Family reflections on the Liverpool Lennons



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An Interview With Julia Baird

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(page 5 of 6)

When John left Britain to live in New York he lost touch with his family for a number of years. How did he get back in touch?

Well when John was with Cynthia he remained a part of the English family if you like; his first family, and that did change on his meeting Yoko. You can't blame Yoko for that. It was a second relationship and often second wives want to tease their partner slightly away from the first family.

The situation must have been horrendous with the fame involved as well. Where everything you do is emblazoned on every paper and everything you say is recorded and delivered back to you and maybe not even as you said it. I can't imagine what sorts of problems he had with the fame.

I got a phone call from him when I was living in Ireland; I'd got married and was living in Ireland. We had a phone call when I got married and he sent me some money. He said: "Yes we'll see you soon". He'd come over to Liverpool, he'd bought a house for my sister and I, for Jackie and I and my aunt that had looked after us. She was living in it until she died and then my uncle died.

He came there with Yoko and Kyoko to introduce everybody, and I think Julian was there as well. He phoned me from there to say: "How are you?" and stuff. So that was the last telephone contact I'd had myself with John until he'd gone off to America.

It was about 1974 when Mater, Stan's mother, phoned me one day. By now I was back living in England. My husband and the two older children, I hadn't had the third one yet, were sitting having tea and I got a phone call from Mater saying: "Hold on to your chair, John's looking for you, he's looking for the girls". And I said: "About time too," was my instant response because he'd disappeared and it was impossible for us to get in touch.

So I had a phone number and that night I phoned him and we were on the phone for a couple of hours. He phoned and I phoned variously after that and we talked mainly about Mummy. We didn't talk about his fame and we didn't talk about what I was doing. We talked about the fact that I had children, that he was an uncle to my children.

He asked me to go and see Julian, which I did, or I tried to. He said: "You know where Cyn's living" and he gave me the address. He said: "I want you to go and see Julian." It was a bit before I actually went and it was my husband who said: "Gosh, you know what has he ever asked you, you've got to go".

I was just a bit wary about going and Julian, believe it or not, Julian was out and I didn't go again. I drummed up enough courage to go for the first time because I hadn't seen Cynthia in a long time. He wasn't there and I didn't go again, but I said to John I'd tried - I did go.

What did you talk about? He wanted you to send him lots of pictures, didn't he?

We talked mainly about my mother and about feelings and how we wished she was still alive. We didn't talk about Beatle things at all. He asked me to describe the room where I was living, the room where I was in fact sitting at the time. Alan my ex husband was a keen amateur photographer and we had lots of pictures given to us so that he could do them up. He did; he did lots and lots and lots of them. I described this picture he had done up to a 16 x 20 of my mother and he said: "Send it to me. You've got to send it to me, I've got nothing". Joke, joke. I'd actually cut John out of it. I'd cut him out so I could blow my mother's face up as large as it could be.

Anyway with great reluctance - I was promised I would get these again - I took them all off the wall and made a parcel and sent them to John. At that time he offered me and Jackie, he said: "Would you like to go and live in a farmhouse in Wales?" I said: "That would be nice John" and I said: "Are you going to send me the money or what?" He said no, no it would be an Apple house and I said I didn't want it because I owned my own bricks and mortar. I said it'd have to be mine.

He said he'd like to come and visit us in North Wales, very nice. Of course the sad thing was that we never thought there would come a time where he wouldn't be able to come and visit. Ironically, Liela, to whom he was very close, now does live in North Wales in a farmhouse, which she bought herself and he would have loved that 'cause she's got nine horses. He would have loved visiting her in that farmhouse and he actually did write to Liela, and again, that letter is on the Internet. It's somewhere because it's been sold. He said he was coming back.

Did he say he was coming "home"? Do you think he still thought of Liverpool as home?

I think John still thought of Liverpool as home. We talked about home, and home to us was Woolton, Allerton, Walton in Liverpool. Penny Lane was home to us. I think it's the same for everybody. I mean John was in Liverpool until he was 23, 22 or 23. He was based in Liverpool, it was going to be home. It's still home to me even now and I don't live in it anymore.

We talk about people being uprooted, the French have a lovely word for it 'déraciné', literally out of your roots. I think you tend to have one place that you think of as your home and in our case, in our family, that place is Liverpool.

My aunt Nanny, we called her Nanny, she died a couple of years ago, was the middle of the sisters. John actually phoned her for her birthday which was in November to say the he was coming home. Coming home being the words. "Get everyone together at Ardmore" - she had a colossal house - 'so that I can see them all at once. Yours is the biggest house'. So we were expecting him.

He was on 'The Old Grey Whistle Test', I don't know if you remember that? Liela had a letter, and as I say , I just said a minute ago that letter has been sold, saying that 'I'm coming home' in that letter. That was probably the last letter he wrote to anyone in the family, so that was in 1980.