John's Sister On John And The Family

This article was published some time ago, but I think it's neat and that you'll all enjoy reading it.

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Interview:
JULIA DYKINS BAIRD
(half-sister of John Lennon)


By Scott Wheeler
(originally published in The Sunday Enterprise newspaper,
Brockton, MA. USA on 26 March 1989)

TRUMBULL, CONN.—In an interview published shortly before his murder in December 1980 John Lennon remarked, "Five strong, intelligent women were my family. One of them happened to be my mother."

Now many of John’s fans are learning for the first time that the founder of the Beatles was also gifted with two strong, intelligent half-sisters, Julia Baird and Jacqui Dykins, with whom he shared the joy and grief of growing up with a devoted mother and losing her tragically at a tender age.

Ms. Baird recently "crossed the pond" from Liverpool to New York to make her first-ever Beatles convention appearance at Liverpool Productions’ NewYork-New England Beatles Convention here. She gave several talks, signed autographs, and good-naturedly fielded a barrage of questions from fans, some of whom were still finding it hard to believe that John Lennon could have kept a pair of kid sisters under wraps all those years.

"How do I prove who I am?" Ms. Baird laughed in response to one fan’s timid inquiry. "Goodness me! I’m certainly not going to pass my passport around. You’ll just have to take my word for it."

Last fall Ms. Baird published her autobiography, John Lennon, My Brother, co-written with Geoffrey Giuliano. The book is a personal, moving account, focusing on her brother’s formative years, which Ms. Baird says she wrote in order to "set the record straight" about her family.

"In most of the books and productions about John that I’ve seen, our family didn’t exist at all," Ms. Baird said. "When we did, we were presented as if we had beat John about the head with a stick and sent him out into the world before he was born."

Ms. Baird describes the family she shared with John as a close-knit clan ruled by their vivacious, free-spirited mother, Julia Stanley, and Julia’s four sisters, all of whom actively shared in the rearing of the children. "John and I were brought up in a family of extremely independent, feminist women," Ms. Baird said. "We did whatever they asked of us, and did it instantly. Even now, I still look to women for strength."

In 1938 Julia Stanley impulsively married Alfred Lennon, a freewheeling character who ran away to sea the day after the wedding and returned only for occasional visits thereafter. John, the couple’s only child, was born in October 1940.

Later, while waitressing at a café in Penny Lane, Liverpool, Julia befriended one of her customers, a local hotel manager named John Dykins. Although she was still legally married to the long-absent Fred Lennon, Julia chose to make her home with Dykins, who fathered her two daughters, Julia and Jacqui.

Mary "Mimi" Stanley, the eldest and most straitlaced of the Stanley sisters, proclaimed Julia no longer a fit mother, and sternly demanded that young John be handed over into her care.

"We were a traditional middle-class family, with traditional Victorian values," Ms. Baird explained. "It wasn’t considered a ‘done thing’ for people to live together. You have to remember how things were in wartime Britain, when my mother was trying to get a divorce. Mimi decided that it wasn’t right for John to live in that situation."

Young John went to live with his aunt and uncle in the leafy Liverpool suburb of Woolton, a fifteen-minute walk from the home his mother shared with John Dykins and, later, their two daughters.

Ms. Baird says that John’s unorthodox living arrangements during her childhood years seemed so natural that it never occurred to her that she and her brother had different surnames.

"John came over to our house two or three times a week, plus vacations and holidays," Ms. Baird recalled. "He had a bedroom at Mimi’s and a bedroom over at our house. It was a typical brother-sister relationship, that’s all. He took us to the pictures and to lots of other places. If he was going to a football game he’d take us along, put us on the swings, and come get us on the way home. Other times it would be ‘Get the girls out! I want to do something!’"

As a small boy John learned his first banjo chords at his mother’s knee. Later, during his teen-age years, mother and son became mutually obsessed with American rock and roll.

Although Ms. Baird herself was too young to participate, she warmly recalls the raucous guitar-and-washboard jam sessions her mother shared with John and his friends for hours at a time in the cramped, echoing bathroom of the Dykins home.

But the family’s happiness was short-lived. Ms. Baird was the last member of her family to see and speak to her mother just before she was struck and killed by a car in front of Mimi’s house on Menlove Avenue in Woolton in July 1958—an event that devastated the family and plunged John into what he later called "a sadness so deep it hardly becomes known to me."

Ms. Baird particularly cherishes one of her brother’s most deeply personal compositions, even though she still finds it painful to listen to: "Julia," the haunting acoustic ballad John performed on the album The Beatles in 1968 in memory of his mother.

"She was the most wonderful person," Ms. Baird writes in her book. "I told John that her friends in Liverpool still spoke about her all these years later. What a remarkable woman, to be missed daily after so long! No wonder the son she had was John."

During the 1960s John’s relatives in Liverpool shared proudly in the global frenzy of Beatlemania while managing to keep a remarkably low profile in the media.

When the group eventually dissolved and John launched a new marriage and joint career with Yoko Ono, Ms. Baird shared in the family’s sense of shocked surprise but never doubted that John would do exactly as he pleased.

"John and Yoko were like twin souls," Ms. Baird said. "To me, she was just what the doctor ordered at the time. We were always in touch until 1971, when I lost contact with him. Then he got in touch with us in 1974, while he was in L.A. Before that it was Yoko who rang and wrote us.

"He was doing stupid things in L.A., wasn’t he? We would read about it in the papers and think, ‘Not again!’ Everyone knows John had a drinking and drug problem and that he provoked people from time to time. I’m not saying it didn’t happen. But he kicked it when he had Sean. He certainly couldn’t have been taking care of a small baby while doping himself out."

In 1975 Ms. Baird was surprised and delighted to receive a transatlantic phone call from John in New York. In an emotional telephone reunion lasting two hours she and John mingled laughter and tears as they unburdened themselves of a wealth of private memories of the mother they both continued to miss so desperately. Following that call the two siblings began a round of letters and regular phone calls that continued until the end of 1976.

Ms. Baird had been out of touch with John for nearly four years when she received she shattering news of his murder, in December 1980.

"I never saw the Imagine film," Ms. Baird said. "I can see how it would have been pleasing for you as fans, but, as his sister, I don’t want to see John talking to me from the screen. If it were your own brother you had lost, I don’t think you would really want to see him as if he were still alive."

And what does she remember of the other ex-Beatles?

"I remember Pete Best being there before he was displaced, and I’ve met him since then, to say hello, but I never knew him," she said. "I don’t know Ringo, and I don’t know George anymore. Paul is a different matter, because he was a ‘brother under the skin’ to John. He got on famously with my mother. She fed him a lot, and ironed his shirts a lot.

"Jacqui and I were at the ‘Day Tripper’ recording session," she added. "We thought it would be fun, but we ended up having to shut up and sit quietly for hours, so we left. I always preferred the Rolling Stones, myself. I was a rebel—weren’t we all?"




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Paul is still alive.

thanks

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OASIS & THE BEATLES
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>"I never saw the Imagine film," Ms. Baird said. "I can see how it would have been pleasing for you as fans, but, as his sister, I don’t want to see John talking to me from the screen. If it were your own brother you had lost, I don’t think you would really want to see him as if he were still alive."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's very sad.

Thankyou for posting this!


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"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

What is it with the guys not keeping in touch with their families? I think that's terrible! Oh, I wouldn't have expected them to keep in touch weekly, or even monthly. Especially during the 60's. But look at Julia & Jacqui. Look at Louise Harrison. They had very, very little contact with their famous brothers. I dunno. Maybe it's just me and that I come from a big family..and the mere fact that I'm not famous. Even so, I can't imagine not keeping up with my sibs at least once a month.

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John thoughts on "Yesterday":
"That's Paul's song, Paul's baby. Well Done. Beautiful--and I never wished I'd written it."
1980
Is it any wonder why I love John so much?

Thanks for the article, Angel!

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Rooftop Sessions--a monthly e-zine of fab Beatles fan fiction
Lennon's Line--A science fiction series about John's descendants--Updated 9/2/02

John Lennon's sister prefers

The Rolling Stones!

That is amazing...

Thanks Angel!

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..all you need is love,love...
Love is all you need!

Maybe she really prefers the Stones, or perhaps, like her brother, she likes to get a rise out of people and just said that on impulse. I kind of suspect the latter.

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Paul is still alive.

Thank you, Angel.

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Then we will remember things we said today. Yeah.
-- Beatles, 1964

With a love like that, you know you should be glad, yeah, yeah, yeah!
-- Beatles, 1963

Read www.rooftopsessions.com for high caliber Beatles fan fiction.

BB1964

You are all very welcome. I found this nice pic of John to share, too:



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Paul is still alive.

Angel, thanks for posting that interview and the pic!

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Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page
Bearkat77's Tribute to John Lennon
Bearkat77's Tribute to Ringo Starr

Ahhhhh JOHN!!! Thanks Angel. I'll sleep well tonight!

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John thoughts on "Yesterday":
"That's Paul's song, Paul's baby. Well Done. Beautiful--and I never wished I'd written it."
1980
Is it any wonder why I love John so much?

Magill:
Yeah, beautiful, isn't he? I was thinking about what you mentioned about guys not keeping in touch with their families. I guess it was because John didn't need any laundry done or to be sent any money. I think it's just a guy thing.

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Paul is still alive.

angelgodiva

good story thanks

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OASIS & THE BEATLES
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">Quote:</font><HR>Originally Posted By angelgodiva:
You are all very welcome. I found this nice pic of John to share, too:



<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

White Album sessions. Yes!


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Willis: Arnold, can you hand me the Sports section?
Arnold: No you wouldn't like it, there are not many pictures
Willis: Then there is nothing for you to color

-Diff'rent Strokes

Originally Posted by angelgodiva

This article was published some time ago, but I think it's neat and that you'll all enjoy reading it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interview:
JULIA DYKINS BAIRD
(half-sister of John Lennon)


By Scott Wheeler
(originally published in The Sunday Enterprise newspaper,
Brockton, MA. USA on 26 March 1989)
.

Glad I came across this.
They did do a heck of a job by keeping a low profile and I'm glad she finally spoke out.

Originally Posted by angelgodiva

"Jacqui and I were at the ‘Day Tripper’ recording session," she added. "We thought it would be fun, but we ended up having to shut up and sit quietly for hours, so we left. I always preferred the Rolling Stones, myself. I was a rebel—weren’t we all?"

Okay, Julia... we're supposed to buy your take on everything when it comes to John even though you were only close to him when you were about 7-11 years old and even though you say idiotic stuff like that?

Whatevs, girl...

Originally Posted by Maia 66

Okay, Julia... we're supposed to buy your take on everything when it comes to John even though you were only close to him when you were about 7-11 years old and even though you say idiotic stuff like that?

Although I basically like Julia Baird, I think this is an unnecessary and tactless remark towards the band of his half-brother

Snoopy

'Nuff said.