Understanding John Lennon. Francis Kenny

Чтение книги онлайн.

       chapter 2

      1900s

      Toxteth Park

      AT THE turn of the 20th century, Liverpool was still a vibrant port and an integral part of the British Empire. It was a bustling city of 750,000 people and rising, and it was in this environment that John Lennon’s parents, Freddie and Julia, were born – a city culture that was in the north of England but in many ways not of it.

      Freddie and Julia had a stormy relationship of 14 years, during which they expressed a love of life and a rejection of society’s norms, set against the fraught backdrop of the Great Depression and the Second World War. It was a marriage that took place despite opposition and interference from both families.

      Meanwhile, the cultural influence of Ireland that infused the city was now joined by an American one, in which thousands of cargo ships and hundreds of liners annually crisscrossed the Atlantic to and from the United States. What entered the Port of Liverpool was a multitude of fresh ideas, innovative music and challenging attitudes, which then fanned out into the city.

      But the new century heralded little change with regards to the poverty, squalor and adversity for many people in the city. As is often the case when groups of people are faced with injustice, there developed a strong sense of solidarity and in 1911 the city saw a series of strikes and industrial action, climaxing in a general strike by transport workers in and around the port. This involved carters, railwaymen, dockers and seafarers, lasted 72 days and involved 70,000 workers. Tens of thousands of troops were called in and barracked on the city’s outskirts. The conflict which followed between the strikers and the police and military resulted in two strikers being shot dead. The then Home Secretary Winston Churchill ordered gunboats into the Mersey and stated that:

      You need not attach great importance to the rioting in Liverpool last night. It took place in an area where disorder is a chronic feature.¹

      Such bias was deeply ingrained, nurtured by a long-standing xenophobia towards the Irish immigrant community. Indeed, in 1866 The Anthropological Review and Journal claimed that the ‘Gaelic man’ was characterised by:

      his bulging jaw and lower part of the face, retreating chin and forehead, large mouth and thick lips, great distance between nose and mouth, upturned nose, prominent cheekbones, sunken eyes, projecting eyebrows, narrow elongated skull and protruding ears.

      Scientific xenophobia was common in the 19th century, directed not just towards the large immigrant Irish population but also towards Jewish and African people. Punch Magazine was not averse to portraying the Irish in cartoon form as Neanderthals dragging their knuckles along the floor. The bias against those who made up a significant part of the Irish diaspora only served to firm the sense of otherness of those within the city. The fact that the city was the only one in Britain to elect a representative to the Houses of Parliament (T. P. O’Connor, served 1885–1929) who was a member of the Irish National Party, which supported Home Rule for Ireland, only furthered the notion that Liverpool was a law unto itself. The communion with Ireland meant that Liverpool was to endure a degree of negativity and discrimination not seen by other English cities. But then again, Liverpool wasn’t just another ‘English city’.

      The discrimination against Liverpool found an easy target in the city’s distinctive accent. But during Beatlemania, it seemed that half the teenagers living within a 30-mile radius of Liverpool spoke with a ‘plastic’ Scouse accent in emulation of their idols. This became a complete turnaround for previous views on Liverpool people’s accents. Cilla Black made the point that:

      People hated us because of the way we spoke, especially the fellas, who were very guttural. If you asked for a drink in a pub in Blackpool or North Wales, they’d throw you out.²

      As a teenager, John was aware of this prejudice and fought a constant battle with his aunt in his attempt to declare his independence by adopting a local Scouse accent. To him, speaking in a distinct Liverpool accent was a badge of rebellion and freedom. Paul McCartney was also conscious of his accent and has expressed this sense of otherness:

      Liverpool has its own identity. It’s even got its own accent with about a ten-mile radius. Once you go outside that ten miles it’s deep Lancashire, lad. I think you do feel that apartness, growing up there.³

      Paul became one of the three most important people in John’s life. He impacted upon him as a friend and as a musician. Other major influences on his formative outlook and beliefs were his Aunt Mimi and his mother Julia. They were all Liverpool born and bred. Yoko Ono certainly influenced John later in his life, but by the time they met, he was already a blend of his hometown’s history and character.

      John’s Aunt Mimi (christened Mary Stanley) was born in Head Street in the Toxteth area of Liverpool, where the influence of Catholicism surrounded the non-Catholic Stanley family. At the top of the street stood St Patrick’s Mission Church, home to the largest parish in the south end of the city and mother church to half a dozen other Catholic churches in the area. At the other end of Head Street stood the Dexter Street laundry, one of 300 or so whose main purpose was to service the transatlantic liner trade. They cleaned tablecloths and bed linens and a whole host of other items for recently docked liners. A liner in port for an overhaul could well employ 2,000 people for over a month. The Stanley family’s home in Head Street was thus sandwiched between the two most influential dynamics of the city – the Irish and the sea.

      Mimi’s parents, George (known as Pop) and Annie, had Irish and Welsh ancestry. The couple had five daughters, Mimi being the first, born in 1906, followed by Elizabeth (nicknamed Mater), Anne and Julia, who was six years younger than her eldest sister and sometimes known as Judy. Finally there was Harriet. The Stanley family had been left an endowment by a well-off aunt in Wales. The money was invested in the purchase of half a dozen small properties around the area of the Anglican Cathedral. Pop Stanley was a sail maker by trade, and the nature of his job entailed accompanying ships around the world. With the decline in the shipping industry, he later took employment at home, working between the Mersey and Irish Sea with the London, Liverpool and Glasgow Salvage Company, which specialised in the salvage of submarines. His position meant status. When Pop spoke, people were expected to listen. He addressed work subordinates using their surnames, while he in turn expected to be addressed as ‘Sir’ or ‘Mr Stanley’. In the workplace, Pop was a skilled and influential artisan; in the home he could be a hurtful and spiteful head of house.

      Being the oldest daughter, Mimi developed СКАЧАТЬ