THE LIVERPOOL LENNON'S / GEOFFREY GIULIANO TALKS TO JULIA BAIRD

Chester, 14 September 1986

Question: Tell me the social worker's story, if you would.
Julia Baird: When John was three or four, Mimi was to have said to my mother, 'You're not fit to have him.' That would have been just after Victoria's birth. I suppose Mimi's concern was for John though, wasn't it? John could have greater stability with her. My mother, of course, desperately wanted him. As far as I know, Mimi had to go away the first time she tried to take him. My father said, 'It's her child and if she wants him then that's it. It's her son.' Anyway, Mimi returned with a social worker and said, 'I don't want them to have him, they're not married.' The worker then said, 'Well, I'm sorry, Mrs Smith, but John's her son. Come, show me where he sleeps.' They were then shown the room where John was sleeping with my mother and father. John was given to Mimi at that point. And the social worker said, 'When you have somewhere for John to sleep, then he comes back.' Question: Later your mother presumably became convinced that it was better for John to live with Mimi.
Julia: My mother probably thought he'd been backwards and for-wards enough. The only reason she handed him over was for his own good.
Question: What does Mimi say about Julia? Does she ever imply she might have been derelict in her duty, to have given John up? Julia: All of my family say that my mother was a most wonderful per¬son and I remember it to be so. I think she was a bit eccentric though. Question: What about this idea that your mother was of loose morals? Julia: Obviously it's not something I want to confront. But I know now that first there was John and then there was another child, Victoria, before me, which I didn't know until about two or three years ago. Question: Would the other sisters have lit into her for that? Julia: I'm sure. She already had John, didn't she? There was no money coming from his father and Pop [Julia Lennon's father] was helping keep them. From what I gather, between my grandfather and Mimi the pressure was on to have the baby adopted. Mummy didn't go into Sef-ton General to have Victoria where John, Jacqui and I were born. She went into a nursing home where they arranged the adoption. Mum had the baby and it was adopted by a Norwegian sea captain as far as I know.
Question: This Victoria would be forty-two now, with virtually no knowledge of her background.
Julia: Apparently Norwegian law says you don't have to tell the child anything. Now here, if you're adopted you get your birth certificate and you see immediately if you've been adopted. Question: I suppose it's very difficult to give us your first memory of John because, as you've said, he always seemed to be there.
Julia: I never realised he was a half-brother because you don't realise such things, do you? Unless the family's going to make it clear, which they didn't.
Question: Until when?
Julia: I was about sixteen. I overheard two aunts talking. Question: But surely you knew his last name was Lennon? Julia: It didn't mean a thing to me. They were always talking about Freddy Lennon and it began to wash over me when I was about four¬teen but I completely put it to one side until I heard the two aunts discussing it. We'd never been brought up as 'this is your half-brother, this is your half-sister'.
Question: From what I can gather, your family was close, to the extent that the whole clan became an extended family. John might live with Mimi, you could stay with one aunt and another aunt could take care of the other kids for a while. That's very different. Julia: Yes, we cousins were together when we were growing up. Leila, Stanley and John were close and David, Jacqui, Michael and I are like a second family within the children's generation. We're all still called 'the children', however. We did visit a lot because all the sisters were really very, very close.
Question: What kind of big brother was John?
Julia: Obviously he didn't live with us full-time. You look back now and think, 'Why didn't we think it was odd?' But we didn't, it was just the way it was. He'd come over weekends, we'd get up and John would be there. The older we got the more he came round with his mates until he was there almost nightly and at lunch. When he was younger he used to take us to the park. My mother would say, 'Take the girls to the swings please, John.' He'd take us out while he played football with his friends and we had a go on the swings. He used to take us to the pic¬tures under duress. We went to see the Elvis film, Love Me Tender, which we saw twice because we were abandoned there. He'd watch it once with us and then run off. I don't know where he went, probably to see his friends or something. Then he'd pick us up after the second show.
Question: Tell me about John's bedroom at Mendips. Julia: Well, he had this small front room which you could just about get you and the cat in. You'd open the door and he'd have skeletons and things flying about with their arms all going in the air. John made them himself. The lights went on and off and these puppets jiggled around when you opened the door. Question: Tell me something about John as a boy. Julia: Happy as a lark, whimsical, always dancing up and down, very good with us girls. Really just a lovable big brother hanging around the house. We were all great friends.
Question: People say that he was rather aggressive, though.
Julia: He wasn't within the family. He was always a very family-oriented person.
Question: What about his relationship with Mimi? It was rather tempestuous, wasn't it?
Julia: Not always. I think as a teenager he was certainly a rebel. He rebelled against school as he didn't really like the uniformity. He also rebelled against art school by not working when he finally got there. I don't really know what he would have done if he hadn't broken into music so successfully.
Question: Tell me about John singing to you girls.
Julia: He'd sing to all of us, not just Jacqui and me. He'd perform for all the children in the road. My mother would do exactly the same. Question: What did he sing?
Julia: Very simple stuff on the piano. And later Elvis songs, just banging away.
Question: Did John and Mimi argue much?
Julia: They started having great rows about John's clothes and things. Mimi was doing the bread and butter and looking after us. My mother was the fun girl. It must have been a difficult position for Mimi to be in.
Question: You've commented that your mother and John had a great thing going, humour-wise.
Julia: They both had a fantastic sense of humour. There was a terrific rapport between them. There was a lot of wit flying backwards and forwards.
Question: You've said it really wasn't like a mother—son relationship at all. It was more of a friendship.
Julia: Well, I mean this is how it is when you got older, isn't it? She would still do the washing for him, though.
Question: Did he always call her Mummy?
Julia: Always.
Question: Do you remember John's first girlfriend?
Julia: The girls always liked John. This one girl, Barbara Baker, appeared a lot. She lived up in Woolton near Mimi. John was coming down more and more so she used to show up as well. We would all be playing and there she was. I remember once she asked us to go and etch John. We did and my mother came out and shouted, 'What do
you want from him?' The next thing I know, John was walking down he road with her. They would cuddle together in the grass.
Question: I've heard that Mimi once wanted John to accept a job as a )us conductor.
Julia: It must be very worrying to see somebody you're responsible for living in a dream when their whole life is stretching out in front of
them.
Question: Did you ever go to the Cavern to see the Beatles?
Julia: Everybody went to the Cavern. I didn't go as much as I might lave as we lived quite a long way out of town. The last bus back was ridiculously early so we couldn't really stay out very late.
Question: How did it affect your life when the Beatles became very successful in Liverpool before they went to America? Julia: At school it was nice. We spent quite a few double A level lessons sitting and chatting about the Beatles. Still, the school, like me, had grown up with it and we were all a little blase about the whole thing. I went down to London on shopping trips and it was all very exciting. Kenwood [John's mansion in Weybridge] was just being renovated.
Question: Do you remember when the Beatles went to the States for the
first time?
Julia: Oh yes. That's when John really departed from our lives.
Question: Didn't Mimi go on one of those trips?
Julia: Mimi went on a world tour. She went to Hong Kong and brought
us all back watches and things. We have family in New Zealand and
she went to stay for about six months, but that wasn't a Beatle thing.
She went to see her family and stopped off in Hong Kong on the way
and brought us all stuff back.
Question: Do you remember what it was like at Mendips when the fans
were going nuts in the garden?
Julia: Oh yes. That was awful. Poor Mimi. I really felt sorry for her. She
was beleaguered by people camping in the garden.
Question: How did John change when he got money?
Julia: He was still very family-minded.
Question: People have told me he never really cared that much about
money.
Julia: I think anyone who asked for it, got it. Which prevented a lot of people who maybe would have liked to have done, from asking. John
was very family-minded and lovable. The Beatles were doing shows at the same time. He did a gig once and we all went to watch it. We were in the dressing room and Mick Jagger was there. People would come in to wish them well and everyone was drinking Cokes. Jacqui and I were put in the front row. We wanted to go out front so we could see the show. When it got a bit raucous John said, 'Get the girls,' and we were hauled onto the stage and watched from the wings because we didn't realise everyone was raging forward.
Question: You must have felt very special going up on stage when all the other girls were clambering about.
Julia: No, it wasn't as glamorous as that. We were just hauled up belly-wise into the wings to get out of the way.
Question: Where did John and Cynthia stay when they first got married?
Julia: I was there chatting with Mimi in the morning and she said, 'John wants to see me this afternoon. I know what he wants, he wants to move in and I'm going to let him.' I said, 'What are you going to do, Mimi?' She said, 'I'm going to live upstairs,' and that's exactly what she did. John's bedroom was converted into her kitchen. Just a tiny little cooker where John's bed was and she made the front bedroom her sit¬ting room.
Question: How long did they live there?
Julia: I don't know. A couple of months or something. Then I don't know where they went. I remember them moving in, though. Question: How did Mimi react to John's initial success? Julia: At that stage you couldn't really argue with it, could you? Question: When he first got money, what did he do ? Did he run out and buy a big car?
Julia: He couldn't drive until he lived at Kenwood. He didn't have a licence so he didn't buy a car. I don't know when he bought his Mini, but I know that Harrie [John's Aunt Harriet] borrowed it for a time because John couldn't yet drive.
Question: Do you recall hearing the Beatles on the radio very early on?
Julia: We'd come home from school and John was always there to inform us when the Beatles would be on the radio. At that time they did a big concert in Liverpool and we all had front-row seats. That was our first experience of the wildness of Beatlemania. We were locked in the dressing room, unable to get out. I think that's when it really hit me. I thought, 'What is going on?'
Question: Tell me about these wild shopping sprees John and Cynthia took you on.
Julia: We had whatever we wanted. Jacqui got a pair of beautiful leather trousers. It was just clothes beyond what you would have normally been able to afford. Expensive jumpers, records and things. Question: What about your visit to George Harrison's house? Julia: We went to Esher not long after George moved in. John said, 'We're just going across for a visit.' Cynthia drove. It was John, Cynthia, Julian, Jacqui and me.
Question: Was he married to Pattie Boyd at the time? Julia: I don't know. All I could think was that she was the Smith's Crisps Girl and she had a lisp. The house was very bare, but nice. There were cushions on all the floors. I think it was the last time I've ever per¬sonally seen George. We'd seen Pattie once before at Woolworth's in Liverpool promoting Smith's Crisps.
Question: How did you and John get back together again after all those years?
Julia: Mater [John and Julia's Aunt Elizabeth] rang one night just after John had gone back with Yoko in 1976. He told Mater, 'Get in touch with the girls.' He said that he wanted to see us. He told her that he had been thinking about Mother a lot and wanted to make it up to us. He said he could set Allan up in a business and if we needed anything we were only to ask. Probably, if he hadn't been such a mega-bucker we'd have been in touch before. If he had emigrated to Australia and become a sheep farmer I would have gone and stayed, but his financial position put him out of touch with just about everyone. Allan was saying, 'Are you going to ring him?' 'I need time,' I said, 'I need to think about it.'
Question: Did Allan want you to call?
Julia: Yes, but he wasn't a money-grubbing idiot. The first time I phoned I didn't know what to expect. A woman answered and said she'd been expecting my call for some time. She asked all kinds of ques¬tions, my maiden name, who had given me the number, my father's middle name. After a few minutes I said, 'Forget it, just forget it, it's all wrong.' As I put the phone down I heard John shout, 'Hang on, don't hang up! I'm sorry about that, but you have no idea how many sisters, cousins and aunties I've got.' Then we had a long, long chat. Mostly he was going on about, 'Do you recall laughing with Mummy and do you remember her spotted dress?' He said he had a new baby and asked about ours and Jacqui's and wondered if ours looked Irish. He wanted to know if my daughter Nicki had red hair like Mummy's. We didn't talk about being famous at all.
Question: Were there any tears?
Julia: Oh yes, he cried and I cried. We spent a lot of money crying! John said, 'I've thought a lot about you over the years. Really and truly I have.' We were talking about how he felt about Mummy and how he felt now that he had a baby. He said he'd screwed things up with Julian, completely. 'I've been looking for a family and now I realise I've had one all along,' he told me. I said, 'Yes, you have, but we're here and you're there.' Then we talked about his green card and how the US government was trying to boot him out of the country. There was so much he wanted to do in America and if he left they wouldn't let him back in. 'You'll have to come over,' he said. But nothing ever mater¬ialised. Ironically, it was John who said, 'We'd better get off this call. Next time, call collect.' 'You mean reverse the charges?' I said. 'Speak to me in English, you've gone American on us!' Question: Didn't John ask you to send him some family photographs? Julia: He asked if I had any of Mummy and I said yes. There was one in particular where she was pregnant with Jacqui and I had this big, furry hat on. Leila, Stan and John were also in it. Allan did a twenty-by-sixty black and white print of it, but with only Mummy and John. I even¬tually snipped John off it because I only wanted a photograph of my mother. John said, 'Send it to me, please. Send it to me.' I said, 'You must be joking. You must have far more photographs than I. You should send me what you've got!' He said, 'The stupid reporters took them all and I never got any of them back. I haven't a single one of Mummy.' The next day we packed up loads of photographs and sent them over.
Question: How long did that first call last?
Julia: Two and a half hours. Allan paid the bill. It was enormous. After that, I called collect.
Question: Was it difficult getting through to John on the phone?
Julia: Sometimes I got through to John, sometimes his secretary and sometimes to Yoko. Initially it was all, 'Yes, I'll go get John and yes, here he is.' Sometimes, however, Yoko just broke in on a phone call. That was fine. We never said anything she wouldn't have already known, I'm sure. In the first phone call when John said, 'You should have come to see me. I have thought about you and Jacqui. Recently in the last year I've thought about you more than ever. I wanted a family and now I realise I've had one all along. You should have come to find me,' I really think he was right. I should have made more of an effort. The onus was more on me than him. I mean, John could have rung, there's no doubt about that. I thought, we'll get in touch and just see what's happening. The next thing I heard was that he was coming over in January of 1980. It was on the family grapevine.
Question: Tell me about the letter you got from Yoko. Julia: In the midst of John writing me letters, after I sent some photo¬graphs over, Yoko wrote to me. It was just headed, 'Summer of '75, New York City.' It was just a chatty letter saying that Jacqui looks like John when he's in good condition, chatting about Sean and what they did together. I was quite surprised though to see that it was from Yoko and not John.
Question: What did John tell you he'd been up to during all those years he spent away from the music business?
Julia: I asked him what he did with himself and he said he was a house-husband. He looked after Sean. He was going to give him the years he hadn't given Julian, which he always regretted. He was steeped in things like changing the baby and seeing to his needs. He also learned how to bake bread and was always asking me how to cook. He asked me how hard my loaves were and how soggy bread was supposed to be in the middle. He said he always wanted to look at them when he knew he shouldn't open the oven. 'Wasn't it lovely eating it straight out of the oven,' and things like that. As children, none of us cooked. We always came in from school to a full delicious meal every night. We never had to do anything. So we left home not knowing how to boil an egg. Now John was learning on his own. He told me that at first his bread was rock-hard and couldn't be eaten. Then he talked about cooking meat. His favourite must have been lamb. When he came home to Harrie's with Yoko in 1969 she cooked him a leg of lamb when he was all macrobiotic and he loved it. When Cynthia and he were entertaining at Kenwood he particularly wanted her to cook a leg of lamb. Then he asked me, 'How do you cook lamb?' And I was saying, 'I just roast it, I don't do anything particular.' 'Do you put it in baking foil or not?' It was like two old women exchanging kitchen news. He was making me laugh, saying, 'You've no idea how exhausting it is looking after a baby.' I said, 'I'm on my second one now, of course I know.' He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying life. He said he loved going to the park with Sean and Yoko, pushing the baby.

Julia Baird is John Lennon's younger half-sister. Holding several degrees, she is today a French teacher and lives outside Liverpool. Julia has three children.