Family reflections on the Liverpool Lennons



	Enter your email address:

An Interview With Julia Baird

listen

(page 4 of 6)

Are you a Beatles fan?

No - Rolling Stones. it's far more wild and exciting isn't it? I much prefer the Rolling Stones because they were uninhibited. It's like Beethoven and Bach isn't it? You either like one or the other don't you?

But there must be a John Lennon or a Beatles song that you like, what would be your favourite?

Oh yes 'Stand By Me' I think and I like John's 'Rock n' Roll' album and there's not many covered versions, although his were covered versions as well. When you hear these Bootleggy Beatles things they very rarely do his rock n roll stuff which I loved. I did love 'Stand By Me', 'Woman', 'Imagine' although you hear it so often, but it's a beautiful song. But I did like 'Woman'; I liked 'Julia' of course because it was about my mother.

When they became so famous and Cynthia and Julian and John moved down to London you used to visit, didn't you?

Yes we visited when John moved away. Eventually he did move away, after that photograph - it must be on this website somewhere with 'Mendips' in the background. John in the foreground with a leather hat on. He moved away from Liverpool 1963/4. Everyone's going to correct me on that, you'll have to find out the dates!

Because everything was in London, all the contracts were in London. Brian had gone to London; everything was happening in London and they sort of had to go. The first house they bought there was 'Kenwood'. That was the one in Weybridge and we all went down there.

It was Cynthia mainly that took us out shopping and bought us loads of clothes. I remember we kitted Julian out in a black ribbed polo neck, black jeans and little black shoes. He was about two and a half and we thought he looked great. From there we went to the Finsbury Park Astoria concert and yes, then we realised big things were happening.

Jackie and I were in the dressing room at the back and Mick Jagger came in. They were all nattering and chatting and stuff and we thought; 'Oh God!'. We weren't impressed with John and Paul, but we were impressed with Mick Jagger.

We wanted to watch the concert from the front and John said: "No, you'll have to stay in the wings, it gets mad." We said no we wanted to go to the front and he gave in and let us go to the front and within seconds we were having to be hauled on to the stage into the wings again. We didn't realise it was so mad. I mean they were just screaming the whole time.

When 'Hard Days Night' was premiered it was done in Liverpool, not in London which was a really good thing. John had us all picked up from 'Mendips' in a Rolls Royce and taken into town. We went to see the film, we went to the Town Hall and I'd never seen Castle Street in Liverpool so packed. It was all to do with John and the Beatles and it just didn't seem real.

What do you think your mother would have made of all this?

She'd have loved it, well I mean she just adored John, adored him, and John adored her and she'd have loved it. It's so sad that she wasn't there to have seen any of it.

Did any of you have any idea how famous they were going to be?

No, nobody in the family had any idea where he was going. I think there was more worry about John not working at school because he was obviously very, very clever but he hated school. I think he just didn't want to work at school; spent a lot of time defending his friends which would now have been classed as being cheeky to the teachers, which I've no doubt it was.

He wanted to leave and he got into art school with something that you could do in those days but not now and that was with a portfolio of his artwork because he was very, very gifted.

He did a magazine, a cartoon called 'The Daily Howl'. I don't know where it is now.
That was a brilliant thing that he was doing; he liked Indian ink and white, he didn't like colour at all.

I think there was more worry about how he was going to make his living thus the famous remark from Mimi: 'The guitar's all right John, but you'll never make a living at it'. I think there was a gold guitar or a platinum guitar made for Mimi and I don't know where is it.

Nobody expected that he was actually going to be able to make a career out of this. From within the family it was an ongoing process and at the same time the aunties must have been thinking, 'When's he going to settle down and be a commercial artist?' - because he was going to be a commercial artist - that's why he went to art college.