![]() ![]() ![]() “He was taken from our mother, and notice the word ‘taken,’ ” Baird said. The real story, the one accepted today since Baird concluded her research and wrote her book, is that Mimi fought for custody of John, her nephew, using social services as an ally to cast Julia in a shameful light, portraying her as an unfit mother because of her new relationship. The old story, the one the BBC and other news media outlets reported after John’s death, said Julia Lennon gave John, then 5, to her sister, Mimi, essentially turning her back on her son. Julia Lennon fell in love with another man, whom she could not marry because her husband remained alive, somewhere, out of sight. The truth was that in 1940, Julia Lennon, who was struck and killed by a car in 1958, gave birth to John Lennon, whose father, a merchant seaman, spent long periods of time away from his wife and child. Basically they said she accepted no responsibility for her children, and that Mimi came along and saved the day. “Everybody watched.”Įverybody saw Julia Lennon portrayed as a “Flibbertigibbet,” which, I learned from Baird, meant “Scatterbrain, someone who did not accept responsibility for any of her actions, swaying in the wind, this way, that way. “Five years after John had died, they did a documentary in Britain, the BBC,” Baird told me, shortly before a show in Fort Wayne, Ind. There, in those pages, is the truth that Baird wants known, setting the record straight on their mother, Julia Lennon, who, Baird says, was misrepresented by the news media after Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon to death in New York City on Dec. She’s the narrator (pronounced na-RAY-tor by Baird), presenting a documentary on the night’s act, then, after the show, signing copies of her book, Imagine This: Growing up with my brother John Lennon. Baird is the nightly host on the 40-show American tour. A cover band with all the hair and 1960s-era attire, they’ll play May 14 at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth. Not at all.”Įverything else, though, was fair game during a half-hour conversation fueled by an upcoming appearance of a band called the Mersey Beatles. “I don’t want to talk about that,” said Baird, 69, by phone, her voice barely a whisper. Where was she the day her half brother, John Lennon, was murdered 35 years ago? We all remember, at least those of us old enough. Julia Baird’s breezy sentences, sweetened by her English accent, came to a screeching halt when I asked the question that had to be asked. ![]()
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