Understanding John Lennon. Francis Kenny

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СКАЧАТЬ not to go. His wife was having none of it. ‘I hardly ever go out’, was her response to Freddie’s pleas. Freddie slammed the front door and barred it against Julia leaving. For her part, Julia took her high heels off, climbed on the kitchen sink and out of the window, and proceeded to run down the road, shoes in hand, to catch up with the sailor and his blonde girlfriend.

      Freddie’s wartime service in the Merchant Navy was characterised by a complex series of cock-ups and incompetence. The highlight of this odyssey was Freddie giving a ‘star turn’ to wildly appreciative servicemen in a New York bar. He was then carried shoulder-high down Broadway to Jack Dempsey’s bar, where he continued with his show.

      Freddie came home to find his young wife pregnant, but obviously not by him. Instead, the father turned out to be a young Welsh soldier called Taffy Williams. At first, Julia claimed that she had been raped. After Freddie confronted the soldier, it was discovered that this wasn’t the case. Taffy offered to marry Julia. She laughed in his face. Freddie offered to accept the child into the family, but Julia refused and instead she entered a Salvation Army hospital in the Mossley Hill area, where she went full term and gave birth to a girl. As previously arranged with the hospital, after six weeks the baby – named Victoria – was eventually given up for adoption to a Norwegian sea captain and his Liverpudlian wife.

      Julia would now return to Pop at Newcastle Road. Further conflict was to follow when Freddie, returning from another trip, discovered his wife had been having a six-month affair with Bobby Dykins, who was two years her junior. During this period, Mimi was to make her move for John. When Mimi was interviewed by Hunter Davies, ‘She claimed Julia wasn’t caring for him properly’⁶ and informed Freddie that John had walked from Newcastle Road to her house at Mendips. This was in all likelihood untrue. That an unaccompanied four-year-old would be in a position to navigate two major dual carriageways and make his way along the mile-and-a-half route past a police station seems extreme in the least. Why would Mimi say this? It was the beginning of a long campaign of false accusations, half-truths and lies against Julia and Freddie to gain permanent access to John.

      On Freddie’s next return home to Newcastle Road, he was shocked to find Julia in a steady, long-term relationship, now living with Bobby Dykins. Julia hadn’t heard from Freddie for 18 months and took it upon herself to find another man. Freddie must have known this was the end of the marriage. He asked to see John and was informed that he’d spent the last two weeks in Mendips. When he called to see him, Mimi demanded £20 for John’s ‘keep’. This was a month’s wages.

      Mimi was critical of Julia for bringing shame on the family with her relationship with Dykins. She seemed to be unusually supportive towards Freddie’s position. What was later to transpire was that Mimi and Pop had been in collusion. Julia’s mother had died in 1941, and since then Pop had been looking to snare one of his daughters to take the place of his wife-cum-housekeeper. At 71 years of age, Pop was becoming incapable of looking after himself. He desperately needed a carer and, as all of his other daughters were unavailable, Julia was the one he chose. Mimi, on the other hand, wanted a child, and she was determined it would be John. The plan was to give Julia a home in Newcastle Road along with Bobby (but if possible without him) and in return she would give up John to Mimi. Before Freddie finally bowed out of the Stanley family, there was the sad spectacle of him taking John to his brother Sidney’s home in Blackpool. The intention was for them both to emigrate to New Zealand. John’s prospective antipodean adventure with his father ended when Freddie was located by Julia and Bobby. John, just five years old, was presented with the traumatic choice of who he would like to live with: his mother or his father. John’s first choice was his father Freddie, followed by a quick reversal. He ran into his mother’s arms. For such a young child, his first few years had been stressful in the extreme. Sadly, things weren’t going to get better.

      Following on from Blackpool, Mimi was to argue continually that John would be better off with her at Mendips where a ‘stable environment’ could be provided. Julia vehemently refused. There then followed a campaign by Pop and Mimi to ensure that they both got their way. Julia, much to the chagrin of Mimi, was allowed to stay with Pop at Newcastle Road together with Bobby Dykins. ‘Living in sin’ was anathema to Mimi. Such a state of affairs brought shame on the family, but perhaps there was a method to Pop’s madness. Bit by bit, pressure was applied to Julia to relinquish John into Mimi’s care. She and Bobby could stay and take care of Pop. The pressure to give in was so intense that Julia, John and Bobby moved out of Newcastle Road and into a small flat in nearby Gateacre. This was the chance Mimi had been waiting for. With Pop in attendance, Mimi paid an unannounced visit to the flat. Both declared that it was an unfit place for John to live and Mimi demanded he be placed with her. A campaign of harassment against Julia was to pay dividends. ‘She saw a window of opportunity, and if she’d have let that go, there wouldn’t be another chance,’ states Julia Baird (nee Dykins):

      The first time she came round to collect John, my father put her out. The second time she came with a social worker who said – or rather told – Mimi that she could find nothing wrong with John’s staying with his mother. Mimi then probably appealed to the Director of Public Services. She was determined. He asked where John slept. There was only one bedroom and my parents weren’t married. He agreed with Pop and Mimi that John should go and live with George and Mimi at Mendips.⁷

      Mimi’s belief was that John living in the same house as his mother’s common law husband was enough to get him away from his mother. Refusing to take no for an answer, she went to the head of Liverpool’s Public Services. The Director sided with Mimi. The result was that five-year-old John was removed by order of the Public Services from Julia, just one summer after he had lost contact with his father.

      Mimi would say later that ‘Julia had met somebody else with whom she had a chance of happiness, and no man wants another man’s child’.⁸ But Bobby Dykins showed strong intent to take John on as his own son. He was willing to set up home with Julia and John. If Freddie could be tracked down and agree to a divorce, it was highly likely the couple would marry. And as for ‘no man wants another man’s child’, where did this leave George Smith, in whose home John would be living? ‘Mimi changed John’s school to Dovedale from Mosspits, and took over running his life. Or should that be ruining his life?’ Julia Baird comments.

      It was obvious that Julia and Bobby needed a bigger place, where John would have his own bedroom. Julia and Bobby moved back with Pop at Newcastle Road, where John could have his own room. That would solve the problem, so Julia went to Mimi to get John back. Mimi turned her away at the door.⁹

      Mimi had acquired John as she has acquired Mendips: by stealth and subterfuge. Her appetite for self-advancement included the ‘ideal family’, which of course included a child. John was to be the final part of Mimi’s transformation into a post-war, Woman’s Own accomplished suburban matriarch. John had now been subject to a tug of war between his parents, having to choose between his mother and father, the introduction of social workers in the battle for his custody between his mother and his aunt, and the introduction of a regimented and cold regime at Mendips. It’s no wonder that he sought solitude in his writing and art.

      ‘Hypocrite to the core. Flawed. Unbelievable what she put my mother through’, concludes Julia Baird.

      [Mimi] had set her heart on having John, no matter what the price to pay, no matter what my mother thought. Mimi just battled away. This was her opportunity to have a child.¹⁰

       chapter 4

      1946–50

      Wandsworth Jail

      JOHN’S NEW home was now 251 Menlove Avenue, a three-bedroom, bay-windowed, pebble-dashed semi-detached house, complete with lead-glassed quarter-light windows and the name plate of ‘Mendips’. John’s bedroom was the small box СКАЧАТЬ