Meet the Beatles for Real: The "All you need is love" Bedspread

Monday, July 29, 2013

The "All you need is love" Bedspread

The Story of the “All you Need is love” bedspread

By Sara Schmidt

Sources:

Give Peace a Chance by Joan Athey and Paul McGrath

Culture 24 article written by Richard Moss http://www.culture24.org.uk/history%20%26%20heritage/literature%20%26%20music/art314075

Cooper Owen auction catalog 2004

If you look closely in the photos of the Montreal Bed-In, you will notice it, especially in a color photograph. Among the white of the Bed-In, at the foot of John and Yoko lays a bright blue bedspread that says “love.” Further photos will show that it is adorned with the Yellow Submarine cartoon Beatles. A very cute display for the Bed-in.

photo by Gerry Deiter

Over the years I had wondered about this bedspread. You could tell that it was hand-made. Who made it and what ever happened to it?

I got a hold of a 2005 Cooper Owen auction catalog. The bedspread was up for auction that year. And according to the auction catalog it states:

“This blue felt bedspread with All You Need Is love hand sewn on it in brightly coloured lettering, was a gift from the local Hare Krishna chapter and is clearly visible on the bed in front of John and Yoko on the recording of Give Peace A Chance and in the multitude of photographs of the Bed-In which saw John and Yoko commandeer room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Montreal, Canada for seven days in the name of Peace. “

So I thought that this blanket was a gift from the Hare Krishna chapter of Montreal. That didn’t really make a lot of sense to me, but that is what it said.

In July 2013, I went to the Liverpool Museum and I was literally shocked to see the “All you need is love” bedspread on display there! I knew it was on display at a museum somewhere in the world, but I had no clue that it was in Liverpool or that I was going to see it in person! Along with the bedspread, was a marker that said that a girl named Christine Kemp had made the blanket and presented it to John and Yoko before the Bed-in. Here is the true story of the bedspread.

Christine Kemp was a British girl who had relocated to Montreal where she worked as a designer. Christine was a Beatles fan and had made what we know as a bedspread, as a wall hanging to decorate her office and to divide the room. She made it out of felt and embroidered “All you Need is Love” onto it. It was themed after the Beatles Yellow Submarine movie, which had been released the previous year. It was hanging up in her office until she heard that John and Yoko were coming to town for a Bed-in like they had done a few months prior in Amsterdam.

Christine decided that the wall-hanging would look better decorating the Bed-In and decided to go to the hotel and give it to John and Yoko as a gift. She wrapped it up in a Union Jack and headed to the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. As luck would have it, she wasn’t stopped by anyone. She just got in the elevator and told the operator where she was going and he took her there. Christine walked right into the room and presented the wall-hanging to John and Yoko, just as simple as that. She hung around for a bit and then told the couple goodbye and left.

Christine presenting the wall-hanging to John and Yoko. Photo by Tedd Church

When Christine left, she had no idea if the couple was going to use her wall-hanging. However, it appears that it was draped on the bed that they used for the Bed-In for most of their stay. There are also photos that show it on the floor, and some of the people there are sitting on it. Once the Bed-in was over, John and Yoko did not take the blanket with them. They left it in the hotel room along with many drawings and other items. An unknown journalist picked up the bedspread and some of the drawings and held onto them until he (or she) put them up for auction through Cooper Ownen in 2005 where it was purchased by the Liverpool Museum. The museum re-stitched some of it and made it look as good as it did in 1969.