Liddypod - The Beatles and Liverpool
Liddypod is the podcast about The Beatles from their home city of Liverpool, from Beatles author/ historian David Bedford and Blue Badge Guide/ Broadcaster Paul Beesley. We will be discussing all things Beatles and Liverpool, plus will have special features and exclusive interviews, as well as having some fun along the way.
Liddypod - The Beatles and Liverpool
Liddypod #26: John Lennon’s Home “Mendips” – Celebrating John Lennon
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Welcome to Liddypod, Beatles Panzer with Bedford and Beasley.
SPEAKER_01Dave, we haven't well, we have been together for a while, but we haven't been together in a Liddypod sense for a good while. Tell us what you've been doing. Sorry, who are you?
SPEAKER_02Long see no time. Well have we? I mean, you'll know this because we both tour guide. This year, it's up March time. We sat down, we thought, well, this is going to be a quiet year. There won't be that many tours, but 23 is going to go crazy, so let's let's prepare. Didn't happen that way at all, because yeah, it's just been insane, which has been a lovely problem to have. But we've been as busy this year doing tours as like three or four years ago. I mean, I know it's been the same for you, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_01It has, yeah. I mean, you know, we we obviously had 2020, 2021, and like you, I thought, well, 2022 will be a nice easing back into hopefully what will be the same as 2019 when we get to 2023. But this year has been incredibly busy, and I from my point of view, it's been a lot of overseas visitors.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's what we were saying, is that all right, maybe this year what we'll get is more UK visitors said, and that'll pick up a little bit, but suddenly, just from all over the world, maybe everybody just felt we're back, let's just go and do it. Because I know that we had a number of tours that we'd had booked in for 2020, which got postponed to 21, and then postponed to 22. And we think, oh, well, maybe they'll pick up. Um, but I think the most welcome site was the first cruise ships coming back up the Mersey, and we're thinking, oh yeah, we are actually properly back, aren't we?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right on that, absolutely right. And also, from a Beatles point of view, and and it, you know, everything that happens in the Beatles world helps to generate business for us with the Beatles tourists coming in. There's been quite a lot happening, hasn't there?
SPEAKER_02Well, that's good. I mean, everybody's still talking about get back. You know, that that was an absolute game changer of a documentary series, and lots to discuss from that, as you know, as we did and everybody else did, but it just puts the Beatles and their music back into everybody's thoughts. It's been like doing when the Eight Days Week came out a few years back. Again, maybe it's another generation we're listening and think that music's great. And Get Back has done that and took us a little bit behind the scenes, and I think that has just grabbed the imagination, and maybe I don't know what you're like, but if you're forced to stay in the house, that's different to not wanting to go out. And I think we all just felt a little bit trapped and thought, Sonny one thing, we've got to get out of this place, and um foot loose and fancy free. And I've come to Liverpool, so it's been absolutely bursting at the seams, which is a wonderful, wonderful time.
SPEAKER_01It has, it has, absolutely has. And we're we're speaking today in um in late November. It's it's an awful day actually outside in in Liverpool today. Uh it's absolutely chucking it down with rain, but you know, the the visitors are still coming, and that's great because at this time of year, naturally, it does tail off a little bit, but you know, they are still coming in. Well, this is what we thought the rest of the year would be like.
SPEAKER_02I mean, raining, that's we that could be any time of year in Liverpool, couldn't it, really? Um, but we thought, yeah, it'd be quiet, and it'd be a couple of tours a week, and that'd be it. But yeah, it's it's just been insane, and there's been some great stuff happening here as well. One of the big things, of course, International Beatle Week was back on a big scale, which is fabulous. And on the 27th of August, finally we got the statue for Brian Epstein unveiled in Whitechapel, and it's it's brilliant. Um, obviously done by Andy Edwards, who did the four Beatle statues down by the Pierhead, and you you see Brian just opposite where his nem shop was about to head towards Matthew Street and the cavern. Um, and it's it's a fabulous statue, and the unveiling was huge. I mean, there's so many people there, um, as is usual, because we have Beatle Week, I couldn't be at the unveiling because what was I doing? I was doing a Beatles tour, obviously.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it it was a it was a great event that and and you know, hats off to everyone that was involved in making that happen. It's been a long journey to make it happen, not least of which from the fundraising point of view, but it's there now. Uh, it's a great location. Uh, you know, there's poignancy to the location as well, which is great. And uh, yeah, another another uh Beatle step along the way. Now, Dave, when we uh first started doing Liddy Pod, we said, we didn't say we were gonna do them all at once, which is a good thing because we didn't do them all at once, but we said we were gonna cover each of the four main houses of the four beatles. Uh we started with Ringo, uh, we then did George. The last one was Paul. And so uh we're now gonna talk today about John's house at Mendips in in Menloff Avenue. The plan was, Dave, to keep it real. We were gonna we were gonna do it from outside the house, weren't we? But if you could see the weather today, it's torrential rain. And the thought of uh of standing out in the rain trying to do a recording was was not a uh a sort of a possible well it wasn't possible, was it really? We just got soaked. So we're we're not doing it outside the house, but we are still gonna talk about Mendips, which was the main house in which John lived in Liverpool.
SPEAKER_02Well, we are, and yes, listeners, of course, we love you to bits, we really do, but I'm sorry, not just getting soaked. And we thought, I'll tell you what, we'll be there and we'll sit in the car and do it. And the noise of the rain on the roof of the car was horrendous. Um so in your mind's eye, right? Pretend it's a nice sunny day and we're outside Mendips talking. Oh look, look at the garden, looks lovely, doesn't it, Paul?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we've had lots of those sunny days this summer, but today is not one of them, I have to say. So, so Dave, Mendips is the one that everyone thinks about when it comes to John Lennon. But just before we talk about his time at Mendips, just take us through the story of where he lived before that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so it really was a chaotic first five years for John. So, of course, when he was born, 9th October 1940, Oxford Street Maternity Hospital. First house he lived in was Newcastle Road, just off the Penny Lane roundabout. And he lived there with his mum. And of course, a lot of people say, Oh, you know, Alf Lennon and his dad ran away from John. Well, he didn't, he was in the merchant navy during the Second World War, crossing the Atlantic, which was slightly dangerous. Um, I don't think anybody would claim that Alf and Julia were the greatest parents in the world. Um, not many people are. Alf did disappear for about 18 months. Julia had no idea where he was during the war. No money coming home, no news, assumed the worst, as you would. She had then met a soldier, Taffy Williams, um, had a baby girl who was born in 1945, uh, was put up for adoption, and John never met her. She then has um this new relationship with John Dykins, who she meets in a pub up in Wavertree. She asks, when Alf turns up again, she asks Alf for a divorce. Uh Alf says no. I think he was still holding out hope that they'd get back together. So Julia says, Well, that's it. I I I want to marry John Dykins. Well, she couldn't. The controversial part for going back mid-1940s was Julia and John Dikens decide to live in sin, and that's how it was seen, and particularly that's how it was seen by Julia's father, Pop Stanley. He's sort of the last of the Victorian age, and he really is not happy with this because you've got five-year-old John and his mum and his mum's partner sharing one bed. He said that's not right. In the end, the welfare services come out, and John is removed from his mother. Well, Mimi's always told this story of you know, uh, she fell in love with John when he was a baby, wasn't he wonderful? And she wanted to rescue him and stuff, which wasn't quite accurate. Um, actually, what happened was Pops down and he said, Right, Mimi, you've not got kids, you're taking John. Now, John had been passed around the family, he'd spent some time with Alf's brother, Sidney, and their family up in McGull, North Liverpool, and they were even contemplating adopting John. But no, the decision was made, John was going to be placed with Mimi and her husband George. Now, Mimi was a strict disciplinarian, not particularly maternal, didn't like younger kids. And having spoken to um a couple of John's cousins when we were doing the research for the looking for Lennon film, um, they were saying we weren't much use until we were getting to like nine or ten that we could do chores around the house. Mimi liked us then. Um, so John is there, it's been taken from his mum, and it was decided the best thing for John was not to see very much of his mother. Um, so we didn't for quite a number of years. That isn't exactly how it finished either, because Alf is back from sea. He speaks to Mimi. Mimi says, First of all, you need to give me some money for looking after John. Um, we've got to sort out what's happening. This is when one of the most traumatic events of John's life happens. Alf turns up and decides to take him up to Blackpool, and they're up there for a few weeks, a little bit longer than um really Mimi was expecting. What they did know is that Alf was working on a plan to possibly take John to New Zealand and leg it. Julia thinks John's not been around for a while. She goes up and they have this confrontation. Now there are various variations on who said what. I think what we can learn from Alf Lennon's uh memoirs and from John writing the song Mother, what we know is that here's little five-year-old John on holiday with his dad, and his mum and his dad say, Okay, John, who do you want to live with? Which is one of the cruelest things you can do to a little kid. Being with his dad uh for a few weeks, and goes and stands by him. Julia starts to cry, she walks away. John runs after his mum and says, Mummy, don't go. Turns around to his dad and says, Daddy, come home. Which, as we know, then becomes part of uh the song Mother that John did on Plastico No Band after the primal therapy. When he was doing that therapy, the point he went back to was that point in his childhood, and it was a horrible thing to do. But of course, he's chosen his mum, but of course, he can't come back to Liverpool to live with his mum because Mimi's now his guardian, so Julia has to take John back to Mimi's house, and that's it. So even though he chose his mum, he couldn't stay with her. So that is then why he's permanently then at Mendips with Mimi and with George.
SPEAKER_01And the thing is, Dave, I mean, there's so many, you know, potential twists and turns, potentially so many different doors that could have opened. But can you imagine if John had stayed with his dad and his dad's plan to go to New Zealand and emigrate had come to fruition, there wouldn't have been the Beatles.
SPEAKER_02Well, there wouldn't, and you know, even if he'd stayed with me for a short time and then, yeah, as you say, was out of there, well, he wouldn't have gone to Quarry Bank, he wouldn't have met Ivan, Pete, and Nigel, he wouldn't have formed the Quarrymen. As you say, that there wouldn't be a Beatles. Um, so it's weird how these things go, these twists of fate. Even if, you know, looking at if he'd have stayed but had been adopted by his uncle Sidney up in McGull, then again he wouldn't have met his three mates and then Quarry Bank and then the Quarrymen, that still wouldn't have happened. Yeah, um, and I think the positive we can say is that once he said, right, this is it, no, you're gonna be at Mendips. I think for the first time in his little life, he had stability. That's what Mimi and George brought to his life because he'd moved around so many different houses, so many different members of both families, that he just needed some roots. And to be fair to Mimi, the thing she did was she gave everything up to bring him up.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to Liddy Pod, Beatles Banter with Bedford and Beasley.
SPEAKER_01Now, often when people get to Mendips, if if they come to Liverpool and they visit Mendips, they are very pleasantly surprised because often they've seen probably Ringo's houses, George's house, maybe, and then they get to Mendips, and there's quite a difference between the the areas, aren't there? And difference between the houses. How did the house come into the family?
SPEAKER_02Well, this one's just been shrouded in mystery. This one has been because George, Mimi's husband, was a dairy farmer. Um, and you can still get milk at the dairy farm today, it's just it's from the Tesco superstore. Um, and he didn't get a lot of money for that. So, you know, it's a really wealthy area, with the irony being that John's the one who wrote working class hero who was anything but working class, he was the middle class posh kid within the Beatles. So it's a very, very different area. Semi-detached household duplex, I think you call it in uh in America. You know, the two houses together. From what we understand, um, just on the corner of Vale Road, which is the road that runs behind Mendip's, me and me and George were renting there. A lot of houses were vacated during the Second World War, and seeing it was empty, um, they sort of what we believe is threw the furniture over the back fence and basically claimed squatters' rights, set up there, and in the end, they had to have it, they had to own it, and they bought it.
SPEAKER_01Before anyone sort of gasped with horror at the thought of someone just moving into an empty house, that wasn't unusual during the Second World War, was it?
SPEAKER_02No, absolutely. I mean, if you think, I think there's something like 75,000 people were made homeless um in Liverpool after the after the blitz and after the bombing. We lost over 30,000 houses, and there's a desperate, desperate shortage of housing. And of course, a lot of people um maybe went temporarily over to you know to Wales up into Lake Dish was somewhere safe from the bombings. Other people just left that the houses and were never seen again. So there then became a shortage of housing and a number of empty houses around the place. So yet there was nobody living there. So they thought, fine, we'll have that one.
SPEAKER_01And he moved in. So John John moves into Mendipse. He potentially could have left Mendips with it with his dad, but he didn't. He came back, the stability was there, and he lived uh I mean he lived a fairly comfortable life there. He lived a strict life with Mimi. Uh George was was much more of the uh the fun-loving one in the in the in the threesome, wasn't he?
SPEAKER_02Oh, absolutely. You know, Uncle George was paternal, he wanted kids, Mimi didn't. And I think Mimi was was jealous of that natural relationship that George and John had between the two of them. You know, Uncle George was the guy who would give John uh the cuddles, he'd kiss him good night, he'd teach him to read with the Liverpool Echo, he'd put a speaker up into his bedroom so he could listen to Radio Luxembourg and stuff. And if John was in trouble with Mimi and he'd be banned from doing whatever, George would be the one who'd like to sneak him some food or do something. So they had a lovely, lovely relationship. And I think it's strange that that sort of jealousy I think that Mimi had of their relationship later on is something that John was a little bit jealous of Paul with his relationship with Julian, you know, and going around the internet, of course, over the last week, we've seen this picture that Julian's posted saying me and Uncle Paul at the airport, they had a lovely relationship, and John didn't know how to do that, he couldn't understand that. And I think that was a little bit like me, me looking on uh the lovely relationship George and John had, and then having that you know, Uncle George is the father figure in his life, and then again it's tragedy that hits John when he's only 14, when Uncle George suddenly dies, and he was absolutely devastated. And one way we can see the effect is looking through the school records at Quarry Bank, you know, in a couple of weeks after Uncle George died, because boys don't cry, boys can't talk about feelings. You know, John was getting into detention almost every day. He was getting into trouble, he didn't know how to handle grief like this. So yeah, he he was aching and he'd lost somebody so so important in his life. So his mum and dad weren't in his life, and suddenly his father figure is gone. And Mimi, the one who doesn't know how to show affection, doesn't really know what to do. And I think that's one of the good scenes within Nowhere Boy is sort of okay, John, we've got to get on with this. And you know, yeah, boys weren't allowed to talk about feelings and stuff. It's one of these many things that got buried deep, deep inside John, and it was such a shock to him to lose his Uncle George.
SPEAKER_01And the house was the scene, or certainly the the environments outside the house were the scene of more tragedy, which we're talking about in a moment. But by this stage, he and his mum had started to rebuild something of a relationship, hadn't he? Before his uncle George died.
SPEAKER_02Well, and I think that was became very, very important. Um because of course John didn't realise where his mum lived, how close she was to where he was at Mendip, and how close um he then ended up, she's really close to Fourth In Road, where of course where Paul lived. And it was his cousin Stan who was um down from Scotland on holiday coming to see them. Stan took John around to Blomfield Road, and John realizes that that's where his mum is, and they then reconnect. And Julia, for those short few years she's back in his life, again we're looking, you know, the what ifs. Julia's the one who is saying, okay, so you miss a bit of school, it doesn't matter. You know, here's music. She introduces him to music, some stuff he's listening to on the radio, but she gets the records out. She's musical, of course, herself. She can play piano, she can play banjo. She buys him his first guitar and teaches him to play banjo chords, which of course is the topic of conversation when John and Paul meet. Um, because Paul can't work out what the hell John was playing on his guitar. So Julia was really, really important. And so John starts spending a lot of time there. Of course, by this time, Julia and Bobby Dykins have got their two daughters, Julia and Jackie. So John's got his two half-sisters, and they become really close. And it was nice just a couple of weeks ago, I got to go inside Blomfield Road and to walk around it. And one of the most famous scenes it's ever talked about there is the quarrymen rehearsing in the bathroom. And I went into the bathroom, and it's not big. So when members of the quarrymen said, you know, some of us would be standing in the bath, you can understand why because that's the only place you could go, it's not a big bathroom, but just to be standing there, I think, no, they made music in here with Julia. No, she'd join in on the banjo, and they'd be crushed into this little bathroom. So a really historic place and important for John to get that relationship with his mum. And I think the way he would then do it is he'd have a row with Mimi. He'd go and stay with his mum. They maybe would have a row of Bobby Dykins would get fed up, and there'd be some reason then. John would then go back to Mimi and he played the two off against each other.
SPEAKER_01And then, you know, we've we've got a from the basis of this stable house. Because if you look at if you look at Mendips, it's a solid, old-fashioned, traditional suburban property. And yet, from John's point of view, it was where he was taken when he was he was he was basically passed over to his aunt and his uncle, it's where his his dad came back to to try and take him away, it's where his his his uncle George died. He then re-reignites his relationship with his mum. And then the big tragedy comes, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02Well, it does, and when we made looking for Lennon, we were very fortunate that Nigel Wally, one of John's youngest friends from when they were like five years old, he told us the story, which made it more real, really. So we start talking to him outside Mendips, and Julia, by that time, would go around to see Mimi on a regular basis, they'd have a cup of tea and a chat. Nigel calls to see if John was there. He wasn't, John was at uh Julia's house. So Julia says to Nigel, yeah, you can walk down to the corner with me. So they walk down to the corner of Vale Road, a couple of hundred yards, have a quick chat, say goodnight. Nigel walks off Vale Road towards his house. Julia then crosses over uh Mendloff Avenue, heading towards the bus stop to get the bus home. That's one of those things where when we do one of the tours, and I'm just explaining, there used to be the tram tracks down the middle of Mendlov Avenue, a little hedge either side of the tracks. And he passed through the first carriageway, through the hedge, across the tram tracks. As she went through the hedge onto the other carriageway, that's when the car came and hit Julia. Now, there's been so many stories. The problem is that there's only one real eyewitness, and that's Eric Clegg, who was the driver. What we do know is that he was an off-duty policeman who didn't have a full driving licence but was driving on his own. The other thing we know is that Nigel, being 100 yards down Fail Road, heard a screech of brakes, which made him turn round. Now, if he heard a screech of brakes from that far away, the guy was probably going pretty fast. And he's he screeched, but it was too late. And as Nigel's turned round, all he hears is this thud and sees Julia flying through the air. He runs over, and as he said, you know, I looked at her and I knew she was dead. Now Nigel's what, 15 years old or something like that. Um, went to get Mimi. And of course they took her by ambulance to the hospital, but no, she she was dead on arrival.
SPEAKER_00Liddy Pod, Beatles banter with Bedford and Beasley.
SPEAKER_02I mean, family was important to them all. They were the five sisters. Mimi was the oldest, Julia was second youngest. So the four who lived locally would get together most weekends, so the cousins would get together. So he had family around, which was good. Mimi would occasionally let his friends in, normally through the back entrance, through the kitchen. Um so it was a good place to be. It was a stable place to be. He had his own bedroom. You know, he had his what we we would say, you know, if you have your your dream bedroom as a kid, he's got his guitar, he's got his radio, he's got his typewriter, he's got his drawing, all the kind, he had everything in a way that you could want from a privileged um childhood, even though he didn't live with his parents. But slowly but surely all those little bits were were chipped away. And of course, John and Paul the bet in uh July 57. By that time, Paul had already lost his mum the year before, in uh October 56. When he loses his mum, it's three days after the quarrymen had just made their first record in spite of all the danger, and that'll be the dang. They were on such a high after that, because there they were recorded on a disc, and then three days later, that's it, middle of summer. And as John has retold the story, he was at Julia's house, he said, and it's like in the films you get the knock, you open the door, and there's the policeman. And he can just remember that, and it's the kind of thing that was stick with you, and I think he said he'd like speed talking to the the cab drivers they went to the hospital, just what you do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, really, really sad. Now, for those people who've never been to Liverpool or have never been to Mendip's uh as well, um Strawberry Field is is literally around the corner, isn't it? And and visitors will visit the well, so now they can go inside Strawberry Fields, it's it's a great place to visit. Uh often take photographs of the gates, the original gateposts and the uh the gates, uh uh, and then drive or walk round to John's house. And you know, we hear stories about John and his friends playing in what was the extent of wooded grounds for Strawberry Fields, and you envisage uh John walking all the way around to the gates, but geographically it was a little bit different at the time, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02Oh, very much. Um the only time John would go through the main entrance was when they'd have a summer fair of some sort, and Mimi would take him. You have the Salvation Army brass band would be playing, you know, and they'd play and stuff like that. The important stuff for John really was the back side of the grounds, which were on Vale Road, so literally round the corner from Mendebs, the sandstone wall is still there, and that's where John with his friends it's the the outlaws of the God themselves, like with Just William. There's Ivan Vaughan, Pete Shotner, and Nigel Wally. And it's a simple thing. You look, here's a big wall for young teenage lads and private property, work out what happens next, it's written into your DNA, isn't it? And that's what they would do. And I like taking the people there and saying, you know, when you're on Vale Road, everything's real. Once you climb over that wall, nothing is real. That was John's imaginary playground, and that was. I think when he wrote the song, so he's you know, it's the end of 1966, he's out in Almeria in Spain, filming How I Won the War, and he was in by this big house with the wall, kids playing the other side, and I think it took him back to what these days we would call his happy place because when he's 13 years old, he's with his three best mates. Uncle George is still alive, his mum's still alive, Stuart Suckliff is still alive, there's no Beatlemania, there's none of that madness. This was the time when he was carefree, and I think that's what he was seeking was that contentment, which by the mid-60s he didn't have, and that's what he found there in going over that wall onto private property, playing with his mates. And if you think of John's favourite books being Alice in Wonderland, which is going from one reality into the other, that's again with Strawberry Field. Once you climbed over that wall, they were just reenacting whatever games they wanted to play in a place where they shouldn't be, and that's always the fun, innit?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so Strawberry Field closer than what what people think it is, uh, really. And if you do go to Mendips or Strawberry Fields, go and have a look at that wall, go and have a look at that wall on Vale Road, literally a minute's walk away from John's uh front door. So, John, um very significant house for lots of reasons, happy and sad Mendips. Obviously, that's where he was living when he when he he set up the Quadrymen with his friends, when he met Paul, and it was also the house from which he left to leave Liverpool, didn't he?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because once the the Beatles had started to make it in '63, they had to be in London. Now, all the media was down there. So television was there, the newspapers were based down there, and of course, the only proper recording studios, you know, when you think of where they made in spite of all the danger was the back room of Percy Phillips' house. That wasn't a proper recording studio. So they had to be in London. And you know, once please please me as the album has hit the top, and suddenly the national celebrities they had to be there. So even when John was at our college and would sometimes stay in Gambia Terrace, most of the time he'd be back at Mimi's, normally with his washing, like uh any good student should be. But that that was still his base. You know, Paul would come round and they'd they'd practice in the porch because Mimi didn't like the guitar. And as Mimi famously said, the guitar's alright for a hobby, John, but you'll never make a living from it. Which, when he bought her a house in 1966, he had made onto a plaque and put inside the house. Um, but I think, yeah, from the age of five, Mendips was where he got himself set up. That was his base, that was stability. From there, he could be as creative as he wanted to be, and he had those great, great friends from there. And yeah, if he wasn't there, there's no quarry men and there's no Beatles. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So Mimi moves away. Um, the house becomes a just a regular private residence until 20 years ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so when the house suddenly goes on the market, we all just assumed because the National Trust had already bought 24th Inn Road, well, that's fine. They're gonna buy John's house, obviously. He's such an important part of the Beatles story. At the time that was happening, there was a behind the scenes reality show of looking at the National Trust, and I can remember watching that, and they were sort of saying, Well, we've got one Beetle House, we don't need another one. Oh no, no, no, no, can't do that, can we? Um, and so I was like, Well, what the hell's gonna happen? And this is where, and thank you to her, Yoko steps in, and Yoko bought Mendips and gave it to the National Trust to run, and they've done an amazing job. Now, and the hardest thing is that the trust had to do because what they are really good at is taking the building back to what it would look like at the important time. So you go around Fourth In Road because Mike McCartney had taken so many photos, they knew what everything looked like. There was only really one photo of Mimi in the front room at Mendibs, and nothing else to reference. So John's cousins were then tasked with can you remember what the wallpaper looked like? If you're a kid, you go around your cousin's house. You don't study the wallpaper, do you? I mean, you might do, but it's quite rare. Um, yeah, so thanks to Yoko, um, and she supported it a number of times because she's given a lot of stuff from her private collection that was John's for putting on display there. And back in, I'm trying to remember, I think it was 2008. By this time, no, she'd given a lot of money to Dovedale School when I'm chair of governance. And when she was doing an event in Liverpool, she'd invite some of the children, and this time she was bringing some more of John's personal possessions over to Mendips, so she invited some of the school kids, and as chair of governors, I went up to Mendipse with our head and with a number of the children, and we met Yoko inside Mendips, and she was wonderful with the children, and I'll never forget it. You know, after all these years, you know, you've got these children that they're all around, so it's seven or eight years old, and she had a PA hurrying and saying, Well, behind schedule, and she basically turned around and said, I'm talking to the children, everybody else can wait. And that was like the world media, yeah, we're waiting to see her, and she was saying, No, at your age, John loved his time at Dovedale, and he dreamed of doing something special. Said, You can be special like that, you know. John proved you can do that. She was absolutely brilliant with the children, and they loved it. Um, and then, of course, she's whisked off to do the media, but she she was really, really nice with them, and it's just a fantastic place to visit. And I know you must know that, you know, with all the tours that we get to do, the National Trust tour of both houses is really special, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01It really is, because of all the organizations or or even private companies that could have taken over the properties, the National Trust are the obvious people. Because if you're listening to this from outside the UK, uh, if you just look up the National Trust, it's it's quite an academic type organisation, but they do things properly and they are very, very careful as to what they do. They won't do something if they don't believe that that's the way the room or the house or the property looked uh at the time. And so you can be sure, both with Paul's house and with John's house, that they've got it as close to the uh the actual image of the property inside and out as as they would have had at the time in the uh in the 50s, which is the point at which they've they've chosen to uh to re- and re-redepict it. Uh so it is a it is a great tour to do. What I would say uh to people, if they're coming to do it, do book early because uh unlike most National Trust properties where you just turn up, if you're a National Trust member, you you get in, if you're not, you just pay. With the two Beatles houses, you get brought in a minibus. Uh, they're only four tours a day, they only operate for broadly speaking nine months a year, and there's 15 seats on each tour. So it's great because you have the two properties pretty much to yourself, you're not crowded in, but at the end of the day, there's only a limited number of tickets for every day. So if you come into Liverpool and you do want to see inside the houses, uh go onto the National Trust website, just search for Beatles Homes, and you'll find the information there. They they are, as we speak on this podcast towards the end of November, just about to close, and they'll reopen again in in spring of 2023.
SPEAKER_02And of course, you know, we we like to ask a question for you, the listener. We do. So our question this time is which Beatles song mentions the National Trust?
SPEAKER_01Great question, that, Dave. Great question. If you know the answer, email us via the Liddy Pod website and let us know, and we'll uh we'll let you know if you're right. We'll let you know if you're right. So, Dave, that's it. We've we've covered Mendips. It's the final of the four Beatles homes that we've been covering. As we speak, as I mentioned, it's just before the end of November. So we're going into the Christmas time, and obviously, from John's point of view, we're going into the anniversary of his death, sadly.
SPEAKER_02It is, and you know, still all these years after that happened, you know, it it's still it's like almost remembering a member of your family. It's one of those points in the calendar where you think back to that moment, and I still go back, I was 15 years old. My alarm radio would go off every morning before going to school, and I can remember normally you'd have the radio Merseyside jingle would come on, Norman Thomas would be on, and we'd have a laughing and stuff, and I'd get up and I'd head off to school. And I still remember it now. The radio just went click to on. No jingles, no nothing else. It was just, and the announcer just said um John Lennon has been killed. That's what I woke up to, and I I can picture myself exactly in my bedroom listening to that, and it's weird, one of those things at the time, you almost sort of think, Well, at least he was 40. Because when I was 15, 40 was really old, yeah, yeah. And then, of course, I get to 40 and I've got three young kids, and he realise 40 is not old at all, and now 40 for us is becoming a distant memory. Um, it's just of what we've been robbed of. You know, he just came back, just like starting over. The irony of that title, you know, he'd given up, he'd had that time with Sean, he was back, he was gonna be coming back to the UK, be going be touring. Imagine what he would have done in all these years because he was one of those creative geniuses that would ever say, Alright, well, I'm done, I'll put my feet up now. The mine would still be going, and yeah, it's just it's it's a sad, sad time. And in a way, I know we covered this when we we did uh one of the early Lady Pods on tourism, but one of those big changes for Liverpool and Beatles Tourism was John being killed, and in some ways, what we've got now is a little bit of the legacy of that terrible event, in the way of John and his memory contributing to what we now do.
SPEAKER_01And the nice thing is, Dave, and I'm sure they'll do it again this year, and they've done this for many, many years now. The on the uh the night of John's murder, the custodian at Mendip goes into the house in the darkness, because obviously it's getting dark by then at round about four o'clock, quarter past four in the afternoon, and switches on the light in John's room, and it's the only light on in the house during that night, and it's it's a really poignant image, isn't it? Well, it is, and that's something Yoko is always trying to do as well, is to try and have something positive.
SPEAKER_02So we've had the candlelit vigils, and I know over in New York, you know, people have always gathered at the Imagine Memorial Day in the Strawberry Fields part of Central Park. No, just going back to that, you know, that initial horrible news when it came through, and all the fans gathered at St. George's Plateau in town, and we've had lots of tribute concerts and stuff, is to try and take the positives of what he packed into those 40 years is absolutely phenomenal, and more than most people pack into a whole really long life, and try and take those positives and what he stood for, you know. Those campaigns for peace. You know, I was only watching something earlier today, um, and it was John and Yoko talking about making the plastic owner band album and going back to the bedding for peace. You know, that was absolute genius, and as John said, people may laugh at me. I don't care as long as we're talking about peace. And what a message to be putting out constantly. And again, when it comes to Christmas and the Christmas songs, Happy Christmas War is over. If you want it, there's the positives we can take from John. So I like to try and think of these positive things that John contributed to life.
SPEAKER_01As we don't mention the person who did this to him, and let's celebrate you know the great genius that that was John Lennon. And as you say, Dave, you know, as as Christmas approaches and radio stations all over the world play Christmas songs, one of those Christmas songs is going to be Happy Christmas War is over. And here we are in 2022, going into 2023, when that song and the lyrics of the song and the the emotion behind the song is actually more relevant than it ever was.
SPEAKER_02And again, that was part of that genius. You know, just adding those words, if you want it, that in itself is so powerful. You know, Happy Christmas war is over. People just say, Oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. But if you want it, that's the important bit. And if there's enough people in the world who get together, this is what power to the people, this is what real love, all those amazing things that John was writing about and speaking about, we can make a change. And I know we meet so many people from all corners of the world, and there's something particularly unique about Beatles fans because it doesn't matter which country you come from, you know, your colour, your creed, anything like that, that disappears. And some of those parts of the lyrics of Imagine Imagine There's no countries when Beatles fans get together, none of that identity matters. There's a unity around the world with Beatles fans, which is is quite unique, and again, that's something amazing that the the Beatles created, and it still has those lasting effects, and as you say, more than ever, that's what we need is an end to war.
SPEAKER_01So, Dave, that's it for this episode of Liddy Pod. I hope you enjoyed listening to it. Do uh answer that question. Do you want to give the question again, Dave?
SPEAKER_02That was so long ago. No, this always gets people in on the tour, and I ask them this one. And that the confidence drains. So, which Beatles song mentions the National Trust?
SPEAKER_01Great, great answer. Uh, tune in, listen in next time. Do subscribe to Liddy Pod, and we'll be back with you very shortly. Listen, if I don't see you before Christmas, Dave, have a great Christmas. Have your Christmas war is over. If you want it.
SPEAKER_02If you want it, exactly.
SPEAKER_00You've been listening to Liddy Pod, Beatles Banter with Bedford and Beasley.