by Peter Brown
Although Mimi felt Julia was giving shelter to the enemy by letting John hide out there, the two sisters remained close, and Julia became a frequent visitor to the house on Menlove Avenue. On hot summer afternoons she often came by for tea in the garden and stayed past dinner, telling jokes and chatting with the neighbors. One evening John was watching TV with Twitchy at Spring Wood, while Julia and Mimi had dinner at Mendips. Julia left for the bus stop just about twilight. John’s chum, Nigel Whalley, was at that moment on his way to Mendips to see if John was about. He met Julia on the street, and she had a few jokes and a laugh for him before she turned off to get the bus. She was just about 200 yards from the front gate of Mimi’s house when the quiet of the summer night was split by the terrible sound of screeching brakes and a heavy thump. Nigel Whalley turned at the gate of Mendips just in time to see Julia’s body rise up into the air above the hedges and come down on the other side. By the time Mimi got over to the tram tracks, Julia was dead.
10
The car had been driven by an off-duty policeman, and Mimi saw to it that he went to trial. Nigel Whalley was called as a witness, but the testimony of a young boy didn’t seem to impress the judge very much and the driver was acquitted. This infuriated Mimi, who stood in the spectators’ dock screaming and cursing at the man, threatening to beat him up with her cane. John watched in silence, knowing that it was no use. All the screaming and threatening in the world wouldn’t bring Julia back. She had abandoned him for a final time.
A few months before the accident, John had asked Paul, “How can you sit there and act normal with your mother dead? If anything like that happened to me, I’d go off me head.”
True to his word, John did go off his head. He seemed to blame everyone for his mother’s death and was intent on revenge. There were no limits to his anger and grief. When he went back to art college six weeks later, he was meaner than ever. Fellow students remember seeing him sitting in the solitude of a rear stairwell, staring out the window and crying. He kept himself in a pain-killing stupor of alcohol and, more often than not, spent the whole day a little drunk. He began to see tragedy, deformity, and ugliness everywhere. He derived special pleasure from ridiculing street beggars and cripples. His typical behavior would be to walk up to a hapless paraplegic he encountered on the street and make cruel jokes about his useless limbs. “Where’s ya legs go, mate? Run away with your wife?” His favorite targets were old people, and he seemed determined to give some senior citizen a heart attack by fright. He was rageful enough to beat up anyone who dared to challenge his aggression, and except for his band, everyone began to shy away from him. Certainly no girl in her right mind would go out with him. One girl named Thelma Pickles lasted the longest, but that relationship ended with her screaming at him in Ye Cracke, “Don’t take it out on me just because your mother’s dead!”
And then, in 1958, he met Cynthia Powell, who was going to save him.
chapter Two
... and I know that someday, somehow, John and I will always be together.
—Cynthia Lennon Bassanini Twist, 1982
1
Cynthia Powell dedicated herself to John with the passion of a religious zealot. A man more sure of himself would have found the attention suffocating, but John enjoyed every minute of it. Every moment Cynthia could steal away from her schoolwork and her home she spent with him. She even met him in the few minutes between classes in art college, so she could spend a moment necking behind the lockers in the basement. She paid for his cigarettes and coffee and never tired of sitting on a hard bench with him at his favorite hangout, the Jacaranda, holding his hand under a formica table, staring into his eyes for hours as he told her the story of his life.
The Jacaranda, or the “Jac” as it was called, had become a favorite meeting spot of the city’s multiplying beat groups. Once a narrow watch-repair shop on Slater Street in the bohemian district, the Jac was just on the edge of the city’s bustling Chinatown. The Jac was a “sitting room” with benches around the walls and narrow tables where one could dawdle over a single cup of coffee for hours without being disturbed. Its location and laissez-faire policy brought a fascinating cross section of students, artists, beat groups, West Indians, whites, blacks, Chinese, and those coming back and forth from the public subsidy office just down the street. The Jac was owned by a short, loquacious gentleman, with more than a touch of northern charm, named Allan Williams. This self-styled entrepreneur had sold everything in his time, from electric typewriters to books door to door. Williams had become a favorite of the boys when he converted his basement into a small club. At night, on a rough brick dance floor in the basement, Williams featured—improbably—an authentic West Indian steel band. The city’s many beat groups would sit at small tables and drink coffee spiked with their own liquor, listening to the steel band until dawn.
It was at the Jac that Cynthia got to know most of John’s friends. Her favorite was another art student, a small, pale, ethereal young man named Stu Sutcliffe. Cynthia already knew of the nineteen-year-old artist from school, where he was widely regarded as the most talented and promising student. The girls all considered him devastatingly attractive, and it was always noted that he was a dead ringer for James Dean, particularly because of his moody, romantic scowl and his dark clip-on sunglasses. Stu was one of the few students who even lived like a real artist, in a cramped, paint-splattered studio in a house on Gambier Terrace near the art school. It was an authentic artist’s garret, right down to the filth and poverty. Stu was so poor that during the winter he would have to burn his furniture to keep warm, and the ashes from the fireplace had crept out into the middle of the room, where they remained for months. John moved into this flat with Stu for a while and slept in a silk-lined coffin, which he filched from a garbage dump. He and Stu would spend long nights, drinking beer and talking. Stu was one of the few people his own age John found intellectually stimulating. While John’s friendship with Paul was special in its own way, it was only one of music and good times. With Stu, John felt a deep spiritual bond. He admired Stu, not just for his talent and creativity, but for the passion and love he had for his art.
Stu’s reputation as a promising young artist was already spreading, and in 1959, when the biennial John Moore Art Exhibit was held at Liverpool’s prestigious Walker Art Gallery, Stu entered one of his paintings in the competition. John Moore, a wealthy Liverpudlian art collector, personally bought Stu’s painting for £65—at the time an unheard-of sum for a student’s work. The sale of the painting became the talk of the art college and Stu a kind of minor celebrity. John immediately saw the perfect use for the £65. His band needed a new bass player. It didn’t matter to him that Stu had no idea how to play an instrument and even less desire to join a rock group, John would show him what to do. John was so enthusiastic about the idea that eventually Stu broke down and spent the entire £65 on a bass guitar. Whether the other band members liked it or not, Stu Sutcliffe was suddenly in the group.
The friend of John’s that Cynthia liked the least was a pesty little kid named George Harrison. At the age of fifteen George was nearly five years Cynthia’s junior and as amusing to her as a bratty kid brother. Slight and pale, he had his fair share of adolescent pimples. More private than actually shy, it was obvious that George idolized John and did everything he could to emulate him. George was a “flash” dresser, with the longest hair of any kid around. Dressed in his pointy “winkle-picker” shoes, pink shirt with pointy collar, and canary yellow waistcoat, George tagged after John and Cynthia wherever they went. A little too young to be seriously dating, he had no idea that the young couple might have wanted to be alone, particularly on dates. But George was always lurking around in the background, trying to get John’s attention, and on more than one occasion he sat on the other side of John when they went to the cinema. On the few times John and Cynthia thought they had eluded George for a while, he would suddenly round the corner ahead of them, signaling his arrival with the piercing whis
tle that was his trademark. The day Cynthia had her appendix removed, she waited in her hospital bed all afternoon for a visit from John, who turned up ten minutes before visiting hours were over. He wasn’t there a moment when George appeared, bounding up the aisle of the ward like a puppy dog. Cynthia was so upset at seeing him she burst into tears. George, for his part, was slightly more generous in his appraisal of Cynthia than she of him. “I think she’s great, John,” he confided one day. “But there’s one thing wrong. She’s got teeth like a horse.”
If Paul McCartney was a bane to Mimi, then George Harrison was anathema. John tried to smooth the way for George by telling Mimi what a great guy he was before she ever met him, but once Mimi got a look at his pink shirt, she threw him out the door. Worst of all for Mimi, George’s mother, Louise Harrison, was actually encouraging the boys with their band, giving them a place to practice and food when they were hungry. It made Mimi furious.
George Harrison was the only Beatle whose childhood was not marred by divorce or death. Born on February 25, 1943, he was the youngest in a family of three sons and a daughter. His father, Harold, was a thin, quiet man who was a city bus driver. His mother was a contented housewife and the neighborhood mom all the kids knew. Her reputation was as a jovial, outgoing woman who supported and encouraged her children. The family lived for eighteen years in the same, simple, terraced house on Arnold Grove, Wavertree, before moving to a small council house on Upton’s Green in Speke. George was a bright, independent child, who used to pick up the sausage for dinner at the local butcher by himself when he was only two-and-a-half years old. Like John, he went to Dovedale Primary School, just across Penny Lane from where they lived.
George first became friendly with Paul McCartney not long after the family moved to Speke. Each morning the two boys would see each other at the corner bus stop and board the same bus headed for the Liverpool Institute, where George had started that year. One morning Paul found himself a few pennies short for his bus fare, and Louise Harrison gave them to him plus some extra for the ride home. Although George was a year behind Paul in school, the two boys found plenty to talk about on the bus: skiffle, rock and roll and guitars.
By the time George was fourteen, he was already a certifiable guitar fanatic. Like Paul, Lonnie Donegan had sparked his interest in the guitar, and Louise Harrison began to find George’s pockets full of scraps of paper with guitars drawn on them, the way other boys drew jet planes. His first guitar was a used one, bought from another boy at school and financed by his mother for £3. His next was a deluxe model, which he helped pay for by doing chores for the butcher on Saturdays. Louise was a constant source of encouragement to him, telling him that he could master his playing whenever he got discouraged. Upon his meeting with John Lennon, this had not quite happened. George’s playing at the time was far below the standards of the boys in the band, then called Johnny and the Moondogs. Paul introduced George to the band in the winter of 1959 in a basement teen club best remembered for its bare red lightbulbs, called, appropriately, The Morgue. George played for them his best number, an eight-note bass tune called “Ranchee,” but nobody was very impressed. He tagged along after them anyway, hoping that one day he would be asked to play with them. He went to all their shows, where he stood in the back with his guitar. A few times when one of the regular guitarists failed to show up, George was allowed to sit in with the band, and on rare occasions he even got to do his own, breath-holding solo. Eventually, before anybody really noticed what was happening, he became a member of the group. Besides, Louise Harrison gave them shelter and food.
John, Paul, George, Stu, and Cynthia would meet almost every day at the Jac or in the school cafeteria. Cynthia would sit on a bench nearby and listen while the boys played. They didn’t seem much different from the other kids in the busy school, and nobody took special notice of them.
2
The previous spring Elvis Presley had been inducted into the United States Armed Forces and throughout the world an army of young boys dreamed of taking his place. Hundreds of rock groups were being formed all over England, and in Liverpool every neighborhood seemed to have one. There was no lack of places to play, either. Every church hall, ballroom, town hall, and skating rink where a stage could be erected and admission charged was holding a weekend dance. There were so many groups in Liverpool that a student at the Liverpool Art College named Bill Harry—who coincidentally introduced Stu Sutcliffe to John Lennon—began taking notes on who was in what group and where they were playing and eventually started his own music paper, the Mersey Beat. Some groups didn’t last more than a week or two, others came to prominence in their neighborhoods and developed loyal followings, and then went on to fight for citywide acceptance. Johnny and the Moondogs was not one of these.
The most famous Liverpool band was Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Rory was a tall, athletic boy with beautifully coiffed blond hair. Dashingly handsome, he had a pronounced stutter when he spoke but not when he sang rock and roll. He was considered the most dramatic and flamboyant of all the lead singers, and the highlight of his act often included his shimmying acrobatically up the fluted columns that held up the balconies and prosceniums. Next in popularity was Cass and the Casanovas, noted for their loud drummer with a silver-glitter drum kit. Following them was Derry and the Seniors, who specialized in rhythm and blues and had a black singer. Then came Gordon Bell and the Bobby Bell Rockers, Faron and the Flamingos, the Swinging Blue Jeans, Lee Curtis and the All Stars, and on and on and on. Some groups were fortunate enough to land steady jobs at local auditoriums. Other groups had to scramble each week for employment. As the Jacaranda became the vortex of the late-night band scene, Allan Williams got to know the whole spectrum of groups as they passed through the doors. It struck him that there was a potential gold mine somewhere in that plethora of what was being called “pop” music, and he started a booking business. As a sort of a clearing house for groups, he got them jobs at £10 a night. From this, Williams was paid £1 and £1 went to the local bouncer. Johnny and the Moondogs quickly agreed to his services.
Williams had made the acquaintance of a well-known London manager and promoter named Larry Parnes. The mere mention of Larry Parnes’ name summoned up visions of stardom for the multitude of Liverpool groups. Parnes was famous for discovering Tommy Steele, one of Britain’s major teen singing stars, whom he had found singing in a coffee bar on Old Compton Road in London. Since Tommy Steele, Parnes had “discovered” a whole stable of young men, christening each with a distinctive name: Marty Wilde, Dickie Pride, Billy Fury, and Johnny Gentle.
While none of Parnes’ other acts reached the level of stardom of Tommy Steele, they all had recording contracts and worked regularly on a profitable touring circuit of dance halls in small towns around the countryside. Williams had assured Parnes that Liverpool was an untapped lode for pop groups, all of them tailor-made to go on tour with his name acts, eager and reasonably priced. Within a few weeks Williams had won an audition for an assortment of the better known Liverpool groups to go on tour with Billy Fury, among them his personal favorites, Johnny and the Moondogs. For the audition, against the advice of their friends, the band changed their name to the Silver Beatles. The word “beetles” had been suggested by Stu Sutcliffe in response to Buddy Holly’s group, the Crickets. John, who couldn’t resist a pun, suggested “beatles,” as a play on beat music. The “silver” was added to give the name some flash.
Temporarily bereft of a drummer—drummers seemed to come and go every few weeks—they asked Johnny Hutch, the drummer of Cass and the Casanovas, to play for them at their audition with Parnes. Along with a dozen other groups, they set up in the basement of a new club Allan Williams was opening on Seel Street called the Blue Angel and waited their turn. They gave a nervous but spirited performance, save for Johnny Hutch, who intentionally looked very bored and superior. Parnes also couldn’t help but notice that Stu Sutcliffe, the little guy with the big bass guitar, had no idea how to play his instru
ment. Parnes wanted the Silver Beatles—but minus Stu. John wouldn’t hear of this, which infuriated Paul, but nevertheless he insisted they turn Parnes down if it meant leaving Stu behind. Cass and the Casanovas got the spot. Miraculously, a week later Parnes offered them another booking, although it was a booking that no professional London band would take. They were offered a two-week tour of Scotland, as the backup group for Johnny Gentle. The Silver Beatles were to be paid the grand fee of £18 a week, including on-the-road expenses for the five of them. John had a lettering exam due that week and gave it to Cynthia to copy for him. While he was away, she sat on a wooden crate in Stu’s flat under a sixty-watt bulb and wrote it for him, cheating for the first time in her life. George Harrison, who had already left school at the age of sixteen, was working part-time as an apprentice electrician at Blackler’s Department Store and simply took a holiday to go to Scotland.
The tour of Scotland turned out to be less of an exhilarating experience than the boys had anticipated. Desperate to find a drummer for the tour, they hired twenty-five-year-old Tommy Moore, who worked on a forklift at the Garston Bottle Works. Moore’s musical experience had been limited to playing in big dance bands. Johnny Gentle, a hulking man who had been a merchant seaman before he was discovered by Parnes, didn’t much care for the Silver Beatles or their music. The tour turned out to be a depressing series of one-night stands in decrepit dance halls in backwater towns. Promoters called Larry Parnes to complain about the Silver Beatles’ playing, and the Silver Beatles called to complain about their cold-water lodgings. They lived on a bowl of soup a day, and Tommy Moore couldn’t stand John Lennon. One night the van they were riding in was in a collision, and Tommy Moore was hit on the head with a suitcase. He lost his two front teeth and was taken to a hospital to have his face stitched up. John laughed when he saw him on stage at the show that night. Moore quit when they got back to Liverpool.