Thelma Pickles McGough, Liverpool Beatleweek 2025

A great portrait of Thelma I found during the research for this blog

[artist: Marta Ponce]

Thelma McGough became John Lennon’s girlfriend at Liverpool College of Art in 1958. Four years later she dated Paul McCartney for a time. She subsequently married the poet Roger McGough who was a member of Scaffold, alongside Paul’s brother Michael and John Gorman.

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.  Additional comments in bold are included to provide context.

Mark Lewishon and Thelma McGough

 (photo: Cavern City Tours)

 

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:        Yeah, 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 wouldn't ask your age, but…

TM:        I’m 84 in October (audible gasps from the Adelphi audience and a round of applause).

ML:        That's fantastic. I didn’t ask your age, but I got it anyway! Ok, so that makes you a contemporary of John Lennon's, you were born in about 1941-42.

TM:        He was a year older. 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, first a primary then secondary school, then you went to art school?

In 1947 the Junior Art Department at the Liverpool School of Art moved to 11-12 Gambier Terrace, specifically acquired for the purpose of developing general education work alongside access to specialist studios and equipment. Junior Art classes had an entrance age of 13 and from 1950 entry was determined through the Grammar School transfer examinations. The Junior Art courses lasted for 3 years and culminated in an Art GCE qualification. 

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.

ML:    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. 

TP:     You couldn't go until you were (13 or) 14. You had to pass the thirteen-plus, which was like the eleven-plus and then if you passed that academic (exam), 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 (chuckles).

ML:        Handy! 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'm still determined, only to stay alive now though (laughs).

ML:        Determined to do what?

TM:        I Just wanted to be an artist. It was all I was interested in, and I heard about the (art) school a fortnight before I was to sit the eleven-plus.  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 grammar school.

I was meant to bring glory to the school like Cherie Blair and Gillian Reynolds and get one of those Margaret Bryce scholarships [Margaret Bryce Smith School Scholarships] that's what he [the headmaster] was looking for, and I couldn’t let him 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 [1] – and just sat there, and put my name (on the exam paper) when the results came out, my 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 a lovely girl, very quiet. One of those girls, even in her uniform, there were always these people in your class who were always neat. She was one of them.  

ML:        Were you not one of them?

TM:        I was one of those who didn’t want to wear the beret, or her skirt the right length, that kind of girl.

ML:        A real 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 it was ridiculous.

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, I couldn’t get in, so I went through next doors and climbed over the fence, and I could hear the teachers banging on the door saying: 'I don't know where she is. Where's she gone?'  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 the initial attraction,  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 straight away. And I thought: “I’ll steer clear of him, he’s a dickhead”. [2]

Wilfred Pickles

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. [3]

And then a girl came in who was also at school, a year ahead in Cynthia’s class, and she just said: “Oh, hey John, I believe your mother’s dead?”, 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 he didn’t flinch, his expression never changed. The leg swinging carried on, and she said: “A policeman ran her over, wasn’t it?”.  He went: “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. [4]

ML:        Yeah. What a moment to be there. (Julia) had died 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, 'cause I had 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 all the…

ML:        … the harshness of life.

TM:        … that’s a nicer 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 in '58. 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 I thought, "I'm not going to smile back at you", 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: “21 October 1941”, and then he was triumphant, he said: “I was born on 9 October 1940, so I’m a year older than you”.

And then we kept meeting at both our bus stops accidentally in the morning going to college, 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 told me “Oh, I passed my eleven-plus, the headmaster hated me”. ‘Pobby’. So that was that.

ML:        Mr Pobjoy. 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.

Church Street, 28 November 1959. Left to right - Woolworths, C&A and Coopers, with Lord Street in the distance.

C&A's (clothes store) had a walk around, we used to look at the fashions, we’d go past Coopers which was an upmarket food  place, and then you’d walk up to Castle Street and we crossed 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 here, he was there (indicates) and I just said to 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. I thought I want to be like that. 

Then I used his bad words, "pissed off", and said: "My dad pissed off too. I was ten. And he (John) just reached over and took my hand, and that was the beginning.

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’.  Nowadays one-parent families are common but then it was a shame you carried with you, and it was certainly not something you discussed with anybody. She developed terrible anxieties. The two bonded over their similar family circumstances. She would later recall: "After that it was like we were two against the world".

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, Thelma visits 'Mendips' and John displays an amazing knowledge of Liverpool's bus routes]

The Victoria monument in Derby Square, where John and Thelma first connected.

Notes:

[1] Holly Lodge Girl's School, Queens Drive, West Derby. In the 1940s and 1950s it was one of the schools where one could sit the eleven-plus examination. John Lennon sat his at Quarry Bank while still at Dovedale Junior school.  

[2] “To take the piss”: Liverpool (and elsewhere) slang meaning to make fun of someone or something. "Dickhead" is a derogatory term for a stupid, inept or contemptible person, usually male. 

[3] Wilfred Pickles was a household name at the time thanks to a long-running radio show, “Have A Go”, which he hosted with his wife, Mabel. In the show the couple travelled to venues around the UK, meeting members of the public and inviting them to answer quiz questions in the hope of winning some money, the first quiz show in Britain to offer such a prize. Pickles' catchphrase was 'Give them the money, Mabel!'

During the second world war Pickles had worked as a newsreader for BBC regional radio in the north of England, and was the first to speak in his own accent, as opposed to Received Pronunciation, a calculated attempt to make it more difficult for the Nazis to impersonate BBC broadcasters.

[3] “batter” in this context, Liverpool slang meaning “to hit repeatedly”.

[4] Well, I was too, 31 years after John Lennon.

[5] Widnes

Any corrections to my transcription are welcome.

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/990494/the-truth-about-john-lennons-very-first-girlfriend-thelma-pickles/

Mark Ashworth, 8 October 2025.