Seamus Moore

ALL TOGETHER NOW...

WE LOVE THE BEATLES
19571970

Copyright Seamus Moore (2015)

The right of Seamus Moore to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims
for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.
ISBN 978 1 78455 518 4 (Paperback)
ISBN 978 1 78455 519 1 (Hardback)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2015)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB

Printed and bound in Great Britain

6

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the following;

My friend Tony Liston, author of You can never go home
anymore for all his help. He patiently typed from my illegible
longhand while constantly encouraging and providing
constructive criticism.
Sinead Davey for her computer skills in times of trouble.
My publishers Austin Macauley for facilitating the publication
of this book.
More than two thousand books have been written about The
Beatles, and I have read many of them. I want to acknowledge
my debt to them, particularly to those listed, and would
recommend them to all Beatles fans.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, Monica, Evan and
Leah for their endless patience when constantly asked How
do you spellagain.

In the beginning there was the scream, it was a highpitched wailing, the sound of pigs being slaughtered, only
louder. Some in England compared it to the air-raid sirens
during World War Two, oddly it was both joyous and
hysterical, it could be heard a mile away, it was
continuous.
If music is communication, self-expression and a record of the
human experience in melody, no group epitomizes it more
than the Beatles.
The story of the Beatles is the story of a city and of a skiffle
group. Liverpool, a city full of fire and hope born out of the
violence of the Second World War, full of musicians, writers
and comedians from all parts of the world, with a unique beat
of its own. The skiffle group, the Quarrymen, who in 1960
would become the Beatles, also had a unique beat of their
own. For the Beatles, Liverpool was the beginning and music
was their communication, self-expression and a record of their
human experience. Later they would write In My Life,
Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever: classic tracks
from their memories of the city that they grew up in.
Liverpool was also a neglected city still on rations up to the
mid-fifties with bomb sites as playgrounds for children up
until the early sixties. When John Lennon first arrived with
the Beatles in Hamburg in 1960, he was amazed at how well
that city looked and commented, Who Won the War?
All four Beatles were wartime babies. Ringo Starr was the
oldest and the last to join the Beatles in August 1962. Born
Richard (Richy) Starkey to Richard and Elsie Starkey of 9
Madryn Street, Dingle, on the 7 th July 1940 and later moved
around the corner to Admiral Grove. Richy, whose parents
split up when he was three, was afflicted with illness for most
of his childhood. His mother married Harry Graves when he
was thirteen. Harry a keen music fan, bought the young Richy
his first drum kit in 1957. In the late fifties he became a
member of one of the best bands in Liverpool, Rory Storm
and the Hurricanes and changed his name to Ringo Starr.
9

John Lennon was the second-eldest Beatle, the son of Alfred

and Julia (nee Stanley) Lennon of 9 Newcastle Road; he was
born on the 9th of October 1940. He never really knew his
father who was always away at sea. In 1945 Johns parents
marriage broke up and his Aunt Mimi Smith with her
husband George, became his guardians, living with them at
251 Menlove Avenue (Mendips). During his teenage years,
John began to see a lot of his mother, Julia, who lived nearby
with her new husband, Bobby Dykins and her two daughters
Julia and Jackie, his half-sisters. It was Julia who taught John
his first chords on the banjo. She died on the 15 th of July 1958,
after having been knocked down by a car in Menlove Avenue.
She had been visiting her sister Mimi. John was the leader of
the Quarrymen which he founded in early 1957.
Paul McCartney was born to Jim and Mary (nee Mohan)
McCartney on the 18th of June 1942. Pauls mother was a
midwife for the N.H.S. in Liverpool, so the family had to
move frequently around Merseyside, living at various times in
Anfield and Everton, sometimes in rented rooms. In 1946 the
McCartneys settled in 72 Western Avenue, moving to nearby
12 Ardwick Road in 1950. Pauls father Jim had been a
trumpet player/pianist in his own band, Jim Macs Jazz Band
in the 1920s and later worked in the Cotton Exchange in
Liverpool. The family had a piano in the sitting room and Jim
encouraged his two sons, Paul and Michael to be musical. By
1955 the McCartneys had moved to a new house in Allerton,
20 Forthlin Road and it was there in October 1956 that Pauls
mother died from breast cancer aged forty-seven. The
premature death of his mother was a trauma he never forgot,
nor fully got over. Crucially, as far as the history of pop music
is concerned, Paul reacted to the death of his mother by taking
comfort in music. Paul McCartney joined the Quarrymen in
the summer of 1957.
George Harrison was the youngest Beatle. The youngest of
four children, George was born to Harold and Louise (nee
French) Harrison of 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree on the 25 th
10

February 1943. His father was a bus conductor, who had also
worked as a ships steward on the White Star Line. Having
moved to 25 Upton Green, Speke when he was six, he went to
Dovedale Primary school, very close to Penny Lane, the same
school as John Lennon. Guitar mad, his mother bought him
his first guitar when he was fourteen. George became great
friends with Paul McCartney, whom he first met on a bus
when they were both on their way to college in the Liverpool
Institute. It was on Pauls recommendation to a reluctant John
Lennon that George became a member of the Quarrymen in
early 1958.
In the early sixties audiences in most parts of the U.K and in
Ireland (the showbands) seemed only interested in top twenty
numbers. Produce a carbon copy of a top twenty number and
the crowd was satisfied. Yet in Liverpool and the greater
Merseyside area, a group could play in their own individual
style, perform numbers they were interested in and the
audience would judge them on their own merit. The
repertoires of the Mersey musicians was the music of
American rock n roll and Rhythm and Blues artists, while
generally, in the rest of the country, it was the music of the
current artists in the British charts especially Cliff Richard and
the Shadows and their foot movements.
Between 1963 and 1966 Liverpool became the world capital
of pop. Before this, London had been the main hub for the
music industry in the UK with the major record companies,
their agents and recording studios, radio stations (BBC and
Luxembourg) the national press and the entire musical press,
all based in the capital. By 1963 the pendulum had swung to
Liverpool. For fifty-nine weeks, between April 1963 and July
1964, a Merseybeat record was in the number one position in
the UK charts, a phenomenal achievement. How did the city
of Liverpool turn the music industry upside down, get a nation
and then the world to dance to the Mersey beat?

11

John Lennons and Paul McCartneys partnership wasnt

a marriage of opposites, it was a marriage made in heaven
and for the Beatles it made all the difference.

1957

Liverpool artists Lita Roza (How much is that Doggie in the

Window? 1953), Frankie Vaughan (The Garden of Eden
1957) and Michael Holliday (The Story Of My Life 1958) all
had UK number one hits in the fifties. However, the first
major musical influence in Liverpool was a Scottish born
artist, Lonnie Donegan. He was a member of the Chris Barber
Jazz Band, who had a major hit in 1956 with a high tempo
version of Leadbellys Rock Island Line reaching the top ten
both in the UK and US. It was the success of this single, the
lack of a need for expensive instruments or high levels of
musicianship that set off the British skiffle craze. The skiffle
craze had passed by the late fifties and the better skiffle bands
in Liverpool began to turn to rockn roll influenced by
American artists such as Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little
Richard, Chuck Berry and the Everly Brothers. By the early
sixties Liverpool had become the cradle of rock, a town where
entertainment was actively sought. The appetite was sharper
and the demand was greater, more demanding, with over three
hundred professional and semi-pro bands plying their trade all
over the Greater Liverpool area.

12

Out of this musical bubble came the Beatles, John, Paul

George and Ringo, who would later create music of such joy
and inventiveness, artistry, simplicity and originality that it
would surge beyond Liverpool and go on to capture the
imagination of the world . Songs like 'She loves you and
Hey Jude had the power to pull the listener into a fantasy
world where every moment oozed with possibility. For that
moment to happen we will have to go back to a July day in
1957 when fate ordained that the sixteen-year-old John
Lennon would meet fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney and so
set in motion one of the 20th centurys great musical stories.
The meeting took place beside St. Peters Church in Woolton,
outside Liverpool, on the 6th of July 1957. It was Wooltons
Annual Garden Fete and John was there with his newly
formed skiffle band the Quarrymen. The teenagers were
introduced by Johns childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan. As well
as performing at the Garden Fete in the afternoon, Johns band
had a second gig in the local church hall that evening.
Paul, I strolled around the fete with Ivan. Then there they
were, the Quarrymen on the back of a truck with John at the
mike. He was singing the Dell-Vikings Come Go with Me,
which I thought was great until I realized he was playing
funny chords (banjo chords) and he was also changing the
lyrics of the song. Later in the church hall before their
second gig, I picked up a guitar, turned it up-side down and
played Eddie Cochrans Twenty flight Rock I knew all the
words and could tune their guitars. John was impressed.
Thats what got me into the band.
Not long after this meeting Pete Shotton asked Paul on behalf
of John if hed like to join the Quarrymen.
John was torn between wanting to improve the band and just
maybe inviting a possible rival leader to join. He opted for
improvement, That evening in the church hall half the Beatles
was formed.
13

John, When I first heard Heartbreak Hotel it just broke

me up, I mean, that was the end, my whole life changed
from then on, I was just completely shaken by it. To us it
just sounded like a noise that was great, it just broke me up.
When I heard Long Tall Sally, it was so great I couldnt
speak. I didnt want to leave Elvis. Elvis was bigger than
religion in my life. These two recordings by Elvis Presley
and Little Richard, totalling a little over four minutes, altered
the course of John Lennons life as they did the lives of Richy
Starkey, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, who happened
to be the right age at the rightest of times.
Paul, At home I played the guitar in the bath and sitting on
the loo. The fine acoustic of the toilet area was always very
appealing to me. It was also very private, about the only
private place in the house. I used to sit there for hours, there
in the bathroom. Dad would shout, Paul get off that toilet
and Id reply, Im practising. It was my first guitar.
Although he rehearsed with the band regularly during the
summer of 1957, Paul didnt make his first public appearance
with the Quarrymen until Friday the 18th of October at the new
Clubmoor Hall, Broadway in Liverpool. By all accounts it
was not a success, as he played lead guitar for the one and
only time, ruining his version of Arthur Smiths 1946 hit
Guitar Boogie. Paul, On my very first Quarrymen gig I
blew the solo on Guitar Boogie which is one of the easiest
things in the world to play. I was just too frightened. After
that I said forget me on lead and I never played lead again
on stage. It wiped me out as a lead guitar player that night.
Paul had missed the bands first-ever engagement at the
Cavern club in Mathew Street, Liverpool on the 7 th August,
with the Quarrymen filling in during the interval between jazz
sessions. Paul had been on scout camp in Wales so he had to
wait until January 24th 1958 before he made his Cavern debut.
Despite being a jazz venue, Skiffle, with its jazz origins was
just about acceptable in the Cavern in 1957. This was to
14

change with the popularity of rock n roll and a new owner in

the early sixties. By the end of 1957, Paul McCartney began
to think of the possibility of a friend of his from school (The
Liverpool Institute) joining the band. His friend had taken up
the guitar and was also into skiffle and rock n roll. Paul
brought him along one day to meet John Lennon. His name
was George Harrison. It would take Lennon a few months to
accept Harrison into the band (he thought he was too young).
But it wasnt long before George became a member of the
Quarrymen. Liverpool was packed with teenage boys
strumming guitars, but very few were writing their own songs.
Though John was writing poetry and Paul was conceiving
songs, they now had found each other. The next step was to
write together.
In December 1957 Liverpudlian businessman Brian Epstein
opened a record shop in Great Charlotte Street Liverpool,
displaying an advertisement in the local Liverpool Echo,
NEMS Ltd Come to Town. Immediately under it was a
classified ad for a Quarrymen appearance. Epstein would by
late 1959 move his record shop to Whitechapel Street in
Liverpool city centre, which was two hundred yards from The
Cavern club in Mathew Street where he would first meet the
Beatles in December 1961. By early 1958 the Quarrymen
would become a trio with the inclusion of George Harrison. A
long four-year musical apprenticeship lay ahead for the trio,
with numerous name changes from the Quarrymen to the
Beatles and numerous drummers, before that meeting would
take place.

15

Twenty-seven second recording.

Ivan Vaughan.
Lonnie Anthony Donegan
The New Clubhouse Hall.
Liverpool College of Art/Institute.
Quarry Bank High School.

1957 Biography/Location
A twenty-seven second tape was recorded on a Grundig TK8
reel to reel machine by amateur Bob Molyneux, in the church
hall beside St. Peters Church in Woolton, outside Liverpool,
on the evening of the 6th July 1957. It captured, for the first
time in public, sixteen-year-old John Lennons vocals, singing
a Lonnie Donegan number Putting On The Style and Elvis
Presleys Baby lets play house. Purchased by EMI in 1994
at a Sothebys auction for 78,000, the Molyneux tape was not
used on the 1995 Anthology CD or video release, due to the
poor quality of the tapes. The church hall in Woolton has
changed little since the late 1950s. The old original church
hall stage has recently been removed to enable redevelopment
work to take place. The stage was presented to Liverpool City
council and they have it in storage, so an important piece of
Beatle history has been preserved.

16

IVAN VAUGHAN (1942-1993)

Ivan Vaughan was a boyhood friend of John Lennon and later
a schoolmate of Paul McCartney at the Liverpool Institute,
both commencing school there in September 1953. He was
born on the same day as Paul in Liverpool. He played bass
part-time in Johns first band the Quarrymen and was
responsible for introducing Lennon to McCartney at the
Woolton Village Garden Fete outside Liverpool on 6 th July
1957, where the Quarrymen were performing. Vaughan
studied classics in University College London and became a
teacher. He married in 1966 and settled down to family life
with a son and daughter. Lennon and McCartney never forgot
the friend who brought them together and he was on the
payroll of their Apple Corp for a short while. Vaughans wife
Jan, a language teacher, was hired to sit down with Lennon
and McCartney and help with the French lyrics to the 1965
song Michelle (A track from the album Rubber Soul
1965). In 1977 Ivan Vaughan was diagnosed with Parkinsons
disease. His book, Ivan: Living with Parkinsons disease,
was published in 1986. Vaughans death in August 1993
touched McCartney so deeply that he began to write poetry for
the first time since he was a child. He wrote the poem Ivan
which was published in McCartneys book, Blackbird
Singing.
LONNIE ANTHONY DONEGAN (1931-2002)
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Donegan was a skiffle musician
with more than twenty hits to his name. Known as the King of
Skiffle, he is often cited as a major influence on a generation
of British musicians including The Beatles. Donegan was
Britains most successful and influential recording artist
before the Beatles. His debut hit, Rock Island Line was a
track on a Chris Barber album credited to Lonnie Donegans
Skiffle group. Recorded during a tea-break in Decca studios in
London in the summer of 1954, the record had Chris Barber
on double bass with Donegan on guitar and vocals. Released
18 months later in January 1956, Rock Island Line made the
17

UK and US top ten charts, selling over one million copies. It

was one of the songs sung by John Lennon on that first day
John and Paul met on the 6 th July 1957. Donegan went on to
have 24 successive top 30 UK hits and two US top ten hits
over the following years. He also co-wrote with Jimmy Currie
Ill Never Fall In Love Again, a UK top ten hit for Tom
Jones in 1967. Donegan was forced into semi-retirement after
a heart attack in 1976. He was awarded an MBE in the 2000
Queens honours list. Suffering from cardiac problems since
the 70s, Lonnie Donegan collapsed and died in Market
Deeping, Lincolnshire, during a British tour on the 3 rd
November 2002 aged 71 years.
THE NEW CLUBHOUSE HALL, (Conservative Club)
Broadway, Liverpool 11.
A highly significant building in Beatle history, for it was at
the Clubhouse on the 18th of October 1957 that Paul
McCartney made his debut with the Quarrymen. Admission to
this historic event was fifteen pence and there were about a
hundred paying customers. Charlie McBain, the dance
promoter, was responsible for the booking. Known as Charlie
Mac, he ran regular rock n roll and skiffle nights at such
venues as Wilson Hall in Garston, where George Harrison
first met the Quarrymen.
LIVERPOOL COLLEGE OF ART, Hope Street.
THE LIVERPOOL INSTITUTE, Mount Street, Liverpool 1.
John Lennon was a student of the College of Art from 1957 to
1960. John met his first wife, Cynthia Powell, at the college
where he also became close friends with fellow art student
Stuart Sutcliffe. Paul McCartney and George Harrison were
pupils at the Liverpool Institute High School, next door to the
art college. Paul, George, John, and Stuart rehearsed at
lunchtimes in the art colleges life-room, which was on the top
floor of the building. John left the college in June 1960, after
the Silver Beatles tour of Scotland with Johnny Gentle. The
College of Art is now a Grade 2 listed building. It was bought
by the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts in 2012. The
18

Liverpool Institute High School next door was also part of the
purchase and is also a listed building The faade, the entrance
hall and modified school hall still remain after reconstruction
was completed in the early nineties. The old school assembly
hall (now a working theatre)is now named the Paul
McCartney Auditorium. After the schools closure in 1985,
Paul donated one million pounds towards the restoration of
the building.
QUARRY BANK HIGH SCHOOL, Harthill Road, Liverpool
18.
Quarry Bank was John Lennons senior school from
September 1952 to July 1957. It was at the school that the
Quarrymen made what was almost certainly their first ever
live performance, with the newly formed band playing at a
school dance in 1956. Despite his eagerness at the time to
leave the establishment, he must have had some fond
memories, as in the seventies he asked his Aunt Mimi to send
him his old school tie

19

John Lennon, Meeting Paul was just like two people

meeting, not falling in love or anything, just us, it went on, it
worked. Now there were three of us that thought the same.

1958
On the 6th of February 1958 at the Wilson Hall in Garston,
Liverpool, fourteen-year-old George Harrison, with
encouragement from Paul McCartney came and watched the
Quarrymen perform. After the show Paul introduced George
to John Lennon. There ensued a chat in which the pair talked
about musical instruments, guitars and music. The record that
changed everything for George, it transpired was the same one
that floored John Lennon, Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presleys
first number one in 1956). John was immediately attracted to
the fact that Georges influences favoured rock n roll, the
direction John was trying hard to take the band in the face of
what he considered the end of skiffle as a popular form.
It would take Lennon a few weeks before accepting Harrison
into the band, but Georges pure persistence that saw him
showing up at every Quarrymen rehearsal and gig eventually
wore John down. Although he still thought George was too
young, by early March of 1958, three-quarters of the Beatles
line-up were in place and the bands natural evolution into
rock n roll had begun.

20

George I loved my association with John and Paul because

I had something in me which I recognized in them, which
they must have or could have recognized in me, Its why we
ended up together. It was great knowing there was somebody
else in life who feels similar to yourself.
In the Spring/Summer of 1958, the Quarrymen, consisting of
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Colin
Hanton and John Duff Lowe, turned up at Phillips Sound
Recording Service at 38 Kensington, about a mile outside
Liverpools city centre. They were there to make their first
record, a two-sided Shellac Disc. Percy Phillips who had an
electrical goods shop in Liverpool, had set up a recording
studio in his living room. A basic operation consisting of a
portable tape recorder, and a portable disc cutting machine,
two mikes and a four way mixer, which produced a shellac
(Acetate - 78rpm 10 inch wide disc ,which was very
breakable. The discs labels clearly instructed Play with a
light weight pick-up and cost seventeen shillings and
sixpence (a lot of money at the time) to produce. The
Quarrymen had recorded their first record. The two tracks
were Thatll be the Day (Buddy Holly and the Crickets)
featuring John Lennons lead vocals and In Spite of all the
Danger co-written by Paul McCartney and George Harrison,
again with John Lennon on lead vocals. Colin Hanton and
John Lowe left after the bands one and only recording
session, leaving the nucleus of Lennon, McCartney and
Harrison to aim for fame.
John, Practically every Buddy Holly song was three chords,
so why not write your own. Buddy Holly was the
springboard to myself and Pauls song writing.
On the 3rd of December 1938, Freddy Lennon, a ships waiter
working from Liverpool Port, married Julia Stanley, at the
Bolton Street Registry Office, behind the Adelphi Hotel in
Liverpool city centre. Several days later Freddie shipped out
on a cruise of the Mediterranean. Due to Freddies long
periods away from home, mostly at sea (he went missing from
21

July 1943 to November 1944) Julia and John (born 9th October
1940) were living at 9 Newcastle Road, Wavertree close to
Penny Lane. In 1942 they moved to a cottage, owned by her
sisters husband George Smith, located at 120a Allerton Road
in Woolton. Her sister, Mimi Smith, lived just up the road at
Menlove Avenue. Julia moved back to 9 Newcastle Road in
1943 until 1946. In the spring of 1944, Julia had met a Welsh
soldier, Taffy Williams, becoming pregnant by him and had a
baby girl on the 19th of June 1945. Victoria Elizabeth was
born at the Salvation Army Elmswood Maternity Home in the
Mossley Hill district of Liverpool, a short walk from Penny
Lane. Julia allowed that organization to arrange an adoption
and the baby was assigned to a local woman and her
Norwegian seaman husband. Victoria Elizabeth was reared
just north of Liverpool and was never to meet her mother,
father or her half-brother John. Her identity was made public
in 1998, giving her name as Ingrid Pedersen. By 1946 the
Lennons marriage was over and Julia was in a steady
relationship with Bobby (Twitchy) Dykins, a wine
steward/waiter in good hotels and gambling clubs around
Liverpool. Julia was now living with Dykins in a onebedroom flat in Gateacre Village close to Woolton. Freddie
Lennon, with his marriage over, decided to emigrate to New
Zealand with his five-year-old son, John. Freddie collected
John from Mimi Smith (Johns aunt) at Menlove Avenue,
telling her he was taking John on holiday to Blackpool. After
Freddie and John had arrived in Blackpool, Julia turned up
unexpectedly with boyfriend Bobby Dykins telling Freddie
she wanted her son back. They both decided to let the fiveyear-old John to make up his own mind as to which he
preferred. John ran to his father, Julia asked him again and
walked out the door and up the street. John followed her. That
was the last time that John saw his father until the mid-sixties,
when Freddie found out that John was now one of the famous
Beatles.
John chose his mother, but what he got was his Aunt Mimi.
Due to her irregular lifestyle, living in a one-bedroom flat
22

with an unmarried man (frowned upon in the 1940s) and

pressure from the strong-willed Stanley family, Julia was
obliged to hand John over to her sister Mimi, who brought
him up at 251 Menlove Avenue (Mendips) with her husband
George Smith. In many ways George was the forgotten man in
Lennons life yet his influences on the fatherless boy must
have been enormous. Johns mother, who lived in 1
Bloomfield Road (three miles from Mendips), visited him
more and more as he became a teenager and they formed a
close and warm relationship. By 1958 John was staying over
at his mothers house on weekends and during the school
holidays. It was Julia who taught John the banjo and it was
Julia who bought him his first guitar, because by then, rock
n roll had changed his life forever.
The guitar was also Paul McCartneys route to better places;
as soon as he started playing it, the world with all its tragedies
and ills, (his mother had died in 1956) fell away, and he found
himself in a kind of heaven. Both men were about to share the
profound loss of losing their mother while in their teenage
years, which had a major impact on the nostalgic musicality of
the Beatles for the rest of their careers.
On Sunday 15th July 1958 Johns mother Julia was about to
catch a bus from Menlove Avenue to go home after an
afternoon visit to her sister Mimi, when she was knocked
down and killed by a car. She had just been speaking to Nigel
Wally, who had suddenly turned up at Mimis front gate as
Julia was leaving to get the bus. Wally was looking for John,
who was in fact over in Bloomfield Road, his mothers house.
John, We were sitting waiting for her to come home.
Twitchy and me were wondering why she was late. The
copper came to the door to tell us about the accident, then
he told us and we both went white. It was the worst ever
thing that ever happened to me. Wed caught up so much,
me and Julia, in just a few years. We could communicate,
we got on, she was great. I thought, Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it!
Thats really fucked everything. Ive no responsibility to
23

anyone now. I refused to go in and see her, but Twitchy did,

he broke down.
The car that struck Julia Lennon was driven by an off-duty
policeman named Eric Clague of 43 Ramillies Road
Liverpool. When the young policeman was exonerated in
court, Mimi exploded in fury and threatened Clague with her
walking stick.
I got so mad, she said, I could have killed him. A verdict
of misadventure was returned by a jury at the Liverpool
inquest into the death of Mrs. Julia Lennon, aged forty-four
years, of 1 Bloomfield Road, Liverpool, who died as a result
of being struck by a vehicle while crossing the road at
Menlove Avenue on July 15th 1958. Despite Mimis
suspicions, police constable Eric Clague did not get off scotfree. He underwent a period of suspension from duty and soon
afterwards resigned from the force. He then began a new
career as a postman and by a strange coincidence one of the
routes he was assigned included 20 Forthlin Road, where Paul
McCartney lived.
Paul, John and I had a bond there that we never talked
about, but each of us knew what happened to the other. I
know he was shattered, but at that age youre not allowed to
be devastated and particularly as young boys, you just shrug
it off. Thats what we did, we had private tears. Its not that
either of us was remotely hard-hearted about it, it shattered
us, but we knew you had to get on with your life. Im sure I
formed shells and barriers in that period that Ive got to this
day, John certainly did. The thing about John was that he
was all upfront. You never saw John, only through a few
chinks in his armour did I ever see him, because the armour
was so tough. John was always on the surface, tough,
tough.
In the spring of 1958, Johns and Pauls songwriting had
begun to take shape. Paul would play a couple of tunes to
John which he had written himself, John immediately started
24

to make up his own tunes. It was them coming together,

each egging the other on, which suddenly inspired them to
write songs to sing and play together. Despite their
collaboration in songwriting, their strengthened line-up and a
revolving door of drummers, by the autumn of 1958 all
regular paid bookings had dried up. The band only got
together for small events like birthday parties and family
weddings. The Quarrymen were by the end of 1958 poised on
the edge of extinction.

25