Relationship: Stepfather to John Lennon
1918 - 1966

There is some discrepancy over where and when 'Bobby' met Julia Lennon. Some say it was in a café on Penny Lane where Julia worked. The most likely story is that they met in 1944 when Bobby was dating Ann Stout and they made up a foursome with Julia and Taffy Williams. Bobby stopped seeing Ann and began dating Julia after her marriage to Alfred broke down and her subsequent relationship with Taffy finished.

When they first set up home together, the infant John Lennon lived with his mother and Bobby, but John's Aunt Mimi and her husband thought it unsuitable that all three share a room and so John was given over to Mimi to be raised.

Dykins was a wine steward at the Adelphi Hotel when he met Julia. He worked long hours and moved between various pubs and hotels in the Liverpool area.

Julia and Bobby lived together for over 10 years but never married, although Julia wore his ring and called herself Mrs. Dykins. They had two daughters, Julia and Jacqueline, half sisters to John, but they only discovered that their parents had never married after Bobby's death.

John always referred to Bobby as 'Twitchy' because of a facial tick he had.
When he was a teenager John began visiting his mother and new family regularly, although he never thought of Bobby as his dad. John was at the Dykins home in Blomfield Road with Bobby on 15 July 1958, the night Julia died. Bobby couldn't cope with Julia's death or looking after the girls while he worked such unsociable hours, so the girls moved in with Aunt Harrie, and Bobby moved to a house close by. He continued to support the girls financially.

Bobby was kind to John. After Julia's death John had a key to Bobby's house and was able to take Paul and George there to listen to records and slow them down to copy the words out. It was Bobby who found John his first job in a cocktail bar.

Some years later Bobby met and married Veronica (Rona) Parry.

In 1966 John 'Bobby' Dykins died in a car accident in Penny Lane.