Julia Lennon

9 Newcastle Road, Liverpool; the former home of the Stanley family

Lennon gave birth to John Winston Lennon on 9 October 1940, in the second-floor ward of the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital in Liverpool, during World War II. Her eldest sister, Mimi Smith, phoned the hospital and was told that she had given birth to a boy. Smith would later claim that she went straight to the hospital during the middle of an air raid and was forced to hide in doorways to avoid the shrapnel from falling bombs,[16] but in actuality, there had been no attack on Liverpool that night.[17] Alf was not present at their son's birth, as he was at sea.[18][19]

John started at his first school in November 1945–Mosspits, on Mosspits Lane, Wavertree–so she found a part-time job at a café near the school.[5] After numerous criticisms from the Stanley family about their (still-married) daughter "living in sin" with John Dykins, and considerable pressure from Smith–who twice contacted Liverpool's Social Services to complain about the infant John sleeping in the same bed as Julia and Dykins—she reluctantly handed the care of John over to Smith and her husband, George Smith.[20][21] In July 1946, Alf visited the Smith house, Mendips, at 251 Menlove Avenue, and took John to Blackpool for a long holiday, but he was secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him.[22] Julia and Dykins found out and followed them to Blackpool. Alf asked Julia to go with them both to New Zealand, but she refused. After a heated argument, Alf said their five-year-old child had to choose between his mother or him. He chose Alf (twice) so Julia walked away, but in the end her son (crying) followed her,[23] although this story has been disputed. According to author Mark Lewisohn, Alf and Julia agreed that she should take John and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, said the dramatic scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened.[24] Alf lost contact with the family until Beatlemania, when he and his son met again.[25]

She took John back to her house and enrolled him in a local school, but after a few weeks she handed him back to Smith.[25] Various reasons have been suggested for her decision, such as Dykins' unwillingness to raise the young boy, Julia's inability to cope with the responsibility, or a punishment forced on her by Smith and her father for "living in sin".[25] John blamed himself, saying later, "My mother ... couldn't cope with me."[25] He then lived continuously at Mendips, in the smallest bedroom above the front door,[26][27] with Mimi determined to give him a "proper upbringing".[25] Julia later bought John his first guitar for 5.50 after he had pestered her incessantly for weeks, but insisted it had to be delivered to her house, not her sister's.[28] As John had difficulty learning chords, she taught him banjo and ukulele chords, which were simpler,[29] and later taught John how to play the piano accordion.[30][31] Julia's banjo was the first instrument that John learned to play 'sitting there with endless patience until I managed to work out all the chords.'[32] After Julia's untimely death, the instrument was never seen again and its whereabouts remains a mystery.[33]

As Smith refused to have a record player in her house, John learned how to play his favourite songs by going to Julia's house.[34] She played him Elvis Presley records and would dance around her kitchen with him.[35] In 1957, when The Quarrymen played at St. Barnabas Hall, Penny Lane, Julia turned up to watch. After each song she would clap and whistle louder than everyone else and was seen "swaying and dancing" throughout the whole concert.[36] John frequently visited her house during that period, detailing his anxieties and problems, where she gave him encouragement to continue with music over Smith's objections.[36]

During 1942–1943, Lennon lived with her son at The Dairy Cottage, 120a Allerton Road, Woolton.[37] The cottage was owned by George Smith, and Mimi wanted Lennon to live there because they would be closer to her house and also out of the Stanley house.[38] As Alf was often away at sea, Julia started going out to dance halls. In 1942, she met a Welsh soldier named 'Taffy' Williams who was stationed in the barracks at Mossley Hill.[39] Alf later blamed himself for this, as he had written letters telling her that because there was a war on, she should go out and enjoy herself. After an evening out, she would often give her young son a piece of chocolate or shortcrust pastry the next morning for breakfast.[39] She became pregnant by Williams in late 1944, though first claiming that she had been raped by an unknown soldier.[40] Williams refused to live with Julia—who was still married to Alf—until she gave up John, which she refused to do.[41] When Alf eventually came home in 1944, he offered to look after his wife, their son, and the expected baby, but she rejected the idea.[42]

Alf took John to his brother Sydney's house, in the Liverpool suburb of Maghull, a few months before Julia came to term.[41] Julia's daughter, Victoria Elizabeth, born in the Elmswood Nursing Home on 19 June 1945,[43] was subsequently given up for adoption to a Norwegian Salvation Army Captain and his wife (Peder and Margaret Pedersen) after intense pressure from the Stanley family.[44] John Lennon was informed by his aunt Harriet Birch of her existence in 1964. John was so overcome by emotion, wanting to find his sister, that he placed an ad in the paper, and hired detectives to look for her. They searched Norway for Victoria, and came up empty handed, and John died never having found or met her. Her adoptive name is Ingrid Pedersen.[45]

Lennon started seeing Dykins a year after Victoria's birth (although they had known each other before) when she was working in the café near John's primary school, Mosspits.[5][46] Dykins was a good-looking, well-dressed man who worked at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool as a wine steward. She later moved into a small flat in Gateacre with Dykins.[47] He enjoyed luxuries, and had access to rationed goods like alcohol, chocolate, silk stockings and cigarettes, which was what initially attracted her.[47] The Stanley sisters called him "Spiv", because of his pencil-thin moustache, margarine-coated hair, and pork-pie hat, and John called him "Twitchy" because of a physical tic/nervous cough.[47] Julia's family and friends remembered that he also had a fiery temperament, which could result in his being violent when drunk. John remembered seeing his mother during a visit to Smith's, when her face was bleeding after being hit by Dykins.[47]

Paul McCartney later stated that Julia living in sin with Dykins while she was still married was a point of social ostracization for John, as it was often used as a "cheap shot" against him.[21] Although Julia never divorced Alf, she was considered to be the common-law wife of Dykins. She wanted John to live with them both, but he was passed between the Stanley sisters and often ran away to Mimi's, where she would open the door to find John standing there, "his face covered in tears".[47] Julia was accused by the family of being frivolous and unreliable— she never enjoyed household chores— and was once seen sweeping the kitchen floor with a pair of knickers on her head. Her cooking methods were also haphazard, as she would mix things "like a mad scientist", and even put tea "or anything else that came to hand" in a stew.[23] A favourite joke would be to wear a pair of spectacles that had no glass in them, and then to scratch her eye through the empty frame.[48]

1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool, where Julia and Dykins lived

Dykins later managed several bars in Liverpool, which allowed Lennon to stay at home and look after their two daughters (Julia and Jackie) and John, who often visited and stayed overnight, at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool.[49] John and McCartney would rehearse in the bathroom of the house where the acoustics "sounded like a recording studio".[35] Dykins used to give John weekly pocket money (one shilling) for doing odd jobs, on top of the five shillings that Smith gave him.[50][5] In December 1965, Dykins was killed in a car crash at the bottom of Penny Lane, but Lennon was not told about his death for months afterwards, as it was "not [Stanley] family business".[5]

Julia had two daughters with Dykins: Julia (later Julia Baird – b. 5 March 1947) and Jacqueline ("Jackie" – b. 26 October 1949).[51][52] As Jackie was born prematurely, her mother visited the hospital every day to see her.[5] When Lennon was 11 years old, he started to visit the Dykins' house, and often stayed overnight. Young Julia would give up her bed to him, then share her sister's bed.[53] Baird remembered that after Lennon had visited them, their mother would often play a record called, My Son John, To Me You Are So Wonderful, "by some old crooner, and sit and listen to it".[5] (Baird probably meant "My Son John"—sung by David Whitfield—which was released in 1956.)[54] After Julia's death, the two girls (aged eleven and eight) were sent to stay in Edinburgh at Aunt Mater's (Elizabeth) and were only told two months later, by their uncle Norman Birch, that their mother had died.[55] The commercial success of the Beatles allowed John to buy a four-bedroomed house in Gateacre Park Drive, Liverpool, for Julia and Jackie to live in with the Birches. They had previously been made legal guardians of the two girls; Dykins' parentage had been disregarded as he had never legally married Julia.[5] After John's death, his widow, Yoko Ono, became the owner of the house and sought to sell it, later giving it to the Salvation Army on 2 November 1993, even though John had once written a letter, stating: "I always thought of the house he's in [Birch] as my contribution towards looking after Julia [Baird] and Jackie. I would prefer the girls to use it."[5]

Julia and Jackie later met their half-sister, Ingrid Pedersen, when they were present at the ceremony to place a Blue Heritage plaque on Smith's house to commemorate that John had lived there. Their cousin Stanley Parkes was on the ladder fixing the plaque to the wall and said, "I think I can see Ingrid" [walking towards the house]. Baird and her sister were surprised, as it meant that Parkes had seen Pedersen before, even though Baird and Jackie never had. When all three finally met for the first time, Baird was shocked that Ingrid did not look anything like the Stanley family, as she had "pale blue eyes and fair hair".[5]