John Lennon’s Aunt Mater Part 1

 The second maternal aunt of John Lennon’s to be born was John’s favourite aunt apart from Mimi and this lady was Elizabeth Jane Stanley or known to the family as “Mater” or “Betty”. Elizabeth Jane Stanley was born on the 29th of November 1908 to George Ernest and Annie Jane Stanley nee Millward whilst they were living at 5 Emerson Street Liverpool, and she was baptised at St James’ Church in Toxteth Park on the 9th of December 1908. In 1913 when Elizabeth was due to start school the family were still living at 36 Lydia Ann Street and as her sister Mimi was already enrolled at St Luke’s Colquitt Street.

The first census record for Elizabeth was in 1911 when her mother Annie, sister Mary Elizabeth and herself at three years old were living at 36 Lydia Ann Street. The first logbook for Elizabeth’s admission to a school was for the Tiber Street Council School and Elizabeth was enrolled on the 16th of April 1917 and the family were living at 23 Cedar Grove just off Lodge Lane. After taking a closer study of the admissions log, Elizabeth and Mary both previously attended Windsor Street Wesleyan School at the corner of Upper Hill Street and would indicate that Mary would have only attended St Luke’s for two years, before moving in 1913 to Windsor Street. When Mater was at school leaving age of about fourteen to fifteen in 1923 the family were living at 31 Churchill Street and when Mater was eligible for voting, her first entry in the Liverpool Electoral Registers was at 71a Berkeley Street.

According to the family Mater was a stunning beauty and not short of admirers. Mater could have picked from many eligible suitors however she was to marry a divorced man, fourteen years her elder, a sea captain and his name was Charles Molyneux Parkes.

Charles Molyneux Parkes was born on the 9th of June 1894 in Manor Park Essex to William Mason and Rebecca Sarah Parkes nee Strahan. In 1901 the Parkes family had moved to Liverpool and were living at 59 St Johns Road Waterloo and Charles’s father William was a commercial traveller and his mother a milliner shopkeeper. At the age of twenty-one and on the 13th of August 1915 Charles was awarded a “Certificate of Competency” as a second mate for foreign going steamships only in the merchant service and on the 21st of December 1917 was based at *Melcombe Regis with the UK Navy, 

On the 16th of December 1918 Charles M Parkes married the youngest daughter Emma “Emsie” of Alfred and Jane Knowler nee McDonald (born in Scotland) at St Luke’s church Crosby. Emma’s father Alfred had passed away the year she was born in 1896 leaving Jane widowed with a young family. Emma’s brother Alfred Knowler (sometimes written Knowles) had been a ships steward so possibly how Charles was introduced to Emma. Before their marriage Charles had been awarded on the 15th of August 1918 a *Mercantile Marine Ribbon and his resident address was Canning Place Liverpool and then on the 20th of August 1921 he was awarded a Mercantile Marine Medal. By 1921 Charles and his wife Emma were living with Emma’s widowed mother Jane and her siblings at Morningside Crosby Liverpool. Charles started employment in 1921 with Messrs E H Bushell Fletcher & King Consulting Engineers & Marine Surveyors as a marine surveyor. 

• Melcombe Regis is an ancient parish in Dorset that covers what is now the town centre of Weymouth and it was where injured troops from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp (Anzac) were billeted to recuperate.

• Mercantile Marine Medals.  These are records of the issuing of awards and medals

to merchant seamen and officers in the First World War

Messrs Bushell Fletcher & King were based at 41 Castle Street Liverpool which was a very well-known business in the early twentieth century and the building and adjacent properties, all heritage buildings are today hotels or apartments in Castle Street. Emma and Charles Parkes lived in Crosby living at “Melcombe Regis” 2 St Andrews Drive and there is a possibility that they had one child, a daughter and after patiently searching ancestry I finally proved that they did in fact have a child. *In April 1928 whilst living at Crosby Emma gave birth to a baby daughter and they named her Rosemary. In the early 1930’s Charles bought a bungalow in the Halewood area at 117 Higher Road for him and his wife Emma and two-year-old daughter, contrary to the belief he purchased this home for his second wife Elizabeth “Mater”, This information can be found from the electoral registers, confirming the fact that Charles already owned the property at Halewood before his marriage to Elizabeth Stanley.

Emma Knowler parted company with Charles Parkes and she and her daughter Rosemary moved to 20 Salisbury Road Wavertree. She met Daniel Wilfrid MyleChreest and took his surname however Emma didn’t marry Daniel until 1971 but no marriage records on the Lancashire BMD only on ancestry. Her daughter Rosemary married Norman Robinson in 1953 at St Marys South Drive Wavertree about a mile from their home in Salisbury Road which coincidentally was the adjacent road to Cecil Street where the Harrisons lived in the early thirties. I can’t locate their whereabouts after the marriage but constantly looking. 

• Rosemary Robinson nee Parkes was Stan Parkes (John Lennon’s cousin), half-sister but no direct relation to Lennon.

The next chapter of Elizabeth Jane Stanleys life was her marriage at the Liverpool Registry Office in 1932 to Charles Molyneux Parkes and their first home was at 117 Higher Road Halewood at the home that Charles had already moved into with his first wife. So, Mater was the first Stanley daughter to marry but sadly this wouldn’t be for very long. On the 20th of February 1933 Mater gave birth to her son and the only child she was to have, and he was named Charles Stanley Parkes and he was to be forever known as Stanley or “Stan”. Stan was born prematurely weighing in at just under two pounds and was not expected to live and so he was baptised within hours of his birth. Annie Jane Stanley, Stan’s maternal grandmother sat all through the night with her daughter feeding Stan with a pen filler and Mater and her baby boy stayed with her family who were now living at 71a Berkely Street, for the next few weeks before returning home to 117 Higher Road. Mater and her family moved just after 1934 to two doors away from Mater’s parents at 73a Berkeley Street however this was not for long as by 1936 the family had moved across the river Mersey to “Ardmore” 486 Old Chester Road Egerton Park Rock Ferry. On the 1939 register the last register available till after the Second World War, Mater, Charles and son Stan have living with them Annie Jane Stanley (Mater’s mother) and Annie Georgina Stanley (Mater’s sibling) who in fact bought the house years later from her sister.

Due to lack of records throughout the years 1940-1945 due to World War Two it's difficult to establish exactly what happened in Charles and his wife’s life together during that period. In 1942 at the young age of nine Stan was enrolled in Rossall, a public school in Fleetwood. My research into Mater’s life throughout the decade of the forties presently leaves a few stones unturned but what follows is my research at present.

During 1940 Mater was in Preston where she met up with a Robert Hugh Sutherland who was an army dentist, and I would imagine from what happened five years later that Robert found Mater a very desirable lady however he didn’t see her again until 1944. Mater had a friend by the name of Mrs M Carden (Camden) who lived in Preston so is this how she met Bert Sutherland who was serving as an Army Dentist possibly at the Fulwood Barracks.

Without electoral registers it is difficult to establish in what year Charles and Mater sold “Ardmore” to Annie Georgina Cadwallader nee Stanley however here comes the puzzle.

On Sunday the 6th of August 1944 Captain Charles Molyneux Parkes died at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary Wigan while staying at the Railway Hotel Appley Lane Shevington Wigan Lancashire and his funeral took place on Thursday the 10th of August at Parbold Cemetery Wigan. A very brief announcement placed in the Liverpool Echo on the 10th of August 1944. Then according to a legal notice placed in the Liverpool Daily Post on the 11th of May 1945 requesting any Creditors or others having claims on Charles’s estate must hereby be required to send their particulars and claims. Administration (with will) was left on the 22nd of November !944 to Elizabeth Jane Parkes widow. Effects £8314.5s

The legal notice places the widow out of district with Elizabeth Jane Parkes residing at 111 Bold Street Fleetwood.

So, life started in Fleetwood for Mater and her son Stan and in fact until she married again in 1949. Stan was only eleven when his father passed away and his four-year-old cousin John Lennon was about to face a few turbulent years in his life back in Liverpool. Stan’s father Charles had died at the young age of fifty leaving Elizabeth Jane his widow at just thirty-six. Mater decided to enrol her son Stan as a day pupil at Rossall as she could no longer afford to pay the boarding fees. Stan remembered their first accommodation in Fleetwood to be at 33 Galloway Road where his mother took up post as a domestic servant with Mr John Wignall Hodson. Mr Hodson had been born in Newcastle upon Tyne to James Hodson, a Wesleyan Methodist Minister and his wife Nanny Hodson nee Wignall. Mater’s employer John was a solicitor, and he married a Sarah Lord Grimshaw. Apparently, Mr Hodson enjoyed a game of billiards and had an extension built onto the back of his house for a professional sized billiards and snooker table to be installed. John Hodson was good friends with the famous snooker player Joe Davis, and he would often stay at 33 Galloway Road.

John Lennon spent several childhood summer holidays at Fleetwood with his aunt Mater and cousin Stan during the years 1947-1949. John had great fun at Fleetwood and became close to his cousin Stan and his aunt Mater who would often take them swimming in the open-air pool at Fleetwood and the famous Derby Baths at the nearby Blackpool. Mater’s last residence was at 90 The Esplanade where she worked as a housekeeper for a Mr S F Shipway. Sydney Frank Shipway born in 1883 at Birmingham and married Agnes Alexander Little in 1911 and coincidentally lived at 4 Galloway Road in the 1930’s. Agnes sadly died in 1935 and Sydney who was a timber merchant moved to 90 The Esplanade and sometime between 1947 and 1948 Mater moved there with Stan to live with Mr Shipway and John enjoyed a couple of holidays with his aunt Mater in her new home.

Robert H Sutherland had originally met Elizabeth Jane in 1940 at Preston before being posted to Italy and after his return post war he heard that Charles Parkes had passed away and found Elizabeth and Stan in Fleetwood and they began courting. 

Robert Hugh Sutherland married Elizabeth Jane Parkes on the 30th of November 1949 at the Fleetwood Congregational Church. Mr Sydney Shipway gave the bride away to her future husband and the matron of honour was Elizabeth’s friend Mrs M Canden. The minister was Reverend F G Ewen and after the service the family went to the Mount Hotel Fleetwood before the happy couple left for their honeymoon in Southport.

Sadly, Elizabeth’s former employer and friend John Wignall Hodson passed away on the 16th of February 1949 so never witnessed her marriage to Bert.

Elizabeth Jane Parkes nee Stanley was now Mrs Elizabeth Jane Sutherland, and the next part of her life was to take her one hundred and ninety miles from her home in Fleetwood a town and parish within the Wyre district of Lancashire to the city of Edinburgh and two hundred and twenty miles from the streets of Toxteth where she had begun her life. 

My next blog will follow her life in Scotland and how important her new home became to the great John Lennon.

Forthlin Road and its residents

Allerton and South Liverpool is the city’s suburban heartland, offering a refreshing alternative to the city centre. It is an area of history, and it comprises of many beautiful parks, vibrant high streets, with shops, restaurants, bars and libraries. It has a number of public transport links including buses and trains and the John Lennon Airport as quickly accessible as is the M62 motorway. But why all this talk of Allerton and South Liverpool.

Allerton and surrounding areas have a close connection to the Beatles. Penny Lane, John Lennon’s home “Mendips” Menlove Avenue, Strawberry Field, we could mention so many more, but the other important connection is the former home of the McCartney family at number twenty, Forthlin Road.

Sir Lancelot Keay, an architect who was notable for being appointed as the “Director of Housing” in Liverpool was responsible for creating the housing estate at Speke and the social housing at Allerton and for in fact the creation of the houses in Forthlin Road. Forthlin Road was part of the Mather housing estate, and it was constructed by the Liverpool Council. These estates were built in order to provide working class families with alternative housing to the inner-city tenements. The houses on Forthlin Road were constructed between 1949-1952. McCartney’s house was a two-storey mid terraced house and was built by Costain’s for the sum of £1369.9s.1d and the land that the Mather estate was built on was bought from the Police Training College. Today if you look out of Paul and Mike’s bedroom window your view is clearly of the Merseyside Police Mounted Section, Operational Support Unit based at Greenhill Road Allerton. A good friend of mine Peter Hodgson found footage from a film on You Tube which captured the boys on top of the roof watching an event on the 22nd of June 1957. The footage was converted into a still photo and Mike McCartney featured it in his book “Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool” and this is what Mike had to say about it. “It was the police training college, horse show. Tickets were a fortune, so us McCartney boys would climb onto the shed roof each year with our deck chairs, so we could see it for free”. In the photo you see the white shirts of the boys sitting on the outhouse roof of the third terraced house from the right, and that was Paul and Mike. Peter recently set about an experiment to set the time the photo was taken by using the sun shadow on the wall of the last house. Peter discovered that the time the photo was captured would have been (take a minute or two) at 5 pm. Peter’s next discovery was that at 5 pm on the very same day, the 22nd of June 1957 Lennon was playing with the Quarrymen on the back of a coal lorry at Rosebery Street and they were the star attraction. Fourteen days later history was made when John met Paul at the Woolton Village Fete on the 6th of July 1957. These are the fascinating coincidences that amaze us Beatles historians and I have to remark on how good my friend Peter is at finding them. It was in fact Philip Kirkland that brought the connection of the Quarrymen at Rosebery St playing at the same time as Paul watching the event from his shed roof.

In the year of 1955 a family moved from 12 Ardwick Road in the Speke area to 20 Forthlin Road and they were James “Jim” and Mary Patricia McCartney and their two boys James Paul and Peter Michael, who at the time of the move were aged thirteen and eleven respectively. After they took up residence at 20 Forthlin Road the McCartney’s, would have been totally unaware of how the move would change their lives and those of the other residents in a very short time and Forthlin Road would be given status on the world map. At least a thousand books written by Beatles historians about the lives of the Beatles including their childhood homes flood the bookseller’s shelves and thousands of websites tell the story of the McCartneys living at 20 Forthlin Road including the National Trust who have owned the property since 1995.

In 1964 Paul McCartney decided it was time for his father Jim McCartney to move to a new home across the water from Forthlin Road and so Jim took up residence at a large house called “Rembrandt” Baskervyle Road Gayton Wirral. Jim McCartney married Angie Williams (widowed) on the 24th of November 1964 at St Bridget’s Church, Carrog, North Wales and they moved into “Rembrandt” with Angie’s small daughter Ruth. Jim McCartney was struggling with the copious amounts of fans flooding Forthlin Road and so he moved to get away from it all. However, that wasn’t the end of the story for the other residents on Forthlin Road whose lives were still affected after the McCartney’s left. Even to the present day, residents look out their windows to see a constant stream of tour guides followed by avid Beatles fans from all over the world just to catch a glimpse of the childhood home of the one Paul McCartney.

According to a newspaper article in the Liverpool Echo on the 8th of August 1998, a council tenancy card had been found at 20 Forthlin Road for Jim and his boys and the tenancy was dated 1957 and according to the card the first tenant at the house was a Mrs Hawkins, however the Liverpool Electoral Register for 1952 only lists residents at number 18 & 22, no recording made at number 20. By 1953 the residents at number 20 were Robert and Elizabeth Penman and it was the Penman’s that passed the tenancy to Jim and Mary McCartney in 1955. 

When the McCartneys did a moonlight flit in 1964 to the Wirral they had handed over the tenancy agreement to Mr and Mrs Ashley Thomas and Sheila Jones nee Fielding. Ashley Jones married Sheila Fielding at St Pauls Church Toxteth in July 1950. Ashley Jones who was born on the 27th of September 1924 lived at 20 Forthlin Road till his death in April 1990 and five years later Sheila living on her own, was getting fed up with the continual hordes of fans, so she sold the property to the National Trust. Sheila Jones nee Fielding was born on the 17th of March 1923 and passed away in April 2003, thirteen years after her husband Ashley. On the 22nd of June 1981 the Jones family bought 20 Forthlin Road from the Liverpool Council on the “Right to Buy Scheme” which was introduced by Margaret Thatcher. Ashley and Sheila Jones had three children who were born in the 1950’s, Ashley R Jones born January 1952, Keith Jones born January 1954 and their daughter Sheila born February 1956. It was Sheila Junior that met with Mike McCartney, Peter Nixon from the National Trust and Mrs Sheila Jones herself to negotiate the sale of 20 Forthlin Road to the National Trust and with Paul’s consent. Mrs Sheila Jones had been approached by a Japanese investor, but Sheila was concerned for her neighbours, as she couldn’t be sure of the investor’s intentions for the property. The McCartney’s were given the first option to buy but they refused, and it was sold to the National Trust. Sheila was said to have moved to be near her daughter Sheila who lived in Heswall.

So, what of the other residents in Forthlin Road, many living there at the same time as the McCartney’s and remaining there after they had left.

At number 22 Forthlin Road lived David and Rhona Richards nee Moffatt and they had moved into Forthlin Road in about 1952 and before that living half a mile away at 11 Wheatcroft Road. They were neighbours of the McCartney’s until 1964 when they to leave their home at 22 Forthlin Road and moved to 71 Menzies Street Toxteth.  It was on Menzies Street that another famous pop star Gerard Marsden “Gerry Marsden” was born on the 24th of September 1942 to Frederick and Mary Marsden nee McAlindin at 8 Menzies Street Toxteth. Gerry was managed by the Beatles manager Brian Samuel Epstein. The houses on Menzies Street were demolished in the 1970’s and so where the Richards went after I have no evidence although it’s possible, they moved to Skelmersdale. The fact that puzzles me, is that in 1949 the Richard’s lived in a detached house on Wheatcroft Road and then by 1952 they were living in a mid-terraced house at Forthlin Road and downsizing considerably. In 1964 they moved to a terraced house in the heart of Toxteth that six years later were demolished. Was it in 1964 they relocated due to the intense number of Beatles fans outside their home in Forthlin Road or had the family suffered some financial crisis. Nevertheless, the Richard’s family would have known the McCartneys and been witness to the birth of the greatest band ever and right on their doorstep.

Living on the other side of the McCartneys at 18 Forthlin Road was Thomas Gerard and Monica Bridget Gaule nee Rice who were married in October 1935 at Liverpool South Registry Office. They first lived at 6 Joliffe Street between 1935-1948 and were living only five hundred yards from the birthplace of Ringo Starr at 9 Madryn Street who was born on the 7th of July 1940. Ringo and his Mum Elsie moved to 10 Admiral Grove in 1944. Monica and Thomas had at least two children that I have found born in 1938 and 1939 and it is highly likely they would have known Ringo as a child and even attended the same school as the Gaule family remained at 6 Joliffe Street until 1949-50. When Paul and Mike McCartney arrived at 20 Forthlin Road at the age of thirteen and eleven they too would have befriended the Gaule family who lived next door and I wonder if they realised many years later the connection between their neighbours in the Dingle and those in Forthlin Road. Monica Bridget Gaule born on the 25th of April 1897 died at 18 Forthlin Road in October 1979. Her husband Thomas remarried a Gladys Howells in 1980 and remained at Forthlin Road till his death in March 1988 and he was cremated on the 31st of March 1988. Thomas’s occupation was that of a “chef” and it is clear from an article in the Liverpool Echo that he continued to rent out his previous accommodation at 6 Joliffe Street!!

A couple more families that are worth a mention are the Partington’s and Ireland’s.

William T Partington was born on the 25th of June 1923 and in 1939 lived with his family at 32 Duncombe Road South and at the age of sixteen was a “Senior Wages Clerk”. He married Vera Claydon in October 1948 at St Peters Church Woolton which was in the future play a huge part in the birth of the Beatles. Vera was born in Woolton in 1928 to William Henry and Matilda Partington nee Baker and lived at 6 Mason Street and Vera’s father was a “D.E. Greaser”. William and Vera lived at 17 Forthlin Road and Vera was still living in Forthlin Road on the Electoral Registers from 2003-2010. At the time of the sale of 20 Forthlin Road in 1995, Bill Partington gave an interview with the Liverpool Echo, and he described how Jim McCartney was extremely concerned for his neighbours, and his friends as after the Beatles hit the big time “hooligans” as Bill described them would flood the road looking for anything they could steal that might have a link to Paul McCartney. Bill went on to describe that he would go for a drink with Jim McCartney and one night Jim told Bill they were doing a moonlight flit. It’s also a fact that Vera’s parents were living right in the middle of Woolton and in fact lived opposite the Woolton Picture House, Mason Street. Were they at the village fete and then to find their daughter and son in law lived opposite Paul McCartney.

The last family of interest and mainly for myself was a Mr and Mrs Robert and Doris Louise Ireland nee Ramage. My two elder children’s (from my first marriage) grandfather was A.J. Ireland, and he was born in Edge Hill in 1927 and it would appear from quick research that Robert Ireland was possibly a cousin. We never knew the Ireland family from Liverpool as my father-in-law was not in contact with his Liverpool family. The Ireland’s lived at number 19 Forthlin Road neighbours to the Partington’s and living across the street to the McCartney’s and Doris actually died the year the house was sold to the National Trust.

There are many other neighbours that lived in Forthlin Road during the time the McCartney’s were in residence and including those I have researched many of these stayed on through the years that followed 1964 when the McCartneys left. The remaining residents were left to witness the road in Allerton where they had set up home, turn into one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world. In fact, all the immediate neighbours that I have covered apart from Sheila Jones and the Richard’s at number twenty-two stayed in Forthlin Road until they passed away.

They would have known Mary, Jim and the boys as the ordinary family living in their neighbourhood, helped Jim and the boys through the hard times after Mary's death in 1956 and indeed their children would have hung around with Paul and Mike. What a fascinating account of stories and memories these families at Forthlin Road could have written. All these people had a small part in this vast journey of four young boys from Liverpool.

A short history of Forthlin Road Allerton. 

 ,

Aunt Mimi moves from “Mendips” Liverpool to “Harbours Edge” Sandbanks in 1965

  

 

In the November of 1965 Mary Elizabeth Smith and Mr and Mrs Brighton signed the contract at the offices of estate agents Rumsey & Rumsey 11 Haven Road Canford Hills Dorset for the purchase of Mimi’s new home, Harbours edge 126 Panorama Road Sandbanks Poole Dorset. John Lennon paid the purchase price of £25000 for his aunt Mimi or as he called her “Mimi”.

 

After accompanying the Beatles on their tour to New Zealand and Australia aunt Mimi returned home to Mendips 251 Menlove Avenue and tried to settle back down to life in the leafy suburbs of Woolton however by 1965 Mimi was most definitely tiring of the constant hordes of Beatles fans peering into her house and some even entering the property to steal mementos. So, John and his wife Cynthia decided enough was enough and that Aunt Mimi must leave Liverpool to retire to a quiet place where she could enjoy life in peaceful surroundings. Mimi who was nearing sixty remained self-reliant and energetic but the strain from the daily pressure from the Beatles fan was taking its toll on Mimi. 

 

Mimi herself had always fancied living in one of the genteel South Coast resorts those that lay within easy reach of John’s home at Kenwood St George’s Hill and so the search began but for several months no locations or suitable properties could be found, Mimi would keep up correspondence with fans and one young girl by the name of Jane WIrgman and her sister Liz were regular correspondents. Mimi told Jane in the March of 1965 that she was avidly looking for properties and seen a lovely house called “The Moorings” at Bexhill but she didn’t want to live in Bexhill and told Jane that the next places to view would be around Worthing, Hove and Brighton. Mimi was to have second thoughts on the property at Bexhill but when the surveyors report landed through the post the property was riddled with woodworm and her next location to view was Bournemouth.

After reading a couple of such letters written to the fans, I have started to see another side to Mimi, and she is showing characteristics of kindness, wittiness, loving and caring. Mimi speaks well of John’s half-sisters and in the final paragraph of one of the letters she even has Julia to stay. 

 

“Have a nice holiday. John’s half-sister Julia is coming tomorrow. She’s working like mad on A Levels. She’s 18, is taking Russian as an extra, and not interested in the Beatles, much to John’s annoyance, and he’s not interested in her Russian—so— Bye to you and love Mimi”.  Letter written to Jane WIrgman in 1965.

 

Jane WIrgman was born in 1951 at Pancras London and worked for a company called Evington Ltd in which she was a director and resigned in 2018. The company was based at 8 Cadogan Road (Evington Buildings) Cromer Norwich and presumably the company took its name from the buildings and parkland behind it. If anyone has more information on Mimi’s friend Jane who loved both Mimi and John Lennon, then i would be most interested.

 

So consequently, John and Cynthia took Mimi to the Bournemouth area in the county of Dorset, and they viewed several properties and according to John, Mimi was very grumpy and certainly not in the mood for looking for her new home. Let’s think about it though! Mimi was leaving the only home she had known and loved, and in an interview many years later Mimi was quoted to say, “I’m Liverpool and John were Liverpool”. She was sincerely going to miss her little home at Mendips and all its memories whether they be happy or sad. 

Despite Mimi’s grumpiness that day John and Cynthia finally found her a home in the affluent neighbourhood of Poole Dorset known as Sandbanks. Sandbanks may not have been the haunt of footballers and pop stars that it is today but when John purchased the waterside home for his aunt in 1965, Sandbanks was already an exclusive address. John Lennon shelled out £25000 for Harbours Edge, a six bedroomed semi bungalow at 126 Panorama Road. Mimi loved her new home, and the contract was signed in November 1965. When Mimi moved to Poole, she brought some of her furniture with her and gave some away in Liverpool and then settled in at Harbours Edge.

 

Rumours soon sprang around Sandbanks that a Beatle had bought a house in the neighbourhood and the Brighton’s from Harbours Edge were heartily sick of the whole thing and were forced to tell the Evening Echo and they hotly denied that they had sold to anyone from the Beatles however on the 9th of September 1965 the new resident was revealed. The selling agents Rumsey & Rumsey described Mimi as ‘a very pleasant lady of quiet disposition who wanted an easily run place with seclusion’.

After Mimi moved in her nephew had a balcony made with a white painted wrought iron balustrade of seven hearts from which his aunt could sit and watch the boats go by a far cry from the hustle and bustle of the busy Menlove Avenue.

 

Mimi settled in at her new home and John, Cynthia and their son Julian were frequent visitors with John often found relaxing on the beach, taking the ferry over to Studland or sailing down the river Frome to nearby Wareham with his friend Peter Sandeman. Mimi had befriended a lady nearby who was a landlady to Peter Sandeman and in conversation mentioned to Mimi that Peter had a boat, and a friendship enfolded between the great John Lennon and Peter Sandeman.

Peter Kenneth Charles Sandeman was born on the 20th of December 1936 in Mumbai, India and at the age of five months old sailed from Pakistan on the “City of Benares” arriving on the 28th of June 1937 at the port of Liverpool, three years before John Lennon was born and two years before Aunt Mimi married George T Smith! Several photographs were taken in the summer of 1967 with John, Cynthia, Peter and his fiancée Pamela A Dennis plus a friend of Mimi’s and these photos were thought to have been taken at Mendips however the proof of these photos taken elsewhere came to light about three years ago. The location of the photos has been identified as on Salterns Way, Lilliput, Sandbanks approximately fifteen minutes from Harbours Edge. Peter married Pamela, who was a massive Beatles fan, in October 1967 at Croydon and they eventually settled in Surrey. Peter talked of great times with John and the boat and described Mimi as a great lady who obviously doted on her famous nephew. Many years later Peter decided to sell all his private collection of photos with John to raise monies in aid of treatment for his daughter. Peter Sandeman was widowed on the 20th of January 2001, and he died on the 26th of June 2014 at his home in Surrey and both were laid to rest at Nutfield Cemetery Surrey. Peter believed that the first line of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds “Picture yourself in a boat on a river” came from the happy times him and John spent on his boat on the river. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds released on the 26th of May 1967 and from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

 

Mimi loved her new home and family were known to stay with her at Harbours Edge. David Birch the son of Mimi’s youngest sibling Harriet stayed for about a year around 1968 to study Computer Science at Bournemouth. There were many other family visitors and although Mimi had moved some distance from Liverpool there was no shortage of family and friends including Mimi’s other nephew Michael (her sister Annes son) and Leila, David’s sister. One of Mimi’s friends Kathy Burns a Beatles fan from the USA who began the “Cyn Lennon Beatle Club” was in correspondence with Mimi from 1966 and finally met her in October 1973. The next twenty-two years Kathy shared frequent conversations with Mimi whether they were through the numerous letters she wrote, phone calls she made or when Kathy stayed at Harbours Edge the all-night gossip sessions in Mimi’s kitchen over tea and cigarettes.  In 2014 Kathy Burns published a fascinating book on Aunt Mimi and it’s well worth reading and is titled “The Guitar’s All Right as a Hobby, John”.

Another member of Mimi’s family that lived with her was Jacqui Dykins who stayed with her aunt but then when she became pregnant left, but later appeared for the second time when she was pregnant for the second time.  Mimi’s niece Jacqui visited her aunt on occasional weekends during Mimi’s final years and they would spend time walking along the beach and presumably Mimi paying her fare to visit from Liverpool.

 

John continued to visit Mimi even when he had met Yoko Ono, but it is thought he never returned to the UK once he left with Yoko for New York in 1971 however, after his death in 1980 Mimi said he had made a secret visit. I guess we will never know!  According to David Stark, who stayed with Mimi after Johns death, recalls Mimi revealing that John phoned her at home in Sandbanks every week and he did in fact make a secret visit. At around the time John and Yoko moved to New York, John was to instigate an interview with Mimi and reporter Mike Hennessy and photographer Tom Hanley, and they spent the best part of a day while she gave an interview at Harbours Edge. Both Mike and Tom were surprised to be welcomed by a very nice and generous old lady.

 

Mimi was to hear the terrible news of her John’s murder just like millions of Britons soon after she awoke on the 9th of December 1980, basically hearing his name and thinking that he had been up to no good. Then after hearing the phone ring just after seven in the morning, Mimi knew something was wrong and she was right as it was Yoko ringing with the tragic news. Mimi’s pain was even more acute for John had recently promised to visit so Mimi could meet his second son Sean. In the years that followed Mimi largely kept much to herself although enthusiastically kept up her correspondence with a handful of Beatles fans.

 

Mimi had a handful of friends in Sandbanks and one person that remembers her well was John Clarke who ran the Haven Ferry Shop and was still running it up until 2012. John Clarke took over the shop from a Mr Howard and strangely enough although no relation it was managed by Raymond Frank Clarke until about 1971. Mimi was a regular customer at the Haven Ferry Shop and John remembers her buying bread to feed the birds as Mimi simply used to love watching the squirrels and birds that were in abundance around Sandbanks. Mimi would have possibly been privy to the red squirrels although the remnant population is mainly confined to the nearby Brownsea and Furzey Islands.

Another man who remembers Mimi was Tony O’Hara who was only thirteen when he first met her. Tony got his first taste of a working life as an eleven-year-old in 1968, helping his stepfather on the distinctive green and beige vans of the Malmesbury & Parsons Dairy Co. The dairy was originally based at 143 &145 Christchurch Road Boscombe but had other branches in many of the surrounding towns. Tony describes Mimi as very dignified and friendly and not at all snobby, but he says there was nothing low about her either. Tony says when he was seventeen Mimi would tease him as he wore glasses just like John and when he informed Mimi that he was growing his hair long, coincidental of course, Mimi told him you will look like John soon. The Sandbanks that Tony knew was inhabited with plenty of celebrities and one such pair that shared a house on the very same road as Mimi at 41 Panorama Road was Mike and Bernie Winters, staying there whilst playing the Bournemouth summer season in 1971. The Beatles had already played with Mike and Bernie Winters and Chita Rivera at the Blackpool ABC on the 19th of July 1964. You must wonder if Mimi was ever invited to such residences or would she see Bernie Winter’s dog taking itself off for a walk on Panorama Road in the morning. Incidentally my late father Dr Bryan Jones was introduced to the proprietor Jack Edge of the Davenport Theatre Stockport in the mid-sixties which ultimately led us as a family, becoming lifelong friends of Jack. This meant we were privy to hanging out behind stage during the pantomime season and consequently meeting up with many celebrities and Mike and Bernie Winters were no exception when they played pantomime “Babes in the Wood” in 1970 just before their summer season in Bournemouth the following year.

 

The years passed by for Mimi and in 1983, John’s first-born Julian lived with Mimi for a brief time and Mimi saw Sean Lennon for the first time in !984. Mimi discovered that John had never transferred Harbours Edge into her name and hence leaving Yoko whom Mimi was not too fond of, taking over as Mimi’s landlady. John had given his aunt Mimi an allowance of £30 per week (equivalent to £700 in 2023) and presumably Yoko continued to care for her. Shortly after Johns death Mimi went to stay with her sister Annie in Liverpool and whether this visit was before or after Annie’s husband Sydney Cadwallader passed away on the 14th of March 1981, of that I am not sure. Yoko and Sean visited Mimi in 1984 and again she was staying with Annie. There is confusion as to the year Annie Georgina Cadwallader nee Stanley died as the ancestry sites document the date as December 1997 however historians relate the date as 1988.  It is said that Mimi was the last sibling to die (1991) but according to the death certificate for Annie this cannot be correct and consequently meaning that Annie was the last to die and not Mimi.

 

 

So, by early 1990 Mimi’s health was failing and a Lynne Varcoe an auxiliary nurse and whose mother ran the Varcoe Nursing Agency, located in Poole was sent to care for Mimi Smith. Lynne’s mother was approached by a representative of Yoko Ono to supply an auxiliary nurse during the day to care for Mimi and Lynne who was working at the time as a Mathematics teacher was sent and this was a second job to supplement her own income. During the night caregivers from the Cheshire Trust looked after Mimi. To date in my research i can find no reference to a nursing agency under that name although the surname Varcoe appears in connections to a couple of businesses within the Dorset area and the Cheshire Trust eludes me also. Lynne talks of the years as she looked after Mimi as 1991-1992 however this must be incorrect as she died on the 6th of December 1991.

According to Lynne her mother found a big black cat that went by the name of Thomas for company during Mimi’s last year and he was from a local rescue centre and after Mimi’s death was rehoused by Lynne.

Lynne Varcoe’s full story can be found on the British Beatles Fan Club Website

Lynne Varcoe had worked at her mother’s agency from !982-1987 from then she took a volunteering post in Switzerland for a year working with the Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Lynne then returned to Bournemouth where she became a Mathematics teacher from 1987-1993 and within the latter years took on the care of Mimi as a second income.  After Mimi died, she obtained a nursing degree and then moved to West Virginia USA where she remained until 2016 looking after terminally ill patients. Lynne is now a Clinical Imaging Analyst at HCA Healthcare at the University of Sussex. Lynne was born in 1963 which would have made her twenty-seven at the time she cared for Mimi and quite a responsibility for a young girl looking after someone that was truly responsible for caring and the bringing up of one of the worlds famous pop stars and from Lynne’s humbling beginning, she too has worked hard to attain a valued career.

 

 

Mimi collapsed in the bathroom at her home Harbours Edge and died on Friday the 6th of December 1991, just two days before the eleventh anniversary of Johns murder and on the same date from when she received her last phone call from John. According to Lynne who was with Mimi when she passed away her last words were “Hello John”. Mimi’s funeral took place on the 12th of December at Poole crematorium and among the thirty mourners were Yoko Ono, Lennon’s son Sean and his former wife Cynthia. Poole Crematorium lies on the A349 between Poole and Wimborne. After the cremation service the mourners went for lunch at the Harbour Heights Hotel Haven Road Sandbanks and later that day Yoko placed Harbours Edge 126 Panorama Road for sale. 

 

Harbours Edge was bought by property tycoon Geoff Kaye for £410,000 and then the following year it was bulldozed down after falling into disrepair and Mr Kaye spent a further £500,000 building a Californian style modern home, a million miles away from Mimi’s bungalow that she loved so much. In 2018 the home called “Imagine” was put up for sale but this time with Savills and with a price tag of 7.2 million pounds, although i think the price tag would have come as a bit of shock to the frugal Mimi.

 

So, these past five blogs have told the story of Mary Elizabeth Smith nee Stanley aka “Mimi” from my research.  Mimi was born on the 24th of April 1906 to George Ernest and Annie Jane Stanley nee Millward in Toxteth Liverpool and was a girl that knew right from the beginning that she would lead a life with challenges and adventures. Mimi was the maternal aunt and parental guardian of the legendary musician John Lennon. Mimi began her life with humble beginnings but knew she would better herself and I hope i have been able to portray this throughout my blogs. Mimi always wanted the best for John but struggled to keep her jealousy under wrap of those others that were close to John throughout his life. Mimi was realistic and wasn’t to have her head turned by all this fame and like a lot of ancestors growing up in the early twentieth century were frugal with their belongings and money. I only must think of my own parents and grandparents to understand how she felt, and Mimi must have found it hard when her beloved John spent money, that beyond her wildest dreams she would never thought of anybody spending. Mimi certainly had been hypocritical throughout some of her life and the “House of Sin” and House of Correction” comes to mind but in her final days she admitted to her nurse Lynne that she had been indeed wicked at times and was frightened of death. 

Mimi was a pet lover and loved her cats unconditionally. My late father who was a doctor often said that those who love pets and animals are often kind, compassionate and responsible people and in my opinion, Mimi boasted these qualities. Mimi was named after her maternal grandmother Mary Elizabeth Millward nee Morris who like Mimi was the strong matriarch of the family, the only difference Mimi never had any children of her own. She loved very few men, and her heart was broken by those that she did love.

Mimi was shaped by a world entirely different than that of her nephew or his followers but that didn’t make her any less of a fan and she loved John deeply and this love was returned. During the past month my research has led me to have a different understanding of this woman and her position in what was a very special time in history.

 

Rest In Peace Mary Elizabeth Smith aka Mimi and may you be reunited with your beloved John.

 

 

 

 

 

The true identity of the business magnate that employed Lennon’s Aunt Mimi as his personal secretary.

researching for my third blog on the life of Mary Elizabeth “Mimi” Smith nee Stanley, I finally resolved one of the mysteries in Mimi’s life, the man that Mimi went to work for in North Wales, after the loss of her fiancé, a doctor who died of an infection at Woolton Convalescent Hospital on Allerton Road. I am proud to have discovered another mystery that to my knowledge hasn’t been solved yet to this date.

 

Mimi was a trainee nurse at about the age of nineteen and worked at the Liverpool Convalescent Hospital Allerton Road Woolton and in about 1927, Mimi fell in love with a young doctor and shortly after they got engaged. At about the same time a very rich industrial business magnate regularly visited the hospital to look over several of his employees who were under young Mimi’s charge. Shortly after their engagement Mimi’s fiancé contracted an infection from a patient and sadly passed away leaving Mimi distraught. It was after seeing young Mimi so devastated at the loss of her fiancé that the businessman suggested that Mimi accompany him back to one of his homes in North Wales, to take the position as his private secretary and Mimi agreed.

On Mimi’s Wikipedia site this gentleman is named as an Ernest Vickers and in my previous blog I explored this name without much success, only finding a heating and plumbing business by the name of Vickers & Sons Ltd in North Wales and an Ernest Vickers, an accountant living in a large residence at Aigburth Liverpool. These finds were all very inconclusive and the identification of Mr Vickers remained a puzzle with me till recently.

 

The Biography titled “John Lennon-The Life” by author Philip Norman names the industrial businessman as Lynton Vickers from Betws-y-Coed North Wales so I pursued my research again and bingo I find our business magnate, and he’s not Ernest Vickers nor is he Lynton Vickers but our man in question is a Mr Edward Lynton Vicars.

 

Edward Lynton Vicars was born on the 6th of May 1881 at 23 Mulgrave Street Toxteth Liverpool to Thomas and Amy Vicars nee Lewis. Edward’s father Thomas was born in Liverpool to Thomas Vicars from St Bees Cumberland who had travelled to Liverpool in the early 1850’s and opened a factory at 29 Seel Street Liverpool. Edwards grandfather Thomas invited his cousin also a Thomas Vicars to join his business and they founded the famous company T & T Vicars which originally made products such as cranes, windlasses and dockside equipment which suited the Great Port of Liverpool; however, the company soon became famous worldwide for producing equipment designed by themselves for quicker and easier production of biscuits.

The full story and history of the company can be found on the internet titled “The Story of the Vicars”.

 

Edward Lynton Vicars lived with his parents for at least over twenty years and by the time he was born his father Thomas was a managing director of the company living in large houses in the Liverpool area and then moving to Golborne near St Helens and it was to Earlestown the factory had relocated in 1867 adjacent to the main Liverpool-Manchester railway line. Edward went to university and studied engineering and then married Hilda Mabel Ketley (born two days after her husband on the 8th of May 1881) in 1908 at Kings Norton Worcestershire and in 1911 they had settled down at “The Beeches” Park Road Newton le Willows twenty miles east of Liverpool. Their first child was named Edith Hilary Vicars, and she was born on the 24th of January 1909 and their son Thomas Howard Mostyn Lynton Vicars was born on the 18th of June 1915.

 

The family had many large houses and in 1939 the family were living at 38 Victoria Road (Edward and son Howard) and 56 Park Road (Hilda and daughter Edith), Newton le Willows. They also owned a very large Gothic style mansion called “Coed-y-Celyn” in Betws-y-Coed a village at the gateway to the Snowdonia National Park and it was to this beautiful home that Edward L Vicars invited Mimi Stanley to stay, and she became his private secretary taking a sabbatical from her nursing career.

At the time Mimi went to North Wales Edward Vicars had already been made a sales and advertising manager for the company and was a wealthy man. When T & T Vicars celebrated its centenary year in 1949 Edward Lynton Vicars was made Governing Director and his son Mostyn was the Managing Director.

 

The family spent a large proportion of their time in the war years at Betws-y-Coed and Edward was an avid yachtsman and was vice commodore at the Royal Dee Yacht Club and member of local clubs such as Conwy. Tragedy struck for the Vicars family on the 22nd of December 1950 as Edward and Hilda’s thirty-five-year-old son Mostyn was found dead in his hotel bedroom at the Adelphi Liverpool and then in 1952 their daughter died on the 18th of July at the age of forty-nine at the Sandford Nursing Home Llandudno. Then the following year after suffering ill health possibly from a broken heart, Edward Lynton Vicars died on the 31st of January 1953 at his home Coed-y-Celyn Betws-y-Coed. 

 

Coincidently Edith Vicars died at Sandford in 1952 where Lennon’s friend Jonathan Hague was born fourteen years earlier in 1938 and Edward Lynton Vicars was buried at St Tudno’s churchyard which is also the resting place for Jonathan’s father Anderson Hague who had died earlier in 1953 on the 12th of April.

 

When Mimi was staying at Betws-y-Coed as a private secretary to Edward Lynton Vicars, she certainly wouldn’t have been aware that only five miles down the road in the village of Llanrwst was the birthplace of her 2x great grandmother Elizabeth Morris nee Bridge and her 3x great grandfather Lynch Bridge. Mimi for certain would have loved the beautiful countryside that surrounded her compared to her home streets of Toxteth Liverpool.

 

I am more than happy that I have been able to solve the real identification of the mystery industrial business magnate that during her sabbatical in the very late 1920’s Mimi took up the position of his private secretary.

Edward Lynton Vicars 1881-1953