Beautiful Boy: The Birthplace of John Lennon

Maternity Hospital,

Oxford Street, 

Liverpool.

L7

On 9 October 1940, in the midst of the Second World War, Julia Lennon gave birth to John Winston Lennon in the second-floor ward of Oxford Street Maternity Hospital, near Abercromby Square in Liverpool.

John later looked back on his arrival with typical humour in his 1964 book In His Own Write:

"I was bored on the 9th of October 1940 when, I believe, the Nasties were still booming us, led by Madolf Heatlump (who only had one). Anyway they didn't get me."

When Julia's eldest sister, Mimi, phoned the hospital, she was told a healthy baby boy had been born. She later recalled rushing through the streets during what she believed was an air raid, sheltering in doorways to avoid falling shrapnel and running, as she put it, "as fast as my legs could carry me."

However, historical records tell a slightly different story. Despite Mimi's vivid memories, there was no Luftwaffe raid over Liverpool on the night John was born. The previous bombing had taken place on 21 September, while the next raid did not occur until 16 October 1940.

Even so, Liverpool was living under the constant threat of attack. As Britain's principal Atlantic port, it was a vital lifeline for supplies arriving through the convoy system. Across the River Mersey, Birkenhead played an equally important role in shipbuilding and naval repairs. Together, the Mersey waterfront became one of Germany's most important bombing targets outside London.

In that context, 9 October 1940 was a rare night of calm during a campaign that had begun in late August and would continue relentlessly throughout the rest of the year.

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A Long Labour and a Famous Name

Julia had been in labour for almost 36 hours before her son finally arrived. He weighed 7½ pounds, with blonde hair, beautiful eyes and long eyelashes.

John's father, Alfred "Alf" Lennon, was not present at the birth. He was serving at sea aboard the Empress of Canada.

Alf did not return to Liverpool until 1 November 1940, by which time the city was already bearing the scars of the Blitz. Ten days later, he officially registered John's birth at Bolton Street Registry Office—the very same place where he and Julia had married in December 1938.

There has long been some debate over how John received his name. Some believe Aunt Mimi suggested "John," although Alf is generally thought to have had the final say. According to family tradition, John was named after his paternal grandfather, John "Jack" Lennon, while his middle name, Winston, honoured Britain's wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, whom Julia greatly admired.

Announcement of John's birth in the Liverpool Echo

Copy of John's birth certificate

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Liverpool During the Blitz

Churchill himself visited Liverpool on 25 April 1941, standing outside the Adelphi Hotel to boost morale just days before the city's darkest period.

The night of 3–4 May 1941 became Liverpool's worst of the war. Between 10.00 pm and 3.40 am, almost 300 German aircraft attacked the city. Entire streets were reduced to rubble, including buildings around Lime Street and Great Charlotte Street.

Among the buildings destroyed were the much-loved Lewis's Department Store and Blacklers, after incendiary bombs spread devastating fires through the city centre. Once rebuilt, both shops would feature in the early Beatles' story. 

One of Lime Street's most notable landmarks, The Vines—better known as The Big House— survived unscathed. It held special significance for the Lennon family, as Julia and Alf had toasted their wedding there. 

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Oxford Street Maternity Hospital – "The Stork's Nest"

Oxford Street Maternity Hospital had a proud history long before John Lennon was born there.

Its origins can be traced back to 1796, when a group of charitable Liverpool women established an organisation to provide medical care and childbirth assistance for 'reputable married women and widows resident in the town.' Rather than operating from a hospital, doctors and midwives visited mothers in their own homes.

Over the following decades, these services evolved alongside Liverpool's own Lying-In Hospital before the overlapping capabilities were combined to form the Brownlow Hill Lying-In Hospital in 1884.

Liverpool was officially granted city status in 1880, although its population and urban scale had been commensurate with those of a major city for at least the preceding fifty years. By 1881, the population had reached 611,000, creating a pressing need for expanded and improved public services. In response to these demands, the Lying-In Hospital underwent a process of modernisation, relocation, and renaming, ultimately becoming the Liverpool Maternity Hospital. The new institution opened on Oxford Street in 1926 and was, at the time, the largest voluntary maternity hospital in Britain

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A Personal Connection

Oxford Street Hospital is part of my own family history too.

I was bored there in January 1971. They didn't get me either.

Three years later, my sister was born in the same hospital. One of my earliest memories is walking into the ward with my dad to meet Mum and my new baby sister. While researching the hospital's history, I came across a photograph taken in 1927, and it instantly took me back. The scene looked so much like the one I remembered from childhood.

I imagine thousands of Liverpudlians have memories just like that—walking through the doors on Oxford Street to welcome a new brother or sister into the world.

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More Than One Historic Birth

Oxford Street made international headlines again on 18 November 1983, when Janet Walton gave birth to the world's first surviving all-girl sextuplets.

Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jennifer Walton became famous overnight, with parents Graham and Janet suddenly finding themselves at the centre of worldwide media attention.

Judging by contemporary photographs, Graham already looked like a man contemplating life as seventh in line for the bathroom!

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A Lasting Legacy

Today, a plaque marking John Lennon's birthplace can be found beside the entrance to the former hospital.

Oxford Street Maternity Hospital closed in 1995 following the merger of Liverpool's maternity services with the Women's Hospital on Catharine Street and Mill Road Maternity Hospital. The building has since been converted into student accommodation as part of the University campus.

I returned to my birthplace in 2012, exactly 41 years and four days after I was born. John's commemorative plaque is proudly displayed beside the entrance. As yet, neither I nor the Walton sextuplets have received one!

Today, Liverpool's babies are born at the modern Liverpool Women's Hospital on Crown Street. It's also where my own children entered the world, continuing another generation of Liverpudlians.

Who knows? Perhaps one of them will one day become as famous as John Lennon—or even Winston Churchill.

Source:

LiverpoolMaternity Hospitals:

TheWaltons: 

TheLiverpool Blitz Day By Day:

Mary Had a Little Lamb (the Birthplace of Paul McCartney)

Walton Hospital,

Rice Lane,

Walton,

Liverpool L9 1AE

Walton Hospital, 4 October 2009

Between 1864 and 1869, a new workhouse was constructed on Rice Lane, Walton-on-the-Hill, to serve the northern district of the West Derby Poor Law Union. Designed by the Liverpool architect William Culshaw—who also designed the Toxteth Park Workhouse on Smithdown Road (later Sefton General Hospital, another Beatles' location)—the institution was built at a total cost of approximately £65,000, including the purchase of its 37-acre site from Lord Sefton. 

Initially, the workhouse was designed to accommodate around 1,200 inmates. A contemporary newspaper account described the scale and ambitions of the new institution:

"The grounds extend over an area of 37 acres, and it is intended to devote a great portion of the land to cultivation, so as to afford useful employment for the inmates. At either end of the building are hospitals for male and female inmates, and it is intended immediately to proceed with the laying out of a cemetery and the erection of a church. The main building is already nearly full; and it is probable that in course of time the accommodation will not be too much for the numerous poor chargeable to the rates of the West Derby Union. Messrs. Culshaw and Sumners are the architects, and Mr. James Walters, the builder."

Like many Victorian workhouses, the institution expanded steadily in response to increasing demand. By 1930 it could accommodate approximately 2,500 inmates. The principal building comprised a long three-storey, T-shaped block, with male inmates housed in the eastern wing and female inmates in the western wing. During the twentieth century, the workhouse was progressively transformed into a healthcare institution, first becoming Walton Institution and later forming part of Walton Hospital. 

Mary's Boy Child

The hospital is closely associated with the early life of Paul McCartney, who was born there on 18 June 1942.

His mother, Mary Patricia McCartney (née Mohin), entered the nursing profession in her twenties. It has often been suggested that her decision to pursue a career in nursing was influenced by the death of her own mother during childbirth. She undertook her training at Alder Hey Children's Hospital before transferring to Walton Hospital, where she specialised in midwifery and eventually became a maternity ward sister.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Mary remained a senior member of the maternity staff at Walton Hospital. When she returned as a patient for the birth of her first child, her colleagues ensured that she received the five-star treatment, arranging for her to stay in a private room for the delivery—a privilege that reflected the esteem in which she was held by the hospital staff.

A photograph of Mary McCartney used as the front cover of her son Mike's  first solo album, "Woman" released in February 1972

Paul's birth was difficult. He was born suffering from white asphyxia, a condition in which a newborn fails to establish effective breathing and appears pale owing to inadequate oxygenation. Emergency resuscitation measures, including mouth-to-mouth ventilation and cardiac massage, were required before he began breathing independently.

His father, James McCartney, later recalled his first impressions of his newborn son:

"He looked awful. I couldn't get over it. Horrible. He had one eye open, and he just squawked all the time. They held him up and he looked like a horrible piece of red meat. When I got home I cried, the first time for years and years.

But the next day he looked more human and every day after that he got better and better. He turned out a lovely baby in the end."

— James McCartney, The Beatles by Hunter Davies.

- Liverpool Echo, 18 June 1942.  Baby McCartney is announced in the births column

The baby was named James Paul McCartney,  James after his father, and Paul likely from Paul Clegg, his great-grandfather, though this has never been confirmed.

Eighteen months later, the McCartneys' second son, Peter Michael McCartney, was also born at Walton Hospital, on 7 January 1944.

The hospital continued to serve Liverpool for much of the twentieth century before closing permanently in December 2010. Its historic buildings have since been redeveloped for residential use.

Walton Hospital, Liverpool

Source:

The Workhouse Link

Mike McCartney solo album Woman"

#thebeatles #paulmccartney #liverpool #waltonhospital

In the house, where I was born... (the birthplace of Richard Starkey)

9 Madryn Street,

Dingle,

Liverpool 8

9 Madryn Street (left), the birthplace of Ringo Starr 

"We've always been ordinary, poor, working-class on both sides of the family. My mother's mother really was very poor. She had fourteen kids. There's rumour that my great-grandmother was fairly well off - she had chromium railings round her house. Well, they were very shiny anyway. Perhaps I just made that up. You know what it's like: you dream things, or your mother tells you things, so you come to believe you actually saw them."

— Ringo Starr, The Beatles by Hunter Davies (1968)

Ancestry

Johnny Parkin was born in Liverpool's Dingle district in July 1890—exactly 50 years before his famous grandson, Richy Starkey, better known as Ringo Starr. His father, also named John Parkin, died in 1903. Sometime between 1903 and 1910, Johnny's widowed mother, Mary Ann Parkin, began living with a married man named Henry Starkey.

What became of Henry Starkey's wife remains unknown, as does the reason the couple were never able to obtain a divorce. Despite later family accounts to the contrary, Mary Ann did not acquire the Starkey surname through marriage. Rather, when she and young Johnny established a home with Henry, they simply adopted the Starkey name - most likely to avoid the social stigma and gossip associated with unmarried couples at the time - and that was that. This arrangement became an accepted fiction that the family consistently maintained. Indeed, even as late as The Beatles Anthology in the mid-1990s, Ringo's understanding of his own ancestry was still not entirely accurate :

"My real name is Parkin, not Starkey. My grandad was named Johnny Parkin. When my grandfather's mother remarried, which was pretty shocking in those days, she married a Starkey, so my grandfather changed his name to Starkey, too. (I went to have my family tree done in the Sixties, but I could only trace back two generations - and they couldn't find me! I had to go to my family to find out, and even they hadn't wanted to say anything in case the press found out.)"

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

Johnny, now known as Johnny Starkey, married Annie Bower in 1910. Together they had at least four children between 1911 and 1927. Their second child, Richard "Richy" Starkey - Ringo's dad, was born on 1 October 1913.

"Richard became a confectioner, baking sweets and cakes; I think that's how my parents met. He worked making cakes, so we always had sugar through the war."

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

Ringo Starr's mother, Elsie Gleave, was born on 19 October 1914 at her parents' home at 4 Hurry Street in the Dingle district of Liverpool. The house stood directly above the tunnel through which the Liverpool Overhead Railway approached its southern terminus at Park Road. Reflecting on his maternal family, Ringo later recalled: "Me mother's mother really was very poor. She had fourteen kids." He may have been exaggerating about the number of children or perhaps he meant pregnancies.  Documentary evidence identifies Elsie as the eldest of eight children, three of whom died in infancy. Given the persistently high rates of infant mortality in early twentieth-century Liverpool, it is also possible that additional births or infant deaths went unrecorded or have not survived in the available records.

Like many working-class children of her generation, Elsie left school at the age of fourteen and found employment in a local bakery. It was there that she met Richard "Richy" Starkey, whom she married on 24 October 1936 at St Silas Church, situated on the corner of High Park Street and St Silas Street

With no independent accommodation available, the newly married couple moved into the Starkey family home at 59 Madryn Street, an end-of-terrace house in one of Liverpool's seven so-called "Welsh Streets", a group of roads named after Welsh castles and landed estates. Long threatened with demolition, these streets have considerable historical significance, and I have documented them photographically for discussion in a separate blog.

59 Madryn Street (right). Tinned up, and awaiting its fate. "E/Off" confirms the power has been turned off.  Note the empty street sign.

The Second World War began on 1 September 1939 with Germany's invasion of Poland, prompting Britain and France to declare war two days later. Remarkably, the fathers of all four Beatles were exempted from active military service for different reasons. Richard Starkey's employment as a cake baker was classified as a reserved occupation, reflecting the government's recognition of the importance of maintaining essential food production during wartime.

Towards the end of the first month of war, Elsie discovered that she was pregnant. The prospect of a growing family made independent accommodation a necessity, and an opportunity soon arose when 9 Madryn Street, just up the road from Richy's parents became available to rent. The couple took the property at a weekly rent of 14 shillings and 10 pence. Despite the close proximity to the docks, and therefore with every chance of being the unlucky recipient of wayward Luftwaffe bombs they decided to stay in the Dingle. Their decision may have reflected the reassurance of familiar surroundings, strong family ties, or, as was the case for many working-class families, a simple lack of anywhere else to go.

This Boy

A week later than expected, Richard "Richy" Starkey was born on Sunday 7 July 1940, upstairs in 9 Madryn Street:

"There was a light at the end of a tunnel that I had to get to, and I came out like that, and then I was born. There was lots of cheering. In fact my mother used to say that because I was born, the Second World War started. I don't know what that meant, really; I never understood it, but that's what she used to say. I suppose it was the only way they could celebrate, and it could be true - you never can tell." 

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

After arriving a week later than expected, Richard Starkey was born on Sunday, 7 July 1940, in an upstairs bedroom at 9 Madryn Street. The baby who would one day become known around the world as Ringo Starr entered the world in a modest terraced house in one of Liverpool's poorest neighbourhoods, just as Britain was beginning to face the full reality of life at war.

For Elsie, memories of her son's birth must always have been intertwined with those terrifying first weeks of the Blitz. Just four weeks after Richard was born, Liverpool came under attack. Still confined to bed after the birth, she heard the first air raid sirens from her bedroom.

Richard was christened at St Silas Church on 28 July 1940, the same church where his parents had married four years earlier. Less than three months later, on 19 October, the church was badly damaged during a bombing raid. It remained closed until December 1942. From the age of four, Richard attended Sunday School there. The building continued to serve the community until it closed in 1952 and was demolished two years later.

Echoes of the Merseyside Blitz

"I don't remember the war and all the bombs, although they did actually break Liverpool up a lot. Our neighbourhood was really bombed. We had to hide a lot, I've been told since; we used to hide in the coal cellar (it was more like a cupboard). I remember big gaps in the streets where houses had stood. We used to play on the rubble when I was older, and in the air-raid shelters."

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

To protect civilians, around 3,000 brick air-raid shelters were built in the middle of Liverpool's streets. They offered protection from flying glass, splinters and shrapnel, but a direct hit could still prove devastating.

On 17 August 1940, after two days of bombing raids across the Mersey in Birkenhead and Wallasey, German bombers turned their attention to Liverpool, with the docks as their primary target. Brunswick Dock, North Coburg Dock and South Queens Dock were all hit, along with nearby streets including Caryl Street in the Dingle.

Like many families, the Starkeys decided to stay in their own home rather than make for a public shelter. When the sirens sounded, they took cover beneath the stairs in the tiny coal hole, along with two neighbours who had been chatting with them only moments earlier. Elsie later recalled that, in her panic, she grabbed baby Richy over her shoulder and only realised, when he started screaming, that she was carrying him upside down, with his feet above his head. Once she'd turned him the right way round, he promptly fell asleep and slept through the rest of the raid!

Madryn Street looking towards South Street, 2 June 2011

The photograph above illustrates the proximity of the bombing to No. 9 (extreme left). The three houses on the right (Nos. 14–18) are 1950s infill properties, constructed to replace the section of Madryn Street destroyed during the Blitz. Throughout Ringo's childhood, this gap in the street would have remained a bomb site, commonly referred to locally as a "bommie," of which there were hundreds across Merseyside. 

The Starkey family survived the Blitz, but the strain of wartime life took its toll on the marriage. Around the middle of 1943, Richard and Elsie separated. Young Richy stayed with his mother, while his father moved back in with his own parents at 59 Madryn Street, just twenty-five doors away.

Reflecting many years later, Ringo acknowledged that the emotional impact of his parents' separation stayed with him long into adulthood.

"When I was three he decided that was enough of that, and he left us. I was an only child, so from then it was just me and my mother, until she remarried when I was thirteen. I have no real memories of my dad. I only saw him probably five times after he left (Liverpool), and I never really got on with him because I'd been brainwashed by my mother about what a pig he was. I felt angry that he left. And I felt really angry later on, going through therapy in rehab, when I came to look at myself and get to know my feelings, instead of blocking them all out. For me, I felt I'd dealt with it when I was little. I didn't understand that really I had been blocking my anger out. You get on with it, that's how we were brought up. We were the last generation to be told, 'Just get on with it.' You didn't let your feelings out much."

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

Although the marriage had ended, Elsie remained on good terms with Richard's paternal grandparents, Johnny and Annie Starkey. They cared for their grandson while Elsie took whatever work she could find. The maintenance paid by her former husband was modest and insufficient to support them, leaving her little choice but to accept any available employment. During these early years, young Richy still had occasional contact with his father, who continued working at the bakery where he had first met Elsie.

Ringo later recalled his mother's determination to provide for them despite the hardship.

"Mum didn't do too much for a while. She was in a bit of pain after my dad left, and she ended up doing any down-home job she could get to feed and clothe me. She did everything: she was a barmaid, she scrubbed steps, worked in a food shop. My very first memory is of being pushed in a pram. I was out with my mother, my grandma and my grandad. I don't know where we were, but it must have been countrified in some way, because we were chased by a goat. Everybody was so frightened, including me. People were screaming and running because an animal was chasing us. I can't imagine it was in Toxteth or Dingle!"

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

As the Second World War drew to a close, Richard Starkey Sr. left both his parents' home and Liverpool. When his maintenance payments ceased, Elsie could no longer afford the rent on their house in Madryn Street. Earning just £3 a week, she was forced to find cheaper accommodation.

Ringo remembered the move as one of his earliest and most vivid childhood memories.

"We lived at first in a huge, palatial house with three bedrooms. I don't remember the inside of our house in Madryn Street—I know we never had a garden—but a lot of my pals grew up on the same street and I went into their houses (and of course my grandparents' home at No. 59). It was too big and we couldn't afford it now my dad had stopped supporting my mother. We were working-class, and in Liverpool when your dad left you suddenly became lower working-class. So we moved to a smaller, two-bedroom place. (They were both rented—houses always were.)"

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

The move itself was a short one—from Madryn Street to nearby Admiral Grove—but it left a lasting impression on the young Richy.

"The move was from one street to the next, from Madryn Street to Admiral Grove—people around us didn't move very far. We went on a van and they didn't even put the back up, because it was only 300 yards. I remember sitting on the back of the van. It's such a heavy memory as a kid; you get used to being where you are."

— Ringo Starr, Anthology

The photo above shows the proximity of Madryn Street to Admiral Grove which starts behind the yellow fence. 

Number 10 Admiral Grove was a modest two-up, two-down terraced house on a designated "play street" beside the Empress Pub on High Park Street, where Elsie occasionally found work as a barmaid. Although the property had been officially condemned as unfit for habitation a decade before they moved in, it remained their home for the next twenty years. It was from this small house that Ringo left Liverpool for London with the Beatles at the end of 1963.

There Are Places I Remember - The Beatles, Liverpool and Beyond.....WELCOME!

Welcome to my photo blog, where I combine three of my greatest interests: The Beatles, photography, and the rich history of my home city, Liverpool.

As well as visiting the famous Beatles landmarks that appear on every tourist map and guided tour, I hope to introduce you to some lesser-known places with fascinating Beatles connections that are often overlooked.

Although The Beatles are always the starting point, Liverpool has a remarkable story of its own. Along the way I'll also share other places, people and pieces of history that have caught my attention, because in Liverpool, history really is everywhere you look.

How it all began

When I first started this blog, my plan was simply to create a gallery of Beatles-related photographs taken during lunchtime walks around Liverpool city centre and weekend strolls near my home in south Liverpool.

As I began researching online, however, I soon realised two things. First, plenty of people had already created galleries like that. Second, there was an incredible collection of historic photographs showing many of the same locations during the 1940s and 1950s—exactly as they would have appeared when John, Paul, George and Ringo were growing up.

It quickly became clear that these photographs weren't just documenting the Liverpool of four lads before they was Fab, they were also capturing the Liverpool of my parents and the older generations of my family.

Both of my parents were born here in 1944, and their memories are much like those of countless Liverpudlians who grew up during or just after the Second World War: air raids, fathers returning home from overseas to a landscape of soot-blackened buildings and bomb sites, trams, cobbled roads, the Overhead Railway, busy docklands, overcrowded schools, ration books, tin baths, outside toilets, prefabs, gathering around the family's first television for the Coronation, and eventually the arrival of rock 'n' roll.

Now and Then

Whenever I've found a historic photograph that interests me, I've tried to return to the exact spot and photograph it from the same viewpoint, creating a "then and now" comparison.

Wherever possible I've credited the original photographer or source. No copyright infringement is intended, and I will happily remove any image if requested by its owner. Personally, I believe great photographs deserve to be seen and appreciated rather than forgotten in a drawer or old box—but, of course, I respect that the decision isn't always mine to make.

My inspiration

Many excellent books have been written about the Beatles' homes and the venues where they performed throughout Liverpool and Wirral.

The greatest inspiration for this blog, however, came from The Beatles' London by Piet Schreuders, Mark Lewisohn and Adam Smith (1994; revised 2008). While I never quite agreed with the book's claim of placing the world's greatest band in the context of the world's greatest city, it did make me wonder why nobody had produced something equally detailed about their birthplace—which, naturally, I believe really is the world's greatest city!

That idea became the inspiration for this project.

What you'll find here

This blog is about much more than just Beatles houses and music venues.

We'll visit the hospitals where they were born, the schools they attended, the parks where they played, the churches they worshipped in, the cinemas they visited with friends and girlfriends, their family homes and those of their friends, the cafés and pubs where they met, and the locations where family photographs—and later famous Beatles photographs—were taken.

Along the way we'll also explore a myriad of museums, art galleries, hotels, hospitals, night clubs, offices, places of marriage, restaurants, shops, theatres, train stations and even the occasional airport.

I'm particularly interested in the dockland districts, where many of the Beatles' Irish ancestors first arrived during the Great Famine before job opportunities or other circumstances dispersed them across the city to places such as Woolton, Speke, Wavertree and the Dingle—the neighbourhoods forever associated with John, Paul, George and Ringo.

We will also visit locations associated with John's first band, the Quarry Men, as well as those connected to individuals who were, at one time, members of the Beatles but did not become part of the band's final lineup. From time to time we'll even venture beyond Liverpool to visit other towns and cities where The Beatles performed during the early years of Beatlemania.

Of course, not everything connected to the Beatles in Liverpool is part of history. Even today, there's hardly a month that goes by without a Beatles-related event—an unveiling, a film premiere, an exhibition, a concert, a stage production, or even a visit from Paul McCartney. I've been fortunate enough to attend many of these occasions, or at least be close by with my camera, ready to capture the moment.

Whether you're a lifelong Beatles fan, interested in Liverpool's history, or simply enjoy exploring places through photography, I hope you'll find something here to enjoy.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy your time Here, There and Everywhere.

All the best,

Mark

11 September 2009

Photo: On the viewing balcony at the original Liverpool Airport in Speke where thousands of hysterical fans greeted the Beatles on their triumphant return to the city on 10 July 1964 for the Northern Premiere of their first film, "A Hard Day's Night"

Published 11/9/09