Julia
Lennon grave (12th March 1944 to 15th July 1958)
This spirited, capricious, flighty woman was probably too wayward
to be a mum. John said he lost her twice - when she gave up on him when he was
five and again when she died when he was seventeen. She was so unreliable her
own sister Mimi reported her to Liverpool Social Services. Aunt Mimi persuaded
John to live with her (though she didn't adopt the illegitimate Victoria who
Julia gave birth to after a dalliance with a sailor.) Julia kept in almost
daily contact with John and he often stayed overnight with her when he was in
his teens. Friends were puzzled when they played with John and at the end of
the day he’d return to Aunt Mimi’s home. They'd think, “Why isn’t he going home
to his mum like we are?”
It was only
half a life: Julia visited Mimi's home on Menlove Avenue often for tea and
cakes but on an evening in July 1958 she was killed when going home. She left
Mimi's at about 9.30pm to catch a bus back home. As she was crossing Menlove
Avenue to the bus-stop a car struck her sending her about 30m down the road.
Driving the Standard Vanguard car was Eric Clague, an off-duty policeman
without a full driving license (oddly later on he became a postman and delivered
bags of fan mail to the McCartney house.) Julia - just 44 years old - lay on
the road crying in pain with severe head injuries. An ambulance was called and
sped her to Sefton General Hospital but she died on the way. John was taken to
see her but was too upset to look. At an inquest witnesses said Julia stepped
into the road without looking so the driver was acquitted of dangerous driving.
Her death deeply
affected John and he cried through the funeral service. For two years he drank
heavily and was often in brawls. He grew closer to Paul McCartney whose own
mother had died of breast cancer. He penned three songs about her - My Mummy's Dead, Julia and Mother. Could a
few grains of John's ashes be buried here - probably not.
Julia's partner
was Bobby Dykins, her common-law husband with whom she lived and had two daughters.
He didn't live long either - just 47 years old when
he died in a car crash near Penny Lane.
I
strolled around in the hot afternoon sunlight and wondered which relatives had stood
by this headstone. Has John's half-sister Victoria visited? He never met her.
She was conceived by a sailor and adopted by a Norwegian Salvation Army
captain Peder Pedersen and his wife Margaret (she was renamed Ingrid) and
raised in Crosby. Did Eric Claugue whose car killed Julia
visit? Probably not. Julia and Bobby's daughters with Bobby - Julia and
Jackie - will have done as both parents
are buried about 40 feet apart.
This is a sad tale bringing with it children's lives deeply
marred with loss and grief. I did a salute and left.
