Life of Aunt Mimi. Part 3

 When I left Mimi Smith in my previous blog, she was renting out rooms in her home to university students, struggling with her husband’s gambling and his debts, but aside her money problems Mimi was happy and John had settled down to a life at Mendips with his aunt Mimi, uncle George and all their beloved pets. However, in late 1949 and for the next ten years life changed for Mimi and she found herself challenged once again.

 

George Ernest Stanley had been a tenant at 9 Newcastle Road and when he died on the 2^{nd of} March 1949 at the Smithdown Hospital 126 Smithdown Road of bronchopneumonia he left his effects solely to daughter Julia Lennon (married) and this being a sum of £464.9s.9d. Julia with her partner Bobby Dykins had resided with George since they had left the flat at 51 Menlove Gardens West in late 1946. On the 5th of March 1947 Julia gave birth to her first child with Bobby and this was Julia Dykins. When George passed away in March 1949 Julia was only a couple of weeks pregnant with their second child who was due Christmas 1949 and although she had been left the inheritance, her and Bobby could not afford to purchase Newcastle Road even though they were given first option to buy.

After persuading the Liverpool Corporation that they were married, Bobby was able to secure a three bedroomed semi-detached council house on the Springwood Estate near Garston, and in the August of 1949, Julia, Bobby and Julia junior moved into 1 Blomfield Road.

 

When Julia and Bobby had moved into Blomfield Road, Mimi’s concerns began, as John’s mother was now living less than two miles walking distance from Mendips and Mimi wasn’t sure how long she could conceal this fact from the nine-year-old John. In the summer of 1949 just after Julia had moved to Blomfield, the Stanley sisters including Mimi all met at Anne Georgina “Nanny” Cadwallader’s home “Ardmore” in Rock Ferry once owned by Elizabeth Jane “Mater” and her husband Stanley Parkes. Mimi would have had no control over the quality time John spent with his mother that day, and Julia who was pregnant with Bobby’s second child, had plenty of love to give to her first born. Mimi would most certainly have been outnumbered by her other siblings, however once back at Mendips with her nephew she could actively discourage contact with Julia and refuse John to mention her name.

Mimi didn’t approve of her sister’s relationship with Bobby Dykins, living in sin with their two illegitimate children as she called Julia and Jackie. Jacqueline “Jackie “Geraldine Dykins was born at Sefton General Hospital on the 26^th of October 1949, two months premature. Julia was happy with her family and all she wanted was John to join them at 1 Blomfield Road and she always kept a bedroom spare for him, and John was continued to be loved by his mother, but Mimi was adamant, no contact or even visits to Mendips.

Mimi’s famous quote was that 1 Blomfield Road was “The House of Sin” and Mendips Menlove Avenue was “The House of Correction”, however these quotes came to bite into Mimi Smith’s reputation in decades to come.

 

However, Julia was not going to give upon her son, she would see him, with or without her sister Mimi’s permission and fortunately John felt the same way and he would see his mother. About eight months after the party at Ardmore and in the Easter holidays of April 1950, Mimi’s nephew Stanley Parkes came to visit Liverpool from his home in Edinburgh, catching the bus from Edinburgh to the Liverpool Ribble bus station. Stanley was the son of Charles Molyneaux and Elizabeth Jane “Mater” Parkes nee Stanley and he and John were very close. When Stanley came for a visit, his mother had given him Julia’s address and even though Mimi forbid John to go to Blomfield Road with Stanley, his cousin disobeyed her orders and on false pretences he got John to see his mother and Mimi had lost the battle. Stanley had told John “Don’t tell Mimi”and John was to repeat this refrain until he died.

 

John continued over the next four years visiting his family at Blomfield and when he started school at Quarry Bank it was much easier to visit Springwood. By 1954 Mimi knew where John was going, and she had to face facts her beloved John was spending as much time with his mother as he could, and he became less circumspect with Mimi concerning where he was spending his time. So, Mimi and Julia came to an agreement and Julia was allowed to spend time with John and herself at Mendips however Mimi was still not happy at John wanting to stay at Blomfield and in the summer of 1955 when John was fourteen Mimi sent him to stay with his aunty Nanny and his cousin Michael, just to keep John away from his mother. Mimi just couldn’t let go.

 

Then on the 5th of June 1955 tragedy was to strike the family when Mimi’s husband George passed away at the young age of fifty-two. On the Sunday afternoon of the 4th of June Mimi and her lodger Michael John Fishwick heard a crash on the stairs and on entering the hallway found George collapsed. Michael Fishwick called an ambulance and George was taken to the Smithdown (Sefton) General Hospital where he died on Sunday the 5th of June 1955 and cause of death, established during a post-mortem, was a burst abdomen and “cirrhosis of liver (non-alcoholic)” and contradicts many stories that George was a hopeless alcoholic. John wasn’t informed of his uncle’s death so when he returned from Durness Scotland it was to a home without his uncle George. George Toogood Smith was buried on the 7^th of June 1955 at St Peter’s Churchyard Woolton where two years later John Lennon would meet Paul McCartney at the church fete on the 6^th of July 1957.

On the day of the funeral John presented his aunt Mimi with a poem and Mimi had always encouraged the young Lennon to read and write poetry, and this poem touched her heart. John despaired at Mimi’s siblings including his own mother, for their lack of feelings towards Mimi after the death of her husband George. The poem was written when John was nearly fifteen with a little help from the iconic American star Frank Sinatra. When i say help, John used the lyrics from the third line of Frank Sinatra’s song “Young at Heart”, and this was the poem.

 

"The worry and strife, that's been wont to her life.

Has driven her family to shame.

If they should survive, to one hundred and five.

They could never repay her again.

Each one in their turn, will finally learn.

That she is the best of the five

Each one of them slept, not one of them wept.

At the struggle of her mate to survive.

7/6/55. J. W. Lennon"

 

So, after Georges death it was just Mimi, John and her favourite lodger Michael J Fishwick and the lodgers were her only source of income, her husband had left the sum of £2407.11s.9d (Probate administration took place on the 22nd of June 1955).

 

Sometime during the Autumn of 1956 Mimi Smith began living a secret life at Mendips, which she kept from her siblings and John, and it was only discovered many decades later after the sisters and John himself had passed away, by John’s half-sister Julia Baird nee Dykins.

Even though Mimi had kept the secret as she thought, there was one sister Anne Georgina “Nanny” that had an inkling something was going on in Mimi’s life, but she thought it was their cousin George Matthews who was living in New Zealand. Nanny was clear in her discussions with Julia Baird that she thought Mimi was off to New Zealand and she was on the right track with the place but not with the man.

 

Michael J Fishwick started lodging with Mimi and George in 1951 when John was only eleven years old and when Michael came to lodge with the Smiths, he was nineteen and about to study biochemistry at Liverpool university.

It was in about the Autumn of 1956 a year following her husband’s death, Mimi began her secret affair, and it appears from reading Julia Baird’s book “Imagine This” that it was only her sibling “Nanny” that had any inclination of an affair, and she was positive that it was her cousin George. 

 

By the Autumn of 1956 John was frequently staying over at Blomfield Road with his Mum and suddenly Mimi was happy to let him visit, presumably so she could spend quality time with Michael J Fishwick whom she had already developed a close friendship with, before it turned into a love affair. Mimi had told Michael she was only forty-six years old when in fact by 1956 she was fifty and he was twenty-four, but the age gap didn’t deter either of them especially Mimi.

Not long after the affair began Mimi took John to Scotland just after Christmas to celebrate the New Year with her sister Mater and by now John had celebrated his sixteenth birthday. Michael Fishwick returned to Mendips shortly after Christmas to study but contracted Asian Flu. He telephoned Mimi in Scotland, and she left John with his aunt while she returned to Mendips to care for Michael, well so they could have the house to themselves. Mimi would have found it difficult to keep her love affair from prying eyes and especially from young John. Memories of her fiancé back in the late 1920’s at the Liverpool Convalescent Hospital would have come flooding back when Michael contracted Asian Flu, she surely wasn’t going to lose him, the thought for Mimi would have been unbearable.

 

Decades later and after Mimi’s death, Julia Baird nee Dykins finally met up with Michael J Fishwick and discovered that he was in fact Mimi’s secret love affair and it was hard for Julia to accept, but in fact she felt sorry for her aunt. The truth of Mimi and Michael’s affair must have hurt the family as Mimi chose to judge her sister Julia’s lifestyle at Blomfield calling her home the despised House of Sin while hers was the House of Correction. Beatles historians speculate as that is what we do, and in this scenario, you can only feel that decades later the family must have been thinking of the greatest possible hypocrisy. Mimi was having a secret affair with a man only nine years older than John living under the same roof at Mendips so was this really the House of Correction.

Nanny, Mimi’s younger sister thought it was someone in New Zealand, she was correct with the place but not with the man. Michael J Fishwick was offered a three-year research post in 1957 in New Zealand, so Nanny was almost right.

Mimi was to jump at the chance to move to New Zealand and bribed Michael with the fact that if they embarked on a new life together then she would give him her cottage at 120a Allerton Road. Mimi knew John would be happy to go and live with his mother at Blomfield and Mimi was ready to let him go. What happened next possibly left Mimi desperate once more, life for her was going to change and challenges and more adventures were certainly heading her way. Michael Fishwick’s funding for his postgraduate research was refused, meaning he was no longer exempt from National Service, and a few months later he left Mendips to join up. Mimi and Michael remained good friends but left to further his career and find himself a wife that he could have children with, leaving behind presumably a distraught Mimi for the third time, with only her beloved John to care for, even though he was steering towards becoming a pop star, well that was his idea, but Mimi was totally against such a career.

 

Michael John Fishwick was born on the 3rd of March 1932 to Herbert and Lucy Jane Fishwick nee Ribbons, and their home was 5 Armley Grange View, Leeds where Michaels parents lived all their life. Michaels father Herbert was born on the 26th of March 1893 to John and Alice Fishwick nee Turner at Leigh in Lancashire. Herbert married Lucy Jane Ribbons (born the 5th of May 1892) on the 20th of August 1927 at St Johns Church Roundhay five miles south of Leeds city centre. At the beginning of WW ll in September 1939 Michaels father remained at 5 Armley Grange View while his wife Lucy and young Michael moved to 367 Lytham Road Blackpool where they presumably evacuated, away from the city centre. Michaels father Herbert was a second accountant for a retail clothing company. When his son Michael wanted to study Biochemistry at Liverpool his father Herbert accompanied him to view and approve his lodgings at 251 Menlove Avenue. Herbert Fishwick died on the 16th of September 1974 and his wife Lucy died on the 28th of March 1988 and both Michael’s parents were wealthy people.

 

Whilst researching the Fishwick family I made personal contact with one of Michael’s nephews by marriage, whom for their privacy will remain anonymous.

After Michael left Mendips, he moved to Aberdeen to work in the marine laboratory, and it was here that he met his future wife also working in the same place. Her name was Alice Barbara Peck nee McLauchlin born on the 29th of June 1923 to Christopher and Priscilla Thompson McLauchlin nee Dick, Alice had been married previously to Eric Blythe Peck and they were married at Gordon House, Inverurie Aberdeen on the 23rd of June 1949 and had one daughter. in October 1962 Alice married Michael J Fishwick in Cambridge and in 1966 they were living at 19 Willow Crescent Cambridge and now had two children of their own, a daughter and a son. Michael now could add doctor to his name, and he was known as Dr Michael John Fishwick and by the 1970’s they were residing in Norwich Norfolk where he settled down to a very different life than if he had stayed with Mimi. He was now blessed with good job prospects, a wife and three lovely children but Michael had a dark secret that he would share one day. Michael’s wife Alice died on the 8th of January 2004 at the age of eighty and Michael himself passed away on the 29th of September 2015 eleven years later both passing away at their home in Norwich.

The Marine Laboratory has had a presence in the southeast of Aberdeen since 1898 and has a strong focus on fisheries and shellfisheries.

A fascinating story about a man whose life crossed paths with the young John Lennon during the 1950’s at Mendips although if John had known the truth about his aunt Mimi and her lodger Michael Fishwick, I am not sure how he would have felt. Michael would certainly have witnessed many dramas between Mimi and her sister Julia over the years he resided at Mendips. Michael built a close relationship with Mimi, but their life together wasn’t meant to be, and they went their separate ways.

Michael’s relative informed me that Michael had recorded a tape for the National Trust when he returned to Mendips decades later and when he met up with Julia Baird to reveal his secret life with Mimi, he showed her a pair of cufflinks which Mimi had given him and ones that originally had been a gift to her fiancé, the doctor at the Liverpool Convalescent Hospital.

 

Michael stayed at Mendips until the December of 1958 and had been around to witness the tragic death of Johns mother Julia, shortly after she had left Mendips to get the bus home to Springwood. *

So, by the Christmas of 1958 life for Mimi was very different as in that year she had lost her sibling Julia and her lover Michael Fishwick however her beloved John was still at her side but not for long and Mimi was about to face more adventures and challenges, life taking a very different turn for Mimi Smith.

 

My next and final blog on the first born of the Stanley girls will cover my research on Mimi’s final years at Mendips and then her move to Sandbanks in Dorset.

·      Julia’s death to be covered in a future blog on the fourth of the Stanley girls.

 

Before I leave the blog, I just wanted to share that i had the privilege of staying at 1 Blomfield Road on the 27th of May 2022, then owned by Jackie Holmes and would like to thank her for the opportunity of having the amazing experience of staying within the walls of Mimi’s “House of Sin”. Personally, I feel it was the house where John found happiness with his mother for a short period in their lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life of Aunt Mimi. Part Two

Mary Elizabeth Smith nee Stanley aka “Aunt Mimi” was the parental guardian and maternal aunt to John Winston Lennon.

In my first blog I covered the early life of Mimi and now to continue with the events that led to her becoming John’s parental guardian and life at “Mendips” 251 Menlove Avenue Woolton in the early days.

 

After Mimi’s marriage to George Toogood Smith on the 15th of September 1939 George was called away to war and Mimi and her young sister Julia who was married to Alf Lennon, stayed home at 9 Newcastle Road. By late 1939 Alfred Lennon was sailing from Liverpool to Montreal on the “Duchess of York” sailing across an extremely dangerous Atlantic Sea and George was probably on his way to join up as a member of the British Expeditionary Force to fight in the “Battle of France”. In January 1940 the “Duchess of York” was in port giving Alf a few days at Newcastle Road with his wife Julia and once Alf had returned to sea Julia discovered she was pregnant.

 

On Wednesday the 9th of October 1940 Julia gave birth to her first child a baby boy however his birth wasn’t registered until the 11th of November by his father Alf Lennon after he came ashore on leave on the 1st of November 1940. We have no proof of when and who named the baby, was it after his birth or when his father returned from sea, but on the 11th of November 1940 Julia and Alf’s son was named John Winston Lennon.

Contrary to many published accounts, established most probably from Mimi’s account of that night, John Lennon was not born during an air raid. However, on Tuesday the 8th of October 1940, as reported in the edition of the Northern Daily Mail dated the 9th of October, there are reports of an air raid over Liverpool on the evening before, but with no bombs dropped. Then in the Liverpool Echo, 11th October edition there is a report of a raid over Liverpool on the 10th of October describing the Merseyside A.A defences breaking up several formations of enemy raiders before they could reach vital points in Liverpool.

 

We have Mimi’s accounts of being caught up in a raid as she walked the nearly three-mile distance from Newcastle Road to the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital where John had been born. As Alf was away at sea on the “Empress of Canada” Mimi was the first member of the family to hold her nephew John. Historians have published the time of John’s birth as either 7 a.m. or possibly 6.30 pm on the 9th of October and these times are critical to the story of the air raid that Mimi so clearly details.

In my opinion these are two possible scenarios for Mimi’s account of her visit to the hospital to see her baby nephew.

A)    John was born in the early morning of the 9th and Mimi walked from Newcastle Road in the late evening of the 8th to arrive at the hospital and given Julia was supposed to have had a thirty-hour labour she certainly would have been aware of the air raid sirens and the sense of panic around his birth. Mimi would have been also aware as she hurried through the streets.

B)    Mimi didn’t visit the maternity hospital till the day of the 10th of October, possibly in the evening placing her with Julia and baby John at the time of the air raid on the 10th and most certainly on her return journey home in the early hours of the morning when the raid was fading.

These are simply my theories as I struggle to understand as to why Mimi felt the need to make up the story with respect to being caught up in an air raid. Just my thoughts! 

 

So, a few days later Julia returned to her Mama and Pop at Newcastle Road. Mimi however who had never wanted children of her own was smitten with her baby nephew John and little did she realise from that day on, the challenges and adventures that she had yearned for were in the not-so-distant future to come true. 

By the time young John was two and half years old, George Smith had returned home from war, sometime during the years 1942-1943 and George was suffering from the effects of war and according to Mimi not the man she married in 1939.

 

The early days of John Lennon’s life has been covered by numerous authors and historians, and those with an avid interest in Beatles history are very much aware of the sequence of events, but how and when did John become separated from his mother and come to have a parental guardian who in fact was also his Aunt Mimi.

When the electoral registers were resumed after the end of the war in 1945, Mimi and George T Smith were living in their new home at 251 Menlove Avenue, the home that was to be a pivotal force in John’s life for the next twenty years. In about 1943 Alfred had gone AWOL (a story for another day) however even before Julia was attending the local dances and enjoying life, but rather to much as in late 1944 she found herself pregnant.

 

When Alf eventually returned to Liverpool on 13 January 1945, he offered to look after Julia, their son and the expected baby, but Julia rejected the idea. Alf took John to his brother Sydney’s house, in the Liverpool suburb of Maghull, a few months before the birth. The baby girl, born on the 19^{th of} June at the Salvation Army Elmswood Hospital on North Mossley Hill Road, named Victoria Elizabeth was subsequently given up for adoption (after intense pressure from Julia’s father, Mimi and family) to a Norwegian Salvation Army Captain. Julia and John lived at George Smith’s family home 120a Allerton Road before she gave birth and then returned to her father at Newcastle Road after Victoria had been adopted.  Julia then met John Albert “Bobby” Dykins while working at the “Coffee House” Church Road Wavertree and began walking out with him. Mimi was outraged and backed by her father she insisted that John be allowed to stay with her at Mendips while the immoral situation that Julia was in was sorted out. Many historians have quoted Mimi to have said that although she never wanted children, she most certainly wanted John and that wish was now coming true.

 

In June 1946, Alf visited Mimi’s house at 251 Menlove Avenue where John was now living and asked to take his son to Blackpool for a long holiday and Mimi agreed without consultation with John’s mother. Alf Lennon however was secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him but over the decades this has since been disputed. Julia and Bobby found out and followed them to Blackpool, and after a heated argument Alf made the five-year-old boy choose between Julia or him. John chose Alf (twice) and then Julia walked away, but in the end John, crying, followed her.

 

Bobby had secured a small flat** believed to be sited in Gateacre and on their return from Blackpool Julia took her son back to live with her and Bobby in the flat. John was attending Mosspits Lane Primary School Mosspits Lane Wavertree a short walk from 9 Newcastle Road and half a mile from where Julia was working at the “Coffee House”. Julia and Bobby had to share their one bed with Julia’s son John and the living conditions were far from suitable and after considerable pressure from Mimi, who twice contacted Liverpool’s Social Services to complain about the five-year-old John sleeping in the same bed as Julia and Dykins, Julia reluctantly handed the care of her son to Mimi. Mimi had finally won her quest for her nephew John Lennon.

 

 

** The flat mentioned above has eluded Beatles historians and fans for decades and presumed in Gateacre.  Last year during my research I stumbled upon an address on the 1946 electoral register for Julia Lennon & Bobby Dykins and they were residing at 51 Menlove Gardens West. The flat was above a garage known as Dudlow Motors. The full story can be found on my facebook group page “Journeying Through the Lives of the Beatles” printed on the 8th of September 2022 and is just one of my discoveries that I am proud of. 

 

John began his life at Mendips in about the Autumn of 1946, Mimi immediately secured a place for John at Dovedale Primary School, Herondale Road close to Penny Lane and two miles from Menlove Ave. Mimi’s father insisted that Mimi bring John to spend time with his mother and Bobby at 9 Newcastle Road and this went on until George Stanley’s death on the 2nd of March 1949 and after this Mimi took complete control of her nephew.

 

There are too many stories and events of Johns life at Mendips to cover in this one small blog so at this stage i will just continue with Mimi’s story.

 

George Toogood Smith was discharged from the armed forces sometime between 1942 and 1943 but without evidential records this is only supposition and Mimi described George as being depleted after the war and never the same man again. On his return George went to work at an airplane factory in Speke and probably being that of Rootes which produced sixty Halifax Bombers a month and employed 13,000 people who worked long hours however, it could have been possible that George worked at the other factory in Speke which was known as the Lockheed factory. After the war ended in May 1945 the factory eventually became the Dunlop factory where generations of families in Speke worked. George returned to the milk business for a short while after the war but then to the disagreeable Mimi, George tried an alternative career as a bookmaker, working out of Mendips in contravention of the current gaming laws but eventually abandoned the business, being persuaded by the risk of police prosecution and Mimi’s distaste for the type of people traipsing through her home. George had taken up a job as a nightwatchman at the Bear Brand Nylon Stocking factory which ironically had been built on the dairy land behind the farmhouse (120 Allerton Road). During the war the dairy farm and its lands had been requisitioned by the government and the original factory was built to make barrage balloons, so it went from silk balloons to silk stockings but nevertheless on land that his family once owned George was now a mere nightwatchman and then George took a night job cleaning the trams at the Woolton High Street tram depot. The site of the Bear Brand factory is now Tesco Woolton.

 

Mimi was getting annoyed with her husband as he started gambling and money was short and now, she had her beloved John to care for. So, Mimi set about adapting the two first floor bedrooms at Mendips into rooms that she could rent and adapted the dining room into living quarters for her and George, with John’s bedroom being the boxroom at the front of the house. Mimi was set to take in lodgers starting with girls from the nearby domestic science college at Dowesfield Lane only three hundred yards from Mendips, but Mimi didn’t like the fact there were young girls in the house so changed her tactics and took in male students from Liverpool University often those studying the veterinary profession.

Fanny Louise Calder was a promoter of education in domestic subjects in Liverpool. She began her school in 1875 at St Georges Hall and then within a few years the school moved to Colquitt Street, where in fact the young Mimi began school in 1911 at St Luke’s Colquitt Street. After World War ii the domestic science school known as F.L Calder’s College moved to Dowesfield Lane.

 

After abandoning the idea of renting her rooms to the girls from the college Mimi advertised her rooms to university students and the lodgers paid £3 a week for breakfast and evening meal. Mimi loved animals and had at the time a dog and two cats and John grew up being an animal lover, so it was no surprise that she invariably went for students studying veterinary science and they treated her cats free of charge.

The data collected from the Liverpool electoral registers for 251 Menlove Avenue from 1945 to 1966 details the lodgers that spent time with Mimi at her home.

 

1945        George T Smith Mary E Smith Annie G Stanley & George Ernest Stanley.

1946/47  George T Smith Mary E Smith.

1948        George T Smith Mary E Smith Harold Phillips Bryan Martin.

1949        George T Smith Mary E Smith John Cavill.

1950        George T Smith Mary E Smith Charles D Wood Eric McDermid.

1951        George T Smith Mary E Smith John E Ellison.

1952        George T Smith Mary E Smith Michael J Fishwick.

1953        George T Smith Mary E Smith Michael J Fishwick Alexander Lowcock.

1954        George T Smith Mary E Smith Michael J Fishwick.

1955        George T Smith Mary E Smith Michael J Fishwick.

1956        Mary E Smith Michael J Fishwick. (George T Smith deceased 5th June 1955)

1957        Mary E Smith Michael J Fishwick.

1958        Mary E Smith Peter Wild Keith Capron.

1959        Mary E Smith Keith Capron Trevor Chesworth.

1961        Mary E Smith.

1962        Mary E Smith John Winston Lennon.

1963/66  Mary E Smith.

 

Bryan Martin one of Mimi’s first lodgers was in fact a veterinary science student and this pleased Mimi as he could attend to her pets for free of charge. I was able to locate tow references to Bryan Martin a) a newspaper article published by the Liverpool Veterinary School, publishing the results for Part ll which Martin had passed. b) an electoral register entry for a Bryan Martin living at Flat 25 Aigburth Park St Michaels Road Liverpool in 2005 (this is simply a possibility). Liverpool Veterinary Science School was the first of the schools to be a part of a university, and the first to offer a degree in veterinary science and the school was situated on Great Newton Street. Living at the same time was Harold Phillips from Stoke on Trent who was studying English Literature and according to Martin presented John Lennon with a harmonica which to be able to keep Martin requested he learnt to play by the following day. John proved himself and was allowed to keep the harmonica even though Mimi insisted it be put away until Christmas.

During 1949 a John Cavill rented rooms but i can find little information other than he played piano but bought a guitar, learnt to play and would play along with John.

John Edward James Ellison lived with Mimi and George in 1951 but the following two years was living in student accommodation at 2 Elm Hall Road near Penny Lane. He was later to marry Nesta Elizabeth Jenkins (born in Liverpool 1933) in April 1956 at Liverpool and who had at the time been living with her parents at 2 Elm Hall Road. In 1960 the couple were living at Warwick Square Mews London and the family eventually emigrated to Canada.

 

Another veterinary student was a Thomas Keith Capron who after his first two years at veterinary school moved in at Menlove Avenue and stayed between 1956 to 1959 and he to remembers looking after Mimi’s beloved cats. Keith tried to persuade Lennon to become a vet, but John thankfully chose his own path. At the time that Keith was living at Mendips he was lucky to witness the beginnings of the most famous band in the world as he listened to three teenage boys jamming on their guitars. After qualifying Keith returned to Glamorganshire where he was born in 1936 and set up a veterinary practice in Morgan Street Pontypridd (still there today and called Park Vets) and when he retired Keith lived in Pentyrch near Cardiff.

Other students on the electoral registers lodging at Menlove Avenue with Mimi were Peter Wild, Trevor Chesworth, Alexander Lowcock, and Eric McDermidd but to date my research has failed to find any relevant information to connect them to the university or Mimi.

Michael John Fishwick, a Biochemistry student began lodging with Mimi and George in about 1952 and his life connections with Mimi have been great interest to Beatles historians over the decades. I have recently discovered a relative through marriage of Michaels whose name will remain private. As Michaels time at Mendips is very significant in Mimi’s life story, I will cover Mr Fishwick in the next blog.

 

When researching the electoral registers, I found that George Smith’s sister Eleanor Smith born on the 17th of December 1894 who married Albert John Rothwell on the 5th of September 1921, was living at 269 Menlove Avenue, living there at least before 1939. It's interesting to see that Albert Rothwell was an Account Salesclerk and his address on the marriage certificate was 158 Allerton Road and this address after 1923 was the offices for the Welsh builder J W Jones & Sons who were in fact the builders that built Mendips and the adjacent houses on Menlove Avenue. Was it possible that Albert Rothwell worked for J W Jones when he took over 158 Allerton Road in 1923. See full details of the Welsh builder on my group page published on the 31st of May 2022. So, Mimi’s sister-in-law lived only nine houses away and I wonder if they had a close relationship and how well did John know his aunty, Eleanor! Living at Mendips in 1939 was Ernest Brideson Harrop whose occupation was a Bank Clerk, finally moving to Worthing Nr Brighton.

 

 

 

 

Mimi devoted herself completely to the care of John and was able to give the young Lennon’s life order and structure that according to Mimi he hadn’t received living with his mother and partner Bobby Dykins. Mimi’s care, however, was not maternal and she remained at heart a hospital nurse who ran her home and its occupants like a hospital ward.

Lennon however developed a lovingly relationship with his uncle George and George himself loved John as if he was his own child, the son he had never had with Mimi. Julia Baird tells us in her book “Imagine This” that George and Mimi never consummated the marriage, knowledge she gleamed from the student Michael Fishwick but the reason for, will never be known, a private decision between the couple but certainly a reason for them having no children of their own. Mimi didn’t care, she had her beloved John, and many believe that was her ambition from the first time she held baby John in the Oxford Street Maternity Hospital.

 

In the early 1950’s Mimi was relying heavily on the rent collected from her university students and as Michael Fishwick recalls their rent money was over the odds. George was struggling to provide a decent wage for his family and his gambling habits were getting out of control. Mimi knew that after George returned home from the war, his experiences had changed him and he was by far the same person that she had met and married and so, times were changing for Mimi and in the next blog I will cover her life without George, Julia’s death, Michael J Fishwick and living with the Quarrymen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life of Aunt Mimi. Maternal Aunt and Legal Guardian of John Lennon. Part one.

 Annie Jane Millward met George Ernest Stanley sometime in 1898, George was a sailor and Annie was a seamstress and later that year Annie fell pregnant and on the 17th of July 1899 she delivered a baby girl whom they named Charlotte Alice Stanley however tragedy struck when she passed away on the 11th of April 1900. Annie and George were living at 21 Fletcher Street when their baby daughter was baptised on the 26th of July 1899 however by the time Charlotte was buried, they were living at 2 Saint Luke’s Terrace. Another move took them to Grey Street and here Annie delivered her next child George Ernest junior on the 12th of January 1903, but he too passed away on the 9th of April 1903 at eleven weeks old.

 

After the tragic loss of their first two children George and Annie’s life finally became complete in 1916 after the birth of their five daughters known as “The Stanley Girls”. Their fourth daughter was to become the mother and the other four, aunts of the man who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles, John Winston Lennon. Since the Beatles fame the lives of the “Stanley Girls” has always been of keen interest to the Beatles historians and their stories are documented either in the many Beatles websites to be found on the internet or if you prefer reading a book then amongst hundreds if not thousands of books written about the Beatles. 

John Lennon himself was later to make comment about his mother and four aunts.

“Five fantastic, strong, beautiful and intelligent women”

 

So, this is my research, starting with the first-born Mary Elizabeth Stanley. I have written about Mimi’s life in a previous blog but not in such detail and so this is the first of several blogs’ covering her life in Liverpool and her final days in Dorset.

 

Mary Elizabeth Stanley “Mimi” maternal aunt and parental guardian to John Lennon was born on the 24th of April 1906 in rented rooms at 21 Windsor Street and she was named after the matriarch of the family her grandmother Mary Elizabeth Millward nee Morris and in later years Mimi certainly lived up to her grandmother’s matriarch role within the family. Mary Elizabeth was baptised at St James’s Church Toxteth on the 23rd of May 1906 and six months before her parents were married. The family next moved to Cornwallis Street and it was here that Mimi’s parents married on the 19^th of November 1906 at St Peter’s Church, Church St Liverpool.

 

Mimi’s father George had no intention of working in factories along the dockside, for him it was a life at sea, with fewer hardships and a chance to see beyond Liverpool. He spent years at sea working as a sail maker and in fact worked on the famous tall ships. So, Annie and George’s children were born in quick succession well at least to coincide with her husband’s time back in Liverpool and before his return to sea, however the conscientious husband George finally surrendered his work at sea after all his girls had been born and took to working on a shoreside job with the Liverpool & Glasgow Tug Salvation Company and by 1921 he was employed by Harland & Wolf Engineers and Ship Repairers.

 

As Mimi grew up in the streets of Toxteth her parents were said to have lived and rented a great many properties that were bought by Mimi’s strong headed grandmother from North Wales, Mary Millward was to have inherited a large sum of pound notes, believed to have come from one of her wealthy Welsh uncles.  My research to date presents no evidence of such an inheritance although the story has been told verbally by Lennon’s cousin Stanley Parkes and in print by John’s sister Julia Baird however having spent much time researching the Morris family in North Wales I find it very difficult to understand why an inheritance was left to a lady who had left home in 1871 bringing disgrace on her family and leaving behind her baby son to be adopted, but who knows! Whatever the reason for this frequent moving from one property to another meant that the Stanley girls didn’t stay at any one address for long. 

 

At the age of five Mimi was ready to start primary school and this was to be at St Luke’s Church of England school at the corner of Colquitt and Seel Street and by now the family were living at 36 Lydia Ann Street less than six hundred yards from the school. Mimi’s baby sister Elizabeth Jane known as “Mater” was born on the 29th of August 1908 at 5 Emerson Street and at the time of the 1911 census (recorded on the 2nd of April) Mimi was living with her mother Annie who was two months pregnant and three-year-old sibling at Lydia Ann Street, with her father George away at sea.

St Luke’s CE school originated in Cropper Street but moved to the corner of Seel and Colquitt Street in 1870.  Admission details for St Luke’s were “Mary Stanley daughter of George Stanley, address 36 Lydia Ann Street, admission on the 19th of June 1911”. The Stanley’s third daughter Anne Georgina known as “Nanny” was born on the 17th of November 1911 at 36 Lydia Ann Street. According to the electoral registers the Stanleys remained at Lydia Ann Street until about late 1913 however sometime before the March of 1914 they had moved to 33 Head Street, and it was there on the 12th of March 1914 that Julia known as “Judy” was born. Many historians document Mimi’s next school to be that of Windsor Street Wesleyan school and although I haven’t been successful in locating the school records, I deem it highly likely Mimi and Mater in view of the school’s distance from Head Street were in attendance there.

 

The next move for Mimi and her family was to 23 Cedar Grove just off Lodge Lane and it was here the family settled from about late 1915 until there next move in 1920 to 31 Churchill Street.

Mary Stanley as she was listed on the admissions records for Tiber Street Council school started school there on the 16^th of April 1917 at the age of eleven, with both her sisters Elizabeth Jane aged nine, and Annie Georgina aged six enrolling at the school the same day and on the 28^th of May 1916 the Stanley’s family was complete with the birth of their fifth daughter Harriet “Harrie” Stanley. Mimi lived at 23 Cedar Grove until 1920 when the family moved to their next home where they resided for ten years and that was at 31 Churchill Street.  The 1921 census was recorded on the 19th of June 1921 a late recording due to industrial upheaval and by then George had finally succumbed to a job with Harland & Wolf Engineers and Ship Repairers on land so he could support his wife with his five daughters. Mimi was fifteen and would have left school as in 1921 the official school leaving age was made fourteen.

It is interesting to note that Julia Stanley started at Tiber Street Council School on the 24th of March 1919 only eighteen months before the Stanleys moved to Churchill Street and note her date of birth, the 14th of March 1914!  So did Mimi’s younger siblings remain at Tiber Street school which was a mile walk from their home in Churchill Street and the answer was yes.  Harriet Stanley’s records show her admission to Tiber Street Council school on the 11th of April 1921 whilst residing at 31 Churchill Street.

 

Having left school and living at Churchill Street Mimi was growing up to be a headstrong young girl and very sure of herself taking any opportunity to argue with her father and these arguments often ending in loud shouting matches. Mimi assumed a matriarch role in the house helping her mother and as each new baby had come along Mimi was expected to step up the role in her home duties.  As the 1920’s were fading away the Stanleys made their next move and in 1930 they moved to a rented flat at 71a Berkley Street where they lived until 1937-38. Berkley Street was a road of impressive Georgian terraced houses which had been built for the rich Liverpool merchants however by the 1930’s the houses had been taken up by private landlords, divided into flats and allowed to fall into disrepair.

Mary Elizabeth Millward (Mimi’s grandmother) was living with the family in Churchill Street and moved with them to Berkley Street where she passed away in 1932 at the age of seventy-eight.

 

When Mimi left home unlike her sisters’ marriage and having children were furthest from her mind and all she talked about was challenges and adventures and as we well know they certainly came her way! So, Mimi started work as a trainee nurse at Liverpool Convalescent Hospital Allerton Road Woolton taking her story from the grimy streets of Toxteth to the leafy streets in the suburbs of Liverpool. After her workday was finished Mimi would make the daily journey back to Toxteth catching the tram from the Menlove Avenue boulevard wondering if her father would be home edging for a heated discussion.

The next period of Mimi’s life is a little vague and historians have many different accounts.

Mark Lewisohn the author of “All These Years-Extended Special Edition-Volume One Tune In” in my opinion has the right answer. Many historians and authors describe Mimi as working in the hospital and then going on to be a private secretary for a business magnate Ernest Vickers who owned and lived in big houses both in Manchester and Liverpool.

Mark however thinks after starting her training at the Liverpool Convalescent Hospital in about 1927 that Mimi fell in love with a young doctor presumably working at the hospital where she was a trainee nurse. The couple got engaged but then tragedy struck when the young doctor contracted an infection from one of the patients and sadly passed away leaving a very distraught Mimi. Mimi was never to talk about this part of her life, was it to be kept a secret because marrying the young doctor was far from being a part of the adventures and challenges, she had bragged about to her family. Mark Lewisohn’s story of the following events in Mimi’s life was that after her fiancé passed away Mimi went to work in North Wales for a business magnate. When you look at the electoral registers for Liverpool, Mary Elizabeth Stanleys name doesn’t reappear until the 1929-1930 electoral register and then she was back at the Liverpool Convalescent and this time as a resident nurse. *

 

Sometime between 1929 and 1930 the Stanleys had moved to Berkley Street and their first-born daughter had returned to the Liverpool Convalescent Hospital as a resident nurse. Liverpool Convalescent Hospital is now operating as a care home called Woolton Manor. The hospital known as the Liverpool Convalescent Institution, owes its origin to the surplus from the Liverpool Cotton District Relief Fund (due to the Cotton Famine of 1862) and when Mimi was nursing there the number of patients would have been over three thousand. In 1932 Mimi met George Toogood Smith who lived across the road from the hospital at 120 Allerton Road and he delivered milk to the hospital every morning. George and his brother Frank operated a dairy farm and shop in Woolton that had been in the Smith family for four generations and what followed was a very long courtship due to Mimi’s indifferences and her father’s interference.

 

While Mimi was working at the hospital and courting George T Smith, her parents moved from Berkley Street into a flat at 22 Huskisson Street. Huskisson Street was amid the Georgian Quarter and today many of the beautiful buildings along the street are Grade ii listed and the street was named after William Huskisson a Liverpool MP in the early nineteenth century. Mimi’s younger sister Julia Stanley (John Lennon’s mother) was still living with her parents, and it was from 22 Huskisson Street that she married Alfred Lennon in December 1938 and according to the 1939-1940 Electoral register printed on the 15th of October 1939 Julia was still living at number 22 with her parents and surname was still Stanley.

 

With World War ll imminent Mimi’s parents had been offered the use of a house in a suburb five miles out of the city known as Penny Lane and this was of course 9 Newcastle Road. They were living in Newcastle Road by the time of the 1939 register which was recorded on the 29th of September; however, it was only Mary Elizabeth and Julia’s names on the register with their mother Annie living in Birkenhead with her daughter Elizabeth. In 1939, Mimi’s father George who worked for the “Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association was said to have been amongst those on the mission to salvage the “HMS Thetis” which sank during a trial dive off the North Wales Coast on the 1st of June 1939. Although the timeline doesn’t coincide the company intentionally grounded ashore the “Thetis” at Traeth Bychan Marianglas near Benllech Anglesey on the day war broke the 3rd of September 1939, making George away from home at the time of the census.

 

After seven years of courting Mimi, George Toogood Smith was getting impatient and, in the September of 1939, he gave her an ultimatum and they were married on the 15th of September 1939 at the Bolton Street registry office where less than a year previous her sister Julia had married Alf Lennon. Mary Elizabeth’s surname was originally recorded as Stanley which is a puzzle as by the date of the register Mimi would have been a Smith. Bearing in mind that Mimi’s mother was living in Birkenhead and her father was salvaging submarines at the time of her marriage to George it’s unlikely her parents were present at the wedding. When funds allow, I will purchase the marriage certificate and hopefully find out more.

During the years 1940-1945 no electoral registers or censuses were recorded due to the war and the 1939 register taken on the 29th of September was used to produce identity cards and once rationing was introduced in January 1940, to issue ration books. As there are no records available for this period I have relied on the research of other historians and members of family with respect to Mimi’s life during the war years with a few of my own findings and suppositions.

 

So, Mimi had married George a couple of weeks after the Second World War broke out and soon after George was called up to fight in France with Mimi and her younger sister Julia staying home at 9 Newcastle Road. Curiously George was recorded on the 1939 register as living with his family at 48 High Street Woolton so although the couple were married, they both lived with their families after their marriage.

It was at the age of thirty-six that George was called up to fight with the British Expeditionary Force which took part in the Battle of France in May-June of 1940. The battle ended in serious defeat for the British and it was a desperate retrieval of the British troops from the Dunkirk beaches.

The Battle of France was known as the Western Campaign, the French Campaign and the Fall of France and began on the 10^th of May 1940 and ceased on the 25^th of June 1940. According to historians George was away from home for three years and when he returned home, he was a changed man, the war years having depleted him. Some historians place Mimi and George living in Vale Road before moving to their home at “Mendips” 251 Menlove Ave but due to the lack of records there is no proof of such a story except that Julia Baird (John Lennon’s half-sister) writes in her book “Imagine This” that Mimi and George had lived in Vale Road (possibly number 76) and their garden backed on to that of Mendips. Mimi having a clear view of the house one day noticed the tenants at 251 Menlove Avenue were moving out and Mimi quickly moved their belongings over the fence and moved in before the owner of “Mendips” found out! The owner of the property had been waiting to sell and now had no choice other than to sell to Mimi and George Smith. According to the last electoral register recorded before the war (1939-1940) the couple living at 251 Menlove Avenue were an Ernest Bridson and Mildred Mary Harrop nee Austin so were these the couple Mimi saw leaving from her garden that day. Ernest was a bank clerk and he and his wife had lived at number 251 since 1934, probably making them the initial tenants, the houses being built circa 1933.

 

While George was away at war Mimi lived for periods of time at 9 Newcastle Road as did her sister Julia Lennon helping their father look after their mother who sadly died at the age of sixty-seven in April 1941.  Mimi was staying at Newcastle Road when her nephew John Winston Lennon was born on the 9th of October 1940. Julia Baird confirms in her book that the time they flitted to Mendips was not long before Julia Lennon was pregnant with her second child named Victoria Elizabeth Lennon and who was born on the 19th of June 1945.

 

In the next blog I will continue my research, with the birth of Mimi’s nephew John and how he came into his aunt and uncles’ life and Mimi’s life at “Mendips” Menlove Avenue Woolton.

*After completing tis blog I was fortunate to make another discovery that has long evaded Beatles historians and authors, the business magnate that employed Mimi Stanley as his personal secretary and this covered later in the series.