whole idea of what was happening. Anybody would be. Everybody likes success, but when it came on that scale it was ridiculous. They loved it.

My mother was a nice person, but she was naive; as we all were in Liverpool in those days. She used to write to anybody who'd written to us, answering the fan mail. She'd answer letters from people saying 'Dear Mr Harrison, can you give us one of Paul McCartney's toenails? Still, to this day, people come up to me brandishing letters that my mother once wrote to them. Even back when I was a kid, she had pen-pals, people who lived in Northumberland or New Zealand or somewhere, people she'd never met: just writing and sending photographs to each other. (George Harrison, Anthology)

Of all the Beatles’ parents, George’s mother Louise was perhaps the most accommodating to fans taking the time to reply on her son’s behalf to many of the letters fans sent to Mackets Lane.

One such fan was Lilie Ferrari. Like many girls she had a crush on George. When she wrote to him, she scarcely expected a reply, but an admiring letter did come back - from Louise. It was the start of an extraordinary, enduring correspondence.

In 1963, I was 14 and, like almost every girl in Britain, I fell in love with a Beatle. "My" Beatle was George Harrison. From the first photograph I saw of the Fab Four, I was drawn to his dark eyes, serious face and enigmatic demeanour. He rarely smiled, even when he was being funny, and this made him all the more mysterious and enticing. Compared to the uncouth boys I had to deal with at school every day, George was a delicate, idealised vision of what I thought boys ought to be like. If he had pimples, I never saw them. If he swore, I never heard it. I never saw his hair greasy, his armpits damp, his shoes scuffed. In short, he was perfect.
We had just moved to Norwich, and I had missed a Beatles concert by a few weeks; but a girl in my class had somehow obtained all the Beatles' home addresses (I daren't think how, looking back) and was selling them at playtime for half a crown each. A bargain, I thought, handing over my two-and-six eagerly. Immediately upon the exchange, 174 Mackets Lane, Liverpool, became the repository of all my fantasies.

That day I hurried home to compose my first letter to George. I had discovered the joy of words, and wasn't about to be intimidated into single syllables by writing to a Beatle. I don't remember exactly what I wrote, but in spite of my best intentions I suspect it was a gauche jumble of repressed adoration, along the lines of "You're the best Beatle" and "I much prefer “From Me to You” to “Come On” by the Stones". I don't remember waiting for the postman every morning. By then the Beatles had started their journey into the stratosphere (it was the year the term Beatlemania was coined) and I guess I assumed I was too small a cog in the great Beatle wheel to merit any kind of response.

But one day a letter with a Liverpool postmark did come, addressed to me in careful looped handwriting. I opened it with trembling fingers and, instead of a letter from George, found one from his mum, Louise.

I bellowed a great scream that brought the family running: my mother was Ivy Ferrari, a romantic novelist churning out Mills and Boon paperbacks with titles like Nurse at Ryminster, Doctor at Ryminster, Almoner at Ryminster. I couldn't believe it - I might be a fan of her son, but Mrs Harrison was evidently a fan of my mother. I felt as if I had been raised from one among millions to a special place in Mrs Harrison's head. After a few niceties and general bulletins about "the boys'" progress, a question leaped off the page: "Are you," she asked, "by any chance related to a writer called Ivy Ferrari, who writes doctor-and-nurse romances?"
Of course I wrote back to tell her that I was indeed Ivy Ferrari's daughter. I was happy to have made the connection - but so, it seemed, was she. I couldn't quite grasp it. Beatles were glamorous; my mum was a harassed woman with inky fingers, unruly hair and scruffy skirts who sweated over a typewriter all day. How could they compare? In the past I might have been indifferent to the overwrought love lives of the fictional staff of Ryminster hospital, but now they seemed to take on a glamour of their own.

George never wrote to me, and my mother never wrote to Mrs Harrison, but the two of us began a correspondence that lasted for several years - years that took her from the Mackets Lane council house to a smart bungalow in Appleton, George from gangling teenage guitarist to married man, and me from schoolgirl to young woman.

I sent Mrs Harrison signed copies of my mother's novels. She sent me signed pictures of the Beatles. I asked her intense questions ("Which one is your favourite, besides George?" Answer: "John, because he does the tango with me in the kitchen and makes me laugh"). She interrogated me about the mysteries of my mother's creations, such as whether my mum knew any real doctors like Dr David Callender. ("He was fairly tall and tough-looking, with tawny-brown hair and a lean, intent face. His eyes were dark and compelling, so full of fire and life they drew me like a magnet . . .") On my 15th birthday, Mrs Harrison sent me a small piece of blue fabric, part of a suit George had worn at the Star Club in Hamburg. Once, I got a crumpled newspaper cutting containing a photo of the Beatles with their scribbled signatures on it, and a big lipstick kiss, which, she said, had been planted there by John Lennon.

She always answered my questions, and offered up teasing glimpses of life as the mother of a superstar - "I'm sitting by the pool with Patti (George's girlfriend/wife). Had a lovely time at the film premiere" - remarks tantalisingly combined with more mundane observations about knitting and cakes. Of course I never mentioned "real" boys who had caught my eye - that would have been somehow unfaithful to George. That was the only omission I can remember - apart from never articulating how I felt about her son, because I wanted her to think of me as a "normal" girl, and not the wide-eyed obsessive I really was. She sent me notes that George wrote her on used envelopes: "Dear Mum, get me up at 3, love George." She wrote on the backs of old Christmas cards and odd bits of paper - I never knew why. She told me funny stories about her upbringing in Liverpool, a world of men in caps on bikes and old ladies with jugs of gin. I told her about my life in Norfolk, about my sisters, my pony, the dog, my mother. I told her things I didn't tell anyone else - my fear of failure, my terrible, hidden shyness, my longing to have real adventures, lead a different kind of life to the quiet, rural existence I endured. She was my invisible friend, the silent recipient of everything I had to say.

After several years the gaps between our exchanges grew longer, as real life began to get in the way of teenage fantasies. I can't remember which of us wrote the last letter, but by the time I was 18 and working in London, the correspondence had petered out.

Soon after we had slipped from each other's lives, I found myself standing a few feet away from George himself, in the Apple boutique on London's Baker Street. He looked tired and unapproachable. The George that I had conjured up in the kitchen of Mackets Lane, propping notes for his mum on the mantelpiece, seemed a kinder, gentler prospect than the gaunt-looking superstar standing before me who might just tell me to get lost. He was close enough to speak to, but I've never been sorry that I backed away in silence.
(Lilie’s story appeared in the Guardian).

Working nearly 9 years in Mathew Street I was a frequent and familiar visitor to The Beatles Shop. In addition to selling Beatles records and souvenirs they also provide a free valuation service to anyone considering parting with their memorabilia, and with this being Liverpool, there are a lot of fans who had regular access to the Beatles, obtaining autographs, photos and other keepsakes before the group gained national fame. Those wishing to sell are encouraged to place their formerly cherished items in the annual Beatles Auction held in August at the former Liverpool Institute. Some have made small fortunes doing so.

I was present one lunchtime a few years ago when two ladies visited the shop. After talking about this and that one lady produced a set of black and white photographs she’d taken of George outside his house on Mackets Lane. Now George is my favourite Beatle and his home on Mackets Lane is a 5 minute drive from my own house. I have to pass the house most days so these pictures were of particular interest.  She was invited to put the photographs in the auction but ultimately decided against it.  I was pleased I’d seen them but frustrated I was unlikely to do so again.


To my surprise five or six years on, whilst researching photographs for this blog I came across a site showing what looked to be the photographs I’d seen in the Beatles shop. I can’t be 100% sure they’re the same ones - in my mind George had his E-type Jaguar on the driveway - but the chances are high that they are. According to the auction site, the photographs were taken by one of George’s neighbours.

By the length of George's hair I was originally dating these as early to mid -1964. When I first saw the photos I wondered if they were taken the day after the Liverpool premiere of "A Hard Day's Night" in July 1964 (by a knowledgeable fan who might have expected to find George staying overnight at his Mum and Dad's house) but it seems the Beatles flew in and out of the city on the same day.  However, the fact that his suit looks more 1963 bothered me, and having recently seen some photos of George in Liverpool during filming of the BBC TV special "The Mersey Sound" in August 1963 I'm now inclined to go with that date - the Beatles were in Liverpool and Southport for a few days filming and it makes sense that he spent some time at home during this period.



Unpublished photos of George Harrison on the drive of 174 Mackets Lane

The photographs show George either arriving home or perhaps leaving, opening (or locking) the gate to the driveway and getting in (or out) of his car, the make of which I can't identify. All good solid information there!


Peter Harrison (left) outside 174 Mackets Lane. Harold and Louise with a fan (below)


The house became too well known and the Harrisons were constantly pestered by hundreds of Beatles fans and potential pen-pals who regularly descended on Mackets Lane. Understandably fed up seeing faces peering through their front window, Harry and George's brother Peter (who was still living there) painted a plywood board black and installed it behind the curtains to serve as a blackout screen. Concerned about how his fame was having an effect on his Mum and Dad's privacy, and wishing to give them some peace and quiet, George bought them “Sevenoaks”, an attractive bungalow in Appleton, near Warrington, the latter described as “an honest town with some character of its own but chiefly known as being about halfway between the great cities of Liverpool and Manchester”*

They moved quietly using a small van to move all but the most bulky items of furniture. Allegedly even the Liverpool Corporation didn’t know they were going until after they had left. The ruse worked.  On occasion a determined American tourist would track Mr and Mrs Harrison to Appleton but on the whole they were able to live their lives quietly away from “Beatlemania” – even though George dropped in for a visit occasionally.


Louise, George and Harold Harrison at "Sevenoaks", Appleton, Warrington, in 1966


Driving along Mackets Lane on a daily basis one can't help but notice the constant presence of Fab Four Taxi Tours cabs parked on the pavement outside George's old house. On several Saturday mornings I've  spotted no less than four taxis parked outside at the same time (see above). Obviously this proves that people visiting Liverpool still have a healthy interest in the Beatles, and the demand to be shown their old haunts is clearly there, but you can't help but feel sorry for the people who live in the house now. The present owners have to live with a daily invasion of Beatles' fans photographing their house and on occasion disturbing their privacy,  just as the Harrisons did 50 years earlier.


Source:

http://www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/2013/12/02/neighbours-in-beatle-house-protest/

* Derek Taylor writing in “I Me Mine” (1980)

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/26/popandrock.georgeharrison

Thanks to Tony Bramwell for confirming the location of E.R. Hughes' butchers shop.






















Gores Directory 1955 showing 26 and 92 Hillfoot Avenue

*** This is a pun on a request George was asked to read out on one of the Beatles BBC radio shows.

Edit (Feb 2016): I've since found out that George's car was a Jaguar Mk2 which is the same model that the fictional TV detective "Inspector Morse" drives! What a beautiful car.



Thursday 12 November 2015

A visit from John & Yoko

Holmrook Special School,
Beaconsfield Road,
Woolton
Liverpool
L25 6EE


Following on from the previous post, here are some more photographs of John and Yoko taken in Woolton, Liverpool during a stop-over on their June 1969 road-trip from Weybridge to Scotland.


Whether pre-arranged or on the spur of the moment, John, Yoko, Kyoko and Julian visited Holmrook Special School at the foot of Beaconsfield Road, situated almost directly opposite the famous red gates of Strawberry Field, a place so familiar to John from his childhood.

Perhaps this is the primary reason why he chose to visit here with it being so close to both his old playground and ‘Mendips”, his former home on Menlove Avenue, just around the corner.


The photographs of John and Yoko’s visit were first uncovered in 2013 when they were sent to Liverpool musician Dean Johnson, one of the compilers of the book “The Beatles and Me”. They are traditionally dated 26 June 1969, the day the Lennons arrived at Harriet’s house.

 
As can be seen on the map Beaconsfield Road is only a short drive over the Blackwood Avenue hill from Gateacre Park Drive where they were staying with Aunt Harriet. (click on photo for larger image)


Unfortunately, although the photographs are widely circulating, information about the visit to Holmrook is not. The kids are all wearing hats in the above photo. I can't make out the banner on them. Did John and Yoko provide them?  Why did they visit? How long did they stay? Isn’t it nice to see Yoko smiling so much?


Holmrook closed in 1986. So far I’ve not been able to establish whether it was demolished and Palmerston, the present special needs school here was built on the site or whether it simply changed names. The photo below shows Palmerston in 1986


Today, Palmerston is an outstanding school that provides a high quality education for pupils with severe or profound learning difficulties.

Source:

“The Beatles and Me”, is a fan-made book with unique stories of fans’ every day encounters with the group.   The book is on Kindle here.

Find out more about the great work Palmerston School does here: http://www.palmerstonschool.co.uk/




An alternative version of the photo above

Wednesday 11 November 2015

137 Gateacre Park Drive

137 Gateacre Park Drive
Woolton,
Liverpool, 
L25


John Lennon's mother, Julia, was the fourth of five surviving children in the Stanley family. The eldest, Mary, was known to all as "Mimi" (1906-1991), and her sisters followed at regular intervals: Elizabeth "Mater" (1908-1976), Anne "Nanny" (1911-1988), Julia "Judy" (1914-1958) and the youngest, Harriet "Harrie" (1916-1972).


Separated from her husband, Alfred "Freddie" Lennon, Julia met John "Bobby" Dykins in 1946 and began living with him as his common-law wife (Freddie was  never around to request a divorce). Julia and Dykins then had two children, Julia (born 5 March 1947) and her younger sister Jacqueline "Jackie" (born 26 October 1949).


Harriet Birch with her son David, and nephew John Lennon (right)

In 1958 following Julia Lennon's tragic death in a road accident, sister Harriet and her husband Norman Birch were appointed legal guardians of the two girls (17 year old John Lennon had been in the care of his Aunt Mimi since the age of 5). Julia and Jackie Dykins duly moved in with their Aunt and Uncle at the 2 bedroom Dairy Cottage on Allerton Road in Woolton, a home they rented from Mimi.

The fact that John Dykins was the girls' biological father was ignored - he had never legally married their mother.

Shockingly, in December 1965 Dykins also died in a road accident on Ullet Road, not far from Penny Lane. On learning of his death John Lennon decided to do something practical to help his two half-sisters. Aware that Harrie, Norman, their son David and the two girls were living in the cramped Dairy Cottage he provided his Aunt with a budget for a house where they would all have more room.

They chose a brand new three bedroom house on Gateacre Park Drive in Woolton, just over the hill from the centre of the village. John told Harrie to furnish and decorate the house, and send all the bills to him.

John purchased the house in 1967 while it was still at the foundation stage. When it was finally completed towards the end of the year Harrie and Norman Birch moved into their spacious new home. Ironically, having spent years in the crowded two bed-room cottage, both Julia and Jackie Dykins had already moved out as had their own son David.



Julia Baird (née Dykins) describes her first visit to the house John had intended for her and Jackie: (I) was greeted by Harrie at the front door. There was a frosted glass porch, with lots of plants and wood-block floors downstairs. There was a large, L-shaped living room, overlooking the garden, which was still full of rubble from the building work, and a fitted kitchen. The deep plum red carpet from “Mendips” was on the stairs. We walked around the downstairs and then we went up to see the three bedrooms.

John's first visit

At the end of June 1969, just as the Beatles were about to commence sessions for what would become their "Abbey Road" album John decided to take Yoko and her daughter Kyoko on a tour of the Scottish Highlands where he had spent many family holidays as a boy, staying at the home of his Aunt Mater and her husband Bert in Durness, Sutherland.

John had passed his driving test in February 1965, and whilst he remained a notoriously poor driver he decided that he would drive them all the way to Scotland himself in his Mini cooper. Come the day of departure John's son Julian was visiting him and he too was brought on the trip, reportedly without first agreeing it with Cynthia.

In 1969 Britain was yet to be criss-crossed by motorways and the trip up north was a long and arduous one. Nonetheless, John successfully managed the drive for the first part of the journey. After spending the night of 23 June in the Corbett Arms Hotel in Tywyn, a seaside resort on Cardigan Bay, Wales, John planned to stop for a few days in Liverpool, introduce his new wife to his family and show her where he had grown up. It was on this first leg of the journey that he decided the Mini was too small for the four of them to travel such a distance and he phoned his assistant Les Anthony to request a larger car. Anthony duly drove up to Liverpool with an Austin Maxi and returned south with John's Mini.




Kyoko, Yoko, Julian and John at the Corbett Arms, Tywyn, Wales on 23 June 1969

A few days later when John was in Liverpool he telephoned his half-sister Julia from Harrie’s house and asked her if she could come over (from Ireland) to see them as they were going to be there for a day or two. Julia was just about to leave on her second honeymoon and declined the offer. She writes that had she known that she would not speak to him for another four years she would have jumped straight on the ferry and gone to Woolton to see him.

Both of John's Aunts did see him. Philip Norman's book "John Lennon - The Life" states that while they were up on Merseyside John and family visited his Aunt Nanny and her husband Charles Cadwaller at 'Ardmore' their house in Rock Ferry,  Wirral. This was likely the 25 June, and they may have stayed there overnight before moving across the Mersey to Harriet's the following day.


As neither Aunt had seen John since his divorce from Cynthia, his "Two Virgins" album sleeve, his November 1968 drug-bust, the marriage to Yoko and their subsequent Bed-Ins for Peace, they only knew of these events from what they had read in the newspapers. 

Now they had the opportunity to observe their crazy nephew and his peculiar new wife first hand. In June 1969 John and Yoko, perhaps Yoko more so, were heavily into macrobiotic food*.  Present in Rock Ferry was Nanny's son Mike who recalls Yoko commandeering the kitchen to prepare their meals, probably within earshot of a concerned Aunt unable to disguise her disapproval "he can't just eat beans... he needs a proper meal...he's fading away...he's all skin and bones". 

Reportedly, when Mike's girlfriend produced a bag of jelly babies (of all things) John scoffed quite a few before Yoko voiced her disapproval.

It was a similar story when they arrived in Woolton. When Harrie offered them a roast dinner Yoko reportedly declined and said that she would prepare their macrobiotic food. John, eager not to offend his Auntie (or perhaps he was just starving), ate the roast as well.


John, Yoko and kids with Harriet, Sophie the dog, and the Austin Maxi on Harriet's driveway. These three photographs have been dated 26 June 1969 which is probably the day the Lennons arrived in Woolton. However, I have a feeling these were taken on the day of departure - Do you think John is getting the suitcases in, or out, of the boot? (trunk?)



Gateacre Park Drive in June 1969 (above) and November 2015 (below). The trees have matured and there are more cars but not much else has changed here over the last 46 years.



While the Lennons were in Woolton they called in at Holmbrook Special School, and Julia's former house - Number 1 Blomfield Road – where the then residents welcomed them in – before John continued the journey up to Scotland on 29 June.


"Porrage" : They sent Harrie and Norman a postcard when they arrived at Mater's.

On Tuesday 1 July 1969, John's luck ran out whilst driving near Golspie in the Scottish Highlands. It was said that the roads were narrow and the weather was poor and John panicked when he saw another car heading towards him.  He swerved to avoid it, lost control of the Maxi and crashed it into a roadside ditch.

John, Kyoko and Yoko suffered facial injuries and Yoko also injured her back. The three were hospitalised in Golspie's Memorial hospital remaining there for 5 days. Julian was treated for shock but was thankfully uninjured. He was taken to stay at Mater's house in Durness, some 50 miles away and remained there until a furious Cynthia arrived to take him back to London.


The crashed Austin Maxi was later transported to the couple's Tittenhurst Park estate where it was sited in the gardens (photo circa November 1969)

The trip marked one of John's final visits to Liverpool. John Lennon and Yoko Ono left England for New York on August 31, 1971.

Harrie, the youngest of the Stanley sisters, would pass away in late 1972. She was only 56.

The house on Gateacre Park Drive would cause some problems in later years. Norman continued to live there after Harriet’s death. This was not John’s intention but not knowing what to do about it he suggested that Julia (Baird) ask Norman to leave. According to Julia, it was her understanding that Norman could continue to live there until his death at which point ownership of the house, or money from the sale of, would transfer to Julia and Jackie Dykins. She had no intention of evicting Norman and besides, with a family of her own, plus Jackie’s family the three bedroomed house was not big enough for them all.

John had written to another of his Aunts, Mater, in July 1975: “As for Norman...I always thought of the house he’s in as my contribution towards looking after Julia and Jackie. So I find it strange to hear that they were seldom in the place....and that Norman is living there alone... I would prefer the girls to use it"

That's not to say that John forgot about Norman:


Perhaps through necessity rather than choice Julia did use it. After the birth of her son David in April 1979 Julia and her family moved in with Norman that summer and stayed for almost a year. Before the birth of her son the plan had been to put their own house on the market and buy a larger one but the sale went through so quickly they didn't have another house lined up and faced having nowhere to live. Until they could find a house of their own they would stay with Norman, eventually moving out around April 1980.

John Lennon was murdered on 8 December 1980.

Towards the end of January 1986 Norman Birch received a letter from a New York law firm acting on behalf of Yoko. The letter offered Norman the chance to buy the house he was living in, 137 Gateacre Park Drive, for a “mutually agreed price and at mutually agreeable terms” before it was put on the open market. In other words, if he couldn’t or didn’t want to buy it, he would lose his home. With only his pension, the letter had the same effect as an eviction notice.

The house had been bought by John through Apple, and after his death, ownership transferred to Yoko. John it transpired, had not secured the house for his sisters, nor had he let Yoko know of his intentions for them. When Julia Baird learned of this she telephoned David, Norman’s son to warn him his Dad risked being evicted.  In turn, David rang Yoko, pointing out that this was Norman’s home, and had been for 15 years.

Norman did not receive any more threatening letters.

In October 1991, in what must have seemed like history repeating itself, Norman was knocked over by a car almost outside his house and later died in Broadgreen Hospital.

Yoko’s lawyers moved fast. Within weeks they had asked David to clear his father's house. He emptied it in a weekend.

137 Gateacre Park Drive had become a symbol of John's love and care for Jackie and Julia and yet it was taken from them.

The house was handed over to the Salvation Army from the estate of John Lennon on 2 November 1993. At the time of Julia Baird’s book Imagine This, a retired Salvation Army officer was living rent-free in the house. With the knowledge that the house had been intended for her and Jackie, Julia decided to contact Yoko to try and establish why she had given the house away. The call did not go well. Yoko asked Julia to provide evidence to support her contention that John had bought the house for his sisters. Unable to do so, and with frayed tempers, they agreed to speak again the following week when they had had the opportunity to calm down.

Julia subsequently received a telephone call from her cousin Michael. He’d had a call from New York to let Julia know that the return call was off and she was never to darken Yoko’s door again.

In 1998 Julia decided to approach Yoko again, having gathered testimonies from other members of the family to support her claim that John had bought the house in recognition of her and Jackie being his mother's other children.  With help from Cynthia Lennon, and her cousin Stan, who provided her with a copy of John's July 1975 letter to Mater, Julia again wrote to Yoko. Receiving no response she wrote again. And then a third time, which finally prompted a response, from Yoko's lawyer. He explained that upon John's death the house had become Yoko's for her to do with as she saw fit, which she had done. It was clear that the house was not going to be given to the girls, though Yoko did offer them money if they needed some. That was not the issue: it was never about money.

As Julia writes in Imagine This "That was the end of the matter. Having done all I could, I felt it really was time to let it go. Knowing that the house had been intended for us, and that John had wanted to look after us - and having at last been able to demonstrate it was what mattered most".

Sources:


 Read this book!

http://www.britishbeatlesfanclub.co.uk/2011/09/imagine-this-growing-up-with-my-brother.html
  

* A macrobiotic diet (or macrobiotics), is a dietary regimen which involves eating grains as a staple food, supplemented with other foods such as local vegetables, and avoiding the use of highly processed or refined foods and most animal products. In 1969 this was probably considered really weird but today the benefits of such a diet are more readily accepted. 

Corbett Arms Hotel: http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/wa-4643-corbett-arms-hotel-tywyn#.VkKIn9LhCUk