THE LIVERPOOL LENNON'S / GEOFFREY GIULIANO TALKS TO DR. LEILA HARVEY & JULIA BAIRD

Manchester, 1986

Question: Tell me a bit about John's mum.
Leila Harvey: John was Julia's only son and his pictures were all around the kitchen. He was never, ever separated from his mother. It was an extended family of five sisters and seven children. We could be in anybody's house and so could John. His mother lived only about ten minutes away from Mimi so we could always go and spend the weekend with Judy [Julia].
Question: Although Julia was untrained could she sing?
Leila: Yes. She played the banjo and sang beautifully. Me being pre-judiced, I would say she was even more gifted than John. Judy had personality, she was a little darling. She was offered professional work by Mater's [John and Julia's Aunt Elizabeth] husband but refused. She was too lighthearted. Judy wasn't serious enough to sing or be an entertainer but she could catch anyone's heart.
Question: Julia [Baird] says that had she lived, Judy would have been right up there on stage with the Beatles.
Leila: She would. Right up front and everybody would have loved her. I guarantee you won't find one person who would say a bad word against Judy, apart from people writing silly books who don't know anything about her. She was lovely to everybody. Anybody who stopped by would have a cup of tea. The main thing about her was that she was always very, very witty.
Question: Do you remember anything particularly charming about John's childhood?
Leila: At about fourteen or fifteen John could pick up any instrument and play it, the mouth organ, the accordion. He was very affectionate and sweet natured. We'd sit watching television and he'd always put his head on my lap.
Question: There's another view of John that he was a bit of a neighbourhood bully.
Leila: Aren't all fifteen-year-olds trying to be a bit macho? He was very sweet and soft. And quite serious about things, what's right and wrong. John would often talk to me about what he should do. He was a very serious little lad sometimes. Still, I only knew him until the age of fifteen.
Question: What are your first memories of the Beatles? Did you go and see them when they were in Germany?
Leila: I didn't, no. I was working day and night. I did buy their first four records and then I thought, 'Well, four, that's enough. He's going to go on doing this forever so I'm going to buy a bit of classical music now.'
Question: Did John ever ring you?
Leila: I had no contact with him. The next time we connected was
when the Beatles were beginning to break up in 1969. The family said he was on this terrible diet and looked very ill. When I saw him I was shocked. It was at Apple and he looked a hundred. He was eating his three lentils and two grains of rice a day. He looked really ill. I visited him once at Weybridge. There was no security, I just walked right into his office. I visited him there because that was the last time I could see him as I was back at work and had my three children to look after.
Question: Life does goes on, doesn't it?
Leila: Families do separate to that extent, yes. I was with John totally from the age of two to fifteen. Our whole childhood, all our Christmases, Easters, all our summers were spent together. After that, hardly at all.
Question: What did you think when you saw John in this condition?
Leila: I was very upset at the state of his health and worried about him.
Question: Did you say that to him?
Leila: It wasn't easy to get a word in edgeways with the lady there
[Yoko]. We had a good old chat at Weybridge though. At that point
John was very separated from his family.
Question: We've been talking around it, but obviously, you weren't
very impressed by Yoko. Do you think she had a positive influence over him?
Leila: No, I wouldn't say that. I think Yoko provided John with what
he needed at the time. I think his life would have been more in balance if he hadn't gone so far out. We didn't like the vulgarity. It's not our style and really, it's not John's style. John was a healthy, normal male. We didn't like the exhibitionism.
Question: Are you referring to their Two Virgins nude album cover?
Leila: The nude photographs, yes.
Julia Baird: All of that sort of nonsense.
Question: Why do you think he did it?
Leila: John was not really an exhibitionist. John had a musical talent. His body was nothing to write home about. As Mimi said at Apple, 'It
would have been all right John, but you're both so ugly. Why don't you get somebody attractive on the cover, if you've got to have somebody naked?' It was just silly. It was childish exhibitionism. It's like, 'We've done everything else, now what can we do? Take our clothes off!' That's what children do at the beach. I've had a recent argument with Yoko concerning the sale of my letters from John. She was rather rude on the phone, telling me off about it. And I don't consider that she is in any position to criticise my morals. I said, 'Look here, you were only married to John, but he was our blood.' That really annoyed her. She said a rude word, which I'm not going to repeat because that would be bitchy. She stopped sending her little Christmas gifts after that, so she's obviously annoyed. She rang my brother David and thought I would apologise. She has no right to ring me up and criticise my morals. If I wish to sell John's letters, and I didn't actually, I wanted to wait until I was dead.
Question: No one ever made any more money off John Lennon than Yoko Ono!
Leila: Well, I certainly haven't made any, but my daughter did. I could have had anything I wanted from John when he was alive but it would have hurt him if I asked, so I didn't. I've never been short of money. But my daughter is just starting off in life and she wanted something. So she sold them and she got the money. She shared it with her brothers and I never touched it. I think Yoko feels that the family might try and take away a bit of her fun. But we're not interested in publicity. We have our normal lives and our families. That's her life. She thinks we're muscling in on her turf, but we're not. She was afraid that my daughter selling those letters might somehow affect the attendance at her concerts. Question: The only thing that affected her concerts was her complete, innate inability to sing on key and people not wanting to buy tickets to hear her crucify John's songs.
Leila: I was never rude to her. The only thing I said which really annoyed her was, 'Look, Yoko, John was our blood, you were only married to him,' which I think is fair comment.

Dr Leila Harvey is Lennon's first cousin on his mother's side. As children, she and John were exceptionally close.