Francis Kenny - Understanding John Lennon

In the dockland area where the Stanleys lived, an integral part of community life was the ability to get on with one’s neighbours. This was essentially the ability to live and let live. The proximity of living and working arrangements called for, if not a public spirit, then insight into the importance of some sort of very basic, intertwined collective network – a community. You either got on with those in the community or, if you had the funds, got out. The Stanleys got out. Nearby, neighbours who were stokers, carters, porters and dock labourers were not seen as part of a community the Stanleys wanted to be involved with. In the case of the slow middle-class drift from the centre of Liverpool, the Stanleys’ move was to take them further up and away from the river to upmarket Berkley Street, running adjacent to the premier location of Princes Avenue. Here the ‘bookends’ of Head Street and Dexter Street laundry were replaced by Berkley Street and St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. This was a church modelled on St Theodore’s in Constantinople, the second only of its type in Britain and a symbol of the cosmopolitan nature of the city.

At Berkley Street, the Stanleys could take satisfaction in the traditional Sunday morning walk along the boulevard of merchants, cotton brokers and ship owners who occupied the four-storey red-brick townhouses complete with servants’ quarters. This was an affluent area where, as locals would say, ‘a man wouldn’t be seen outside without his hat’. To accommodate the religious needs of Liverpool’s elite, grandly designed churches and places of worship were spaced along the avenue, designed to promote the wealth and status of the captains of industry and commerce that funded them. Jewish, Greek and Congregational churches were all part of this rich fabric.

Freddie and Julia would eventually meet and begin their courtship when he was 16 and she 14 at Sefton Park boating lake, which lay to the south of the city, a few miles from each other’s homes. On Sunday afternoons, families would take their children there to feed the ducks. Young men and women would dress up in their best clothes and parade themselves for each other’s approval in the hope of finding a date. In Liverpool parlance, Freddie and Julia ‘copped off’ in an unusual way. Although small, Freddie was handsome, with jet-black hair and the gift of the gab. He spotted Julia as she sat on a park bench, and the attraction was easy to see – she could easily be mistaken for the movie star Ginger Rogers, petite in size and with a mane of flaming red hair.

Julia had noticed what seemed to be a small ‘boy’ wearing a black bowler set at a jaunty angle and a cigarette held inside a cigarette holder. The ‘boy’ was Freddie. As suavely as he could, he asked Julia if she may be so kind as to permit him to sit on the bench with her. Julia turned slowly, studied the bandy-legged, bowler-hatted Freddie and screamed with laughter. She told him to take his hat off, for he looked daft. Instead of taking umbrage, as most young men would, Freddie did as he was told and skimmed the hat across the boating lake, nearly decapitating a duck. This act of going against the grain, spontaneity and zaniness instantly endeared him to Julia.

Their relationship immediately ran into problems with the total lack of approval and contempt of Freddie from Pop and Mimi. That Freddie was a bellboy, and came from a ‘less acceptable part of town’, had been in an orphanage and was stunted in size, left Pop and Mimi in no doubt that he would not be welcome over the Stanleys’ doorstep. ‘I knew he was no good to anyone, certainly not [for] our Julia’, 7judged Mimi. Freddie’s family view of the courtship was that of a seven-day wonder, just like his dreams of showbiz stardom.

Over their long period of courtship, Julia was constantly discouraged by her family from having anything to do with Freddie. On Freddie’s side, his older brother Sidney regularly cast aspersions as to the strength and ‘sense’ of the relationship. Such was Pop’s antagonism against the young Freddie Lennon that he conspired with Mater’s husband, his son-in-law Captain Charles Parkes, to arrange a two-year trip for him on a whaling ship. Sometime later, Pop had to be restrained by Julia from beating up the pint-sized Freddie for the crime of knocking over a radio speaker.

After a long and sometimes tortuous courtship, Freddie and Julia were married on 3 December 1938 at the Liverpool Registry Office, Mount Pleasant. They did so without informing any members of their respective families. After a desperate search for a witness for Freddie, a last-minute call was made to his elder brother, Sidney. Their honeymoon consisted of going to the Forum Cinema in the city centre, where they bought tickets to watch Dr Barnardo’s Homes, starring Mickey Rooney. This was followed by a return to each other’s respective family homes. Within the week, Freddie shipped out on a liner for a three-month trip to the West Indies. If Freddie couldn’t believe his luck in obtaining such a good post, it was because it wasn’t luck. It was Pop Stanley again, who had worked behind the scenes with son-in-law Charles Parkes to arrange Freddie’s absence. Even when married, Freddie was to be kept as far away as possible from his daughter.

If Freddie and Julia felt that their courtship was beset with pitfalls and emotional hardships, then Freddie being ‘lost at sea’ and the arrival of a baby in war-torn Liverpool would test their love for each other to breaking point.

chapter 3

1940–45

Salvation Army Hospital

THE MARRIAGE of Freddie and Julia was followed a year later by the outbreak of war. The initial period of the conflict in Britain was named ‘The Phoney War’ – phoney inasmuch as, unlike mainland Europe, life in Britain for the large majority remained much the same as before. The Battle of the Atlantic, in which Freddie was involved with the Merchant Navy, however, was to be the longest conflict between allied and German forces within the whole of the Second World War.

From the start of the hostilities, the transatlantic crossing of vessels manned by merchant sailors like Freddie soon became a lifeline for those in Britain. Such work was not without its dangers, though. Thirty-six thousand merchant sailors lost their lives during the period 1939–45, of which 8,000 were from Liverpool alone. And although the Stanley family criticised Freddie for not sending Julia money home while he was away at sea, they did not realise he went awol in 1943, with his pay stopped immediately.

The Port of Liverpool was responsible for the bulk of shipping coming in and out of war-torn Britain. The Western Approaches HQ was the command post for the entire British fleet and Merchant Navy headquarters, based in Liverpool’s city centre. It lay half a mile from the Mersey and directed the supply of foodstuffs and armaments for tens of millions of Britons.

Just two weeks before the outbreak of war in September 1939 and after a protracted courtship, Mimi married George Smith. Their marriage was to bear no offspring. Later on, Mimi’s view of being childless was that she had already been a mother to her four sisters. Furthermore, at 34 years of age, she was getting to a point where having children was becoming less likely. George’s family was relatively wealthy and owned land in Woolton, along with a dairy farm. This is how Mimi and George came to meet, when he made the deliveries to Mimi’s place of work in Woolton Military Convalescent Home. The agreement to get married began with a formal shake of the hands by the couple: ‘Farmers always shake hands on a bargain’, 1George was to declare. Not long after they married, George’s father committed suicide by drowning himself in a local pond. The resulting will was shattering. Instead of leaving the bulk of the estate to George, the eldest son, his father gave it to his younger brother Frank. George was given a small cottage next to the main farmhouse. Both George and Mimi took this decision hard. Having been financially overlooked, Mimi especially became very bitter.