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 19th 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.
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