Following a successful career
in TV production—including work on Cilla Black’s ‘Blind Date’—and recognition
as an award-winning artist, she is now preparing to publish her memoir
recounting her childhood in Liverpool amid the cultural and sexual upheaval of
post-war Britain.
The Beatles historian Mark
Lewisohn interviewed Thelma for his book ‘Tune In’ in 2010. Fourteen years
later, they met again on stage in the Adelphi ballroom to talk about her memories
of Liverpool College of Art, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. She was
engaging, articulate, humorous and forthright, everything you would hope for
from a contemporary of John Lennon, and in my opinion, one of the best guest
speakers to appear at Liverpool Beatleweek in the past decade.
This is a transcript taken from
a recording I made of her conversation with Mark.
Mark Lewisohn: Welcome
back to your home city. Have you been to one of these events before?
Thelma McGough: I
have never ever been to one of these events or spoken about what we are going
to discuss.
ML: So, what is
your surname now?
TM: Still
McGough.
ML: Ok, so
that’s from your marriage to Roger McGough and is part of your extraordinary
life, which is going to be published in a book next year.
TM: Next year,
2026. It’s called ‘From Me to You’.
ML: A perfect
title, you know, I’m not actually sure that that’s been used as a book title
before, I have several hundred books on the Beatles – yours is not a Beatles’
book of course – it’s about your life…
TM: There’s two
chapters. There’s one on John, one on Paul, but the rest is all about me.
ML: Well fair
enough, because it is your biography so it shouldn’t be about anyone else
really. So, you were born in Liverpool, erm I would ask your age, but…
TM: I’m 84 in October
(audible gasps from the Adelphi audience and a round of applause).
ML: I didn’t ask
your age, but I got it anyway! Ok, so that makes you a contemporary of John
Lennon, you were born in about 1941-42.
TM: John was
born in 1940. I was born in ’41. Paul in ’42, and I think George was a year
younger so…
ML: George was
born in 1943. So you went to school, a regular school, primary then secondary
school, then you went to art school?
TM: I went to
Art School at 13. At 11, I deliberately didn’t answer any questions on the
eleven-plus exam so that I wouldn’t pass, because you couldn’t go to the art
school until you were 13, and if you went to the art school you could leave at
16 and go to the art college, instead of waiting until you were 18. So, there
was a difference between art school and art college.
It’s forgotten now but across the road from the art college,
on Gambier Terrace was a school for younger children, of real school age, 13 or
14. You had to pass the thirteen-plus, which was like the eleven-plus and then if
you passed that, and you put down the art school (as your preferred place to
study) then you did a day at the art school in Gambier Terrace, which was next
to the family planning clinic.
ML: So, you
deliberately got every question wrong in your eleven-plus…
TM: I didn’t
answer any of it, I just put my name on it.
ML: That tells
us something about your personality then, doesn’t it? I mean what kind of a
girl would do that aged 11?
TM: A determined
one. I was determined.
ML: To do what?
TM: I Just
wanted to be an artist. It was all I was interested in. You know, you’re constrained at that age, at
that time, the teachers and parents would keep you in check. I didn’t have a
voice, that’s what this book is about, to say that I didn’t want to go to
normal school.
I was meant to bring glory to the school and get one of
those Margaret Bryce scholarships [Margaret Bryce Smith School Scholarships]
and I couldn’t let him [the headmaster] down, but I didn’t have the courage to
say I didn’t want to do it, so I just got to the school – which was Holly Lodge
– and when the results came out, the headmaster had me up in his office. He was
apoplectic. His face was puce, and he said: “What’s the matter?”
I said I didn’t want to go and he said why not, and I said I
want to be an artist and go to art school, and he said: “Girls like you can’t
be artists, you’ll end up broke in a garret”.
I didn’t know what a garret was, so when I got back to class,
I got the dictionary out and looked up garret and it said, ‘a place to paint
and be on your own’. I thought, that suits me!
ML: So, Cynthia
(Powell, later Lennon) was at the (junior) art school.
TM: Yes, a year
ahead. She was very quiet. One of those girls, even her uniform, there were
always these girls in your class who were always neat. I was one of those who
didn’t want to wear the beret, or her skirt the right length.
ML: One of those
rebellious teenagers then?
TM: I would have
liked to have been, but you get squashed, or you did in those days, you’d be
smacked. So, I was caned so many times at school.
One time, she (the teacher) said put your hand out, so I
just ran out of the classroom and ran home. My mother was at work so I couldn’t
get in, so I went to next door and climbed over the fence, and I could hear the
teachers banging on the door. I thought: “you’re not caning me again”.
ML: You really
had a lot of spirt. So, then you went to the art college itself and you find
yourself in with the crowd of John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe, and all these
people who were there at the same time.
Thelma Pickles, as she was then, first met John when they
were waiting to register for classes. He had been there a year already, and at
17, was a year older. He was sitting at the signing in table with another boy,
Tony Carricker. She would later recall that despite Tony being “prettier, more
handsome, with dark hair and dark eyes” her own eyes set on John. He had a
presence and when he was in a group, the focus of attention was always on him. Despite
being struck by his presence, within seconds of being introduced she took an
instant dislike to him.
TM: So, I got
there. I enrolled, as you know, on 15 September 1958 and on the first day I was
introduced by a friend [identified elsewhere as Helen Anderson] to John
(Lennon) and she said: “this is Tony Carricker, this is John Lennon, and boys,
this is Thelma Pickles”, and they just took the piss out of me. And I thought: “I’ll
steer clear of him, he’s a dickhead”. [This drew uproarious laughter and
applause from the Adelphi audience].[1]
There was a radio host at the time called Wilfred Pickles
whose catchphrase was 'Give them the money, Mabel!'. When John heard her name,
he asked in a mock Yorkshire accent: “How Do! How are yer?” and: “Any relation
to Wilfred?” which she had heard a hundred times before and was sick of hearing.
[2]
I met John the day I enrolled at college. He had been
there a year already and, at 17, was a year older. My friend introduced me as
Thelma Pickles, my name then, and he said in a mock Yorkshire accent: “How do!
How are yer? Any relation to Wilfred?”.
But then (another girl) in Cynthia’s class came up and she
said: “Oh, hey John, I believe your mother’s died?”, like the way you would say:
“Oh, hey John, I believe you went to the dance last night?”. Well, she was relentless. After me thinking
he was a dickhead he sat there, and didn’t flinch, his expression never
changed. The leg swinging carried on, and she said: “A policeman ran her over,
wasn’t it?”. He said: “Yeah”. She asked:
“When was it?”, and he said: “about a month ago” and he just didn’t react.
I thought God, this guy’s something else, he’s really
strong. He’s really…brave. I just wanted to batter her cause she never stopped.
So, my view of him changed within seconds. [3]
ML: Yeah. What a
moment to be there. (Julia) did die in July, this was September, it was raw and
fresh still.
TM: Well, this
was the 15 September [so exactly two months to the day since Julia had been
killed in a road accident] and there was no reaction. I thought, I want
to be like him about my own traumas. If anyone mentioned anything to me, I’d
just burst into tears. I thought, I just want to be like him and be impervious
to…
ML: … the
harshness of life.
TM: … that’s a
better way of putting it. I was going to use a swear word.
ML: Don’t let me
stop you. So, how does a, what were you,
born in 1941, 17 years old…
TM: I was 16
when I joined. I wasn’t 17 until the October.
[Continuing] That was the first proper conversation we had.
A few days later, we both got off at the same bus stop at the end of Hope
Street [opposite the site of where work would start on Liverpool’s Metropolitan
Cathedral in 1962], and he smiled… and then he pointed to the hospital, Oxford
Street Maternity hospital and he said something really weird, he said: “I was
born in there”, and I thought, ‘that’s a bit weird’ and I said: “well I was too”
[4] and he was all like, you know what lads are like: “Well, when were you
born?” and I said: “20 October 1941”, and he said: “I was born on 9 October
1940, so I’m a year older”.
And then we kept meeting at both our bus stops in the
morning, and he said: “How did you come to go here?” and I knew what he meant,
the art college, so I told him about failing my exam and he said “Oh, I passed
my eleven-plus, the headmaster hated me”. ‘Pobby’. (Mr Pobjoy).
ML: Extraordinary.
So, over this period of time, meeting at bus stops and things, did something
begin to emerge between you, a relationship of some kind?
TM: We had these
conversations, about the youth and all that. We used to all walk down Bold
Street, it was very posh then, very sedate, and sophisticated, when we finished
college, and people would peel off to get their bus. Tony Carricker lived in
Widnes, or Runcorn…[5] he used to get the train so there was only the two of us
left, so we’d just walk along Church Street.
C&A had a walk around fashion [department], we’d go past
Coopers which had a food market place, and then you’d walk up to Castle Street
and cross the cobblestones, and he went up the steps, you can’t do that now –
and (he) sat beneath Queen Victoria’s skirt. So, I followed and sat next to
him. So I was asking him: “Do you live with your Dad?” and he said: “No, I live
with my Auntie Mimi, me Dad pissed off when I was a baby, so I lived with my
Aunt Mimi and Uncle George, but he’s dead now too”.
And he didn’t react again emotionally about the death of
Uncle George, and I was really impressed by that.
TM: Mine had
too. I wasn't a baby – I was ten. It had such a profound effect on me that I
would never discuss it with anyone. Nowadays one–parent families are common but
then it was something shameful. After that it was like we were two against the
world."
Thelma’s father had walked out on the family in 1951,
leaving her with a huge chip on her shoulder. In those days you didn’t admit
that you came from a ‘broken home’. You carried the shame with you, and it was certainly
not something you discussed with anybody. She developed terrible anxieties. The
two bonded over their similar family circumstances.
Despite giving the impression that he didn’t care about his
father leaving, Thelma grew to realise that like her, John had been affected by
it. She would later say that: “As I got
to know him, he obviously cared. But what I realized quickly was that he and I
had an aggression towards life that stemmed entirely from our messy home lives”.
[Continued in Part 2 in which John and Thelma begin a romantic
relationship]
Notes:
[1] “To take the piss”: Liverpool (and elsewhere) slang
meaning to make fun of someone or something.
[2] Wilfred Pickles was a household name at the time thanks
to a long-running radio show, “Have A Go”.
[3] “batter” in this context, Liverpool slang meaning “to
hit repeatedly”.
[4] Well, I was too, 31 years after John Lennon.
[5] Widnes
Read More:
https://www.grunge.com/990494/the-truth-about-john-lennons-very-first-girlfriend-thelma-pickles/
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