Understanding John Lennon. Francis Kenny

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       chapter 5

      1950–55

      Mendips

      THE WARTIME age of austerity was coming to a close, employment and consumerism were on the march, and the Port of Liverpool was buoyant in its trade with the Americas and the Empire. The port shipped in and out more cargo than the next-largest eight ports combined. The city’s population stood at nearly 800,000, almost half of these crammed into the dockland zones and the city centre. The housing stock within the city was as bad as ever. The rapid rise of the port in the 19th century had left in its wake a swathe of jerry-built slum housing – a legacy of heavy immigration.

      In the early post-war years, the Ministry of Housing identified 26,959 unfit houses in Liverpool, with conditions deemed so bad that they were marked for demolition. A further 61,724 required major repairs, making a total of 88,683 substandard dwellings. This, together with demobilisation and the consequent return home of thousands of servicemen, a high birth rate caused by the post-war ‘baby boom’ and a scarcity of construction materials all contributed to a severe post-war housing shortage. In 1949, John’s mother and Bobby (who now had two daughters, Julia and Jackie) were more than fortunate to gain a three-bedroom, front and back garden semi of their own, just a few miles from Newcastle Road. After Pop had died in 1949, the owner of Newcastle Road offered Julia and Bobby the opportunity to buy the house. Financially, the couple weren’t in a position to take up the offer. Instead, they were provided with a new home by Liverpool Corporation in the Allerton area of the city at 1 Blomfield Road.

      As post-war Britain progressed into the 1950s, it reverted to Tory rule, with Winston Churchill becoming Prime Minister once again. The developing Cold War’s blanket of suspicion and fear divided many in Britain into those who supported the established order and hoped to maintain Britain’s colonies, and those against, who were deemed unpatriotic. This divide slowly grew, and as a further blow to national pride came the realisation that there were now two world superpowers, and Britain wasn’t one of them. The cultural impact of such radical changes led to a reaffirmed belief in and commitment to pre-war family values. Any behaviour seen to be challenging the conventional wisdom of the established order, especially by the young, was anathema to those in authority and to trenchant parents alike – those brought up on a diet of King, Empire and Class. American influence on British culture, meanwhile, was deemed vulgar and shallow.

      But the allies’ victory in Europe meant not just a change in power relations, but also to the development of a post-war USA bringing cultural hegemony to much of western Europe. The UK in particular witnessed the arrival of American culture, from fashion to cinema and in language and music. Ten miles from Liverpool stood RAF Burtonwood Air Force Base, the largest American air base in Europe, where 12,000 American servicemen lived only a short ride from the city. At an age when teenagers were expected to be mini replicas of their parents with regards to fashion, music and outlook, the sharply dressed, ‘Hollywood talking’ American GIs became an instant hit with the teenagers of the city. Tied to this was the presence of the ‘Cunard Yanks’, the thousands of Liverpool seamen who manned the great transatlantic liners.

      Liverpool was a great attraction to the GIs and became a welcome alternative to the staid environment of barrack life at Burtonwood. The Toxteth district of the city in particular, with its large immigrant population, provided a variety of (illicit) nightclubs, dodgy characters and music spots which presented a ‘safe haven’ – an exciting night out for many Afro-American GIs, especially given that these men enlisted in the war on racially segregated lines in terms of the units they belonged to. Figures by the Colonial Office and League of Coloured People at this time reveal that a third of Britain’s ‘coloured’ population were packed into the decaying Georgian and Victorian town houses of the city’s south end.

      Mendips was not immune to such shifting cultural perceptions. Philip Norman reveals that, of all the British comics (such as The Victor, The Lion, The Commando and The Tiger), Mimi only allowed The Eagle comic into Mendips. According to Norman, ‘Mimi had forbidden [John] comics, except perhaps the high-minded Eagle’,¹ which was edited by a clergyman. American comics with what Mimi deemed to be their lurid and sensational storylines were banned outright. The Eagle, though, was the only one to escape her censorship. ‘Moral seriousness made The Eagle stand out from the silly high jinks of its American rivals, but it did not dent its appeal’, Dominic Sandbrook pointed out. Indeed, The Eagle

      was a good example of the way in which old notions of patriotic duty and Christian service were reinvigorated rather than abandoned after the war; although Dan Dare’s adventures take place in the far future, he retains the services of a batman and the International Space Fleet is identifiably a British hierarchical organisation.²

      The battle was not just for the hearts and minds of children, but for the broader values of British culture, the concern for which would stretch to debates in the House of Commons. Motions were put down which sought to ban the sale of American comics, supported by the National Union of Teachers convention. But to children like John, who were oblivious to such events, being brought up in Britain during this period was to be brought up in what many saw as the golden age of childhood. With the war finally over and rationing gradually phasing out (although it took until 1954 for the end of sugar rationing and therefore sweets and chocolate to be made freely available), many children of this generation looked back to an idyllic time of their lives.

      Removal from his mother, followed immediately by a change of school, had begun a confusing and distressing time for the five-year-old John. The effects of the absence of both parents came to the surface in the playground and classroom, where belligerent and hurtful behaviour began to emerge. This attitude would ebb and flow throughout John’s whole life. From very early on, John was at war with the world and at war with himself. He recalled later:

      I did fight all the way through Dovedale, winning by psychological means if ever anyone looked bigger than me. I threatened them in a strong enough way that I would beat them or they thought I could.³

      An interesting comment of John’s that gives an unintended insight СКАЧАТЬ