The Real Lennon - By Aunt Mimi (1981)

 The Real Lennon

 by Aunt Mimi 

Daily Star

 February 6-7, 1981 

    We lived seven miles out of Liverpool itself, and John never even knew the city until he went to art college when he was 17. Even then, I went with him. He grew up in a fairly well self-contained community, and his grammar school, Quarry Bank, was just a couple of bus stops away. 

    There was never any need for him to go into Liverpool, and he certainly never had a scouse accent that was completely put on. When I asked him why he did it, he just went into one of his crazy acts. He stretched his hand out like a demented Fagin, saying, "Money, money, money."  Then he curled up with laughter on the settee.

     I know John had this tough, aloof, rather sarcastic image. He loved that really. It was one way he could have a protective shell and a bit of fun at the same time. The real John Lennon was nothing like that, but he was never prepared to suffer fool questions. I remember one hilarious moment when a TV personality had the Beatles on his show. He was terrified that John would make him look small, so he rang me up and begged me for information about a chink in his armor. I told him about John's weakness at school, his maths were terrible. When the show came on the TV, the man repeated this and asked, "How come you can count all the money you're making?" John didn't bat an eyelid. "I don't count it. I weigh it", he told him, with this deadpan face. John's sense of humor helped him to keep his feet on the ground, but I always brought him down with a bump as well. 

    The parents of some of the other Beatles were horrified when I said the boys were lucky. The mums and dads were behaving like royalty, almost giving audiences to people. I just laughed about it with John and called them stray Dukes. Of course, the boys were talented, and of course I was proud of what John achieved, but he knew exactly what I meant, and he told me, "Mimi, you're right. We've been lucky."

     My relationship with John was based on a deep love and respect. I became his mother, father, confidante, and friend. It all began the wartime day when I first saw him as a newborn baby. John's father, he's dead now, was a seaman. He jumped ship in New York a few months later and never came back. But I saw little John every day. I never missed when he was a toddler. My late husband, George, and I took him in. His mother, my sister, Julia, met someone else, but there was never any question of us handing him back. We didn't have children of our own, and it was a joy having this bouncy bundle of fun around the house. 

    The house next door was run by the Salvation Army as a home for orphan children. Its name was Strawberry Fields, later made famous in the Beatles song. Even as a little boy, John was always very quick. He was reading and writing by the time he was four. His uncle, George, used to sit him on his knee with the Liverpool Post, and they would go through the words together. George worshiped him. I was always the one who had to order him upstairs when he was naughty. But even then, he would say things like, "You won't be able to order me around when I'm famous."

     George worked in the family's dairy farming business, and he and John were really conspirators. If I ever sent John to his room, George would slip upstairs with his comics, The Eagle and The Beano. I soon realized that sending John up to bed was no hardship. He was quite happy quietly reading his books for hours on end. Unusual, perhaps, but John really did what people expected.

     Years later, when he stopped making records for a while and wasn't seen around New York with Yoko, the world thought he had gone into seclusion. In fact, he wasn't in seclusion at all. And when he said he was a house husband, that was another of his funny send-ups; he might have experimented a bit in the kitchen, but really, he and Yoko spent the time traveling around the world. 

    In the last few months, he developed a passion for the past. He bought a farm, and when I asked him what for, he said, "Well, Uncle George was a farmer, wasn't he?" It wasn't often that he mentioned Uncle George, not since his death. George died suddenly when John was on a school trip to Scotland. When he got back, he threw open the door and bounced in as usual, shouting, "Where's Uncle George then?"  I was so upset that I just blurted out, "John, he's dead." He was shattered, and from that moment on, I was totally responsible for him. It was a sense of responsibility I never lost.

    Remember all that gossip about the great rift between John Lennon and Paul McCartney? Well, it was all rubbish. John and Paul realized that they couldn't end up as 50-year-olds playing guitar together. The very idea had them in fits. To develop, they knew that they had to go their own way, and having done that, there was no going back.

     John and Paul often used to meet in New York when they were supposed to be at loggerheads. When one tycoon suggested the Beatles should reform and get paid millions of dollars, John said to Paul, "Let's go down and say we're taking him on just for a laugh." You see, the whole idea was absurd to them at the time. So they developed as individuals, and they developed their music. John used to say to me, "Mimi, can you imagine me as an ancient Beatle?"  That explains why they never went up, but they treasured those years and their friendship, and I treasured them too. 

    I remember the birth of the Beatles. I wasn't very keen on the whole idea. I had devoted all my energies to seeing John throughout art college, but he was like me, too much of a gypsy in his soul. I first saw John perform in public at a church fete with Paul McCartney, a childhood friend. I next saw him at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. It was at a lunchtime meeting place for secretaries and clerical workers, with an area the size of a postage stamp reserved for the band. I was livid. There I was paying for John to go to college, and here he was performing on stage when he should have been studying. He didn't realize his Aunt Mimi was watching him from the audience because he couldn't see without his glasses. But afterwards, I gave him a piece of my mind and ordered him back to college. 

    You can imagine what I felt when I suddenly saw him up there on stage, bashing his guitar with the others when he should have been in class. The boys were very lucky, really, that their manager was Brian Epstein. Brian realized there was something commercial there; the boys fell about laughing when he asked to manage them. They were just doing it for a lark. I told Brian about my misgivings of a pop career for John, and he said, "Don't worry, Mimi, I'll take care of John. He's my friend."

     John and the other boys started taping their early hits, "Love Me Do" and " Please, Please Me." I can't say I was over-impressed with them, and I kept on at Brian that I wanted John to finish college. I think Brian really cared about the group. And hopped the demo tapes all over the place. 

    Decca turned them down, and then George Martin heard them. It was funny, really. Martin knew they had some quality, but told John he could not put his finger on it. Their music was new, and their attitudes were new, and they weren't prepared to be pushed around. Then the whole thing exploded, and it hit like a bombshell. One minute, it was the Cavern Club, the next, they were the world's biggest band. There was no way of stopping or controlling it. 

    The first I knew about it was when girls started camping outside our house. I thought they were crazy, but they said they were waiting for John. Then the phone started to ring all day and all night, I ended up screaming down the phone that John wasn't in.

     In the end, I moved away to Bournemouth. It was the only way to preserve my sanity. But John developed his life along other lines and did his own thing. He made music when he felt like it.

     He always loved New York because it reminded him of the earthiness and vibrancy of Liverpool. He could feel a special relationship with that city. I'm just so terribly sad that it was the violence of that city that took his life. 

What's so funny?

 This is a very interesting photo -- does anyone know any details about it?

Family and Friends

 June 23, 1964 -Wellington, NZ

The Prisoner

 The Prisoner

By Stuart While

New of the World

October 23, 1977

 

In the fifteen shattering years since the Beatles first burst upon us, John Lennon’s sad sometimes tragic face has not been much of an advertisement for success.  It isn’t only love that money can’t buy.

“I enjoy the security of knowing I’ve got it,” he says. “But I’ve still got that lower-class fear. Wealth in itself doesn’t make me happy, but it’s like my Auntie Mimi always said – I’d sooner be miserable in luxury.

“That for me is a bed, a carpet and some food.”  A pause. Then the old jokey Lennon:  “If they took the TV away, I’d certainly call that suffering.  

Life is almost that simple for millionaire John. For he is, if anything, the Beatles who was trapped by success.  He has become a prisoner of 72^nd Street, New York where he lives in a vast apartment in a Colditz-like mansion block.

He rarely goes out. He rarely entertains. His circle is close. He almost never gives interviews. It is Auntie Mimi who can tell us most about the most secret of the ex-Beatles.

It is 3a.m. and the telephone rings in the seaside home of 65 year old widow Mimi Smith. A world famous voice booms down the line from New York, 3,440 miles away.

“’Allo Mimi, ‘ow are yer?”

The accent in unmistakably Scouse. But there is more than a hint of what years of Manhattan living have etched into the nasal Merseyside tones of ex-Beatle John Winston Lennon. Aunt Mimi, who brought John up from childhood scolds him gently: “Do you know what time it is here?  Well do you?”  He laughs off the five hour time difference that makes it only 10pm in New York and says, “Never mind that Mimi.  How are you?  How are things? How are you going?”  She props herself on her pillows and for up to an hour, the man once known as the Cruel Beatle, the matter of the acid remark, the stinging cutting aside, shows a side to his character few people believe exist. Tenderness.

“Oh John can be very tender,” says Aunt Mimi as we speak at the luxury home he bought for her in Poole. “I know he has this reputation for being cynical and sharp, but I know him better.  I know that beneath all that he can be very warm. He asks how I am how my health is, what the weather is like. You know, all the little things that people seem to want to know what they’re living abroad.

“Then we’ll stat to talk about the old days.  The last time he was on, we started talking about his schooldays and the time he came home on the last day of term with his school report. He just rode up to the kitchen window on his bike, threw the report in and shouted ‘I’m off and out.’

“I knew it must be a bad report, so I chased after him shouting, ‘You come back this minute John Lennon.’ But he was off.

“We had a good laugh about that over the phone. I think in a way he’s a little bit lonely.  I’ve not seen him for over five years and though we talk regularly on the phone, it isn’t quite the same.”

She smiles as she recalls another late night call. “Sometimes he’ll stay on for ages and ages and it costs a pound a minute or something.  The last time he called he was on for over an hour, and I said, “John, this is costing you a fortune. You put the phone down this minute.’

“he sounded just like a little boy again. He said “Oh Mimi I haven’t finished yet. Besides, I can afford it.’

“I give him a good telling off sometimes.  Well, I can, can’t I? He’s not famous to me and he knows it.”

Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia told me “Mimi is right about John. He’s an extremely tender person – or rather he’s capable of tenderness. This tough, bitter side he has is a kind of protection. I feel sad for him because a lot of people seem to get satisfaction out of hurting him.

“When I wrote about our marriage breaking up in a women’s magazine, I had no intention of hurting him.   I’m only sorry that with all his wealth and with all his fame, he doesn’t appear to be happy. One thing I really wish for him is happiness.”

Mimi proudly showed me postcards John has sent her from Japan where he is holidaying with Yoko and their song Sean Ono Lennon, now nearly two.

The first is straight Margate style “wish you were here” “Mimi: Are up in mountains really very nice. Love John, Yoko and Sean.”

Mimi says “You’d think he could have written a bit more than that, wouldn’t you?”

The next: “Mimi, Still up in the mountains. Here is the number in case you wanna give us a call. Love Da-da, mom-ma and Sean-chan.”

Mimi says: “I think ‘chan,’ means son.  That really is typical of him,” she added with mock exasperation. “He gives me some telephone number in the middle of the Japanese mountains.  I don’t know where, and expects me to call him.  I don’t know what time it will be there, whether he’ll be in or anything. IF he wants to talk, he can jolly well call me.”

 

John decided in Japan to let his professional career take second place to baby Sean.  “We’ve basically decided to be with our baby as much as we can until we feel we can take time off to indulge ourselves in creating things outside the family,” he said.  “Maybe when he’s three, four, or five, then we’ll think about creating something else other than the child.

 

There are weakspots in the Lennon armour. Each October 9 is his Achilles heel. This year on that date John Lennon, born during a Liverpool air raid in 1940 was 37.

Mimi told me, “He’s like a child about his birthday. He likes cards and presents, and he’s particularly keen that he gets one from me.  But John is so absent-minded he always forgets mine. So last year I thought, “OK If you can forget mine, I can forget yours and I didn’t send him a card.  It was unforgivable really.

 “Well about a week later. I got a letter from New York.  It just said ‘Mimi you forgot my birthday. John.’

“He didn’t phone for weeks. I’ll never do it again. I know just how much his birthday means to him. “

John didn’t let Aunt Mimi forget it this month. He sent her a present. “The postman knocked on the door and there was this small parcel from Japan,” said Aunt Mimi.

“It was a beautiful set of Japanese pearls.  They must have cost the earth.  It was his birthday and he sent ME a present.  That’s typical of the real John.”

A young New York couple discovered the sharp edge of the Lennon tongue when they walked into the Sensuous Bean a tiny coffee and tea store on Columbus Avenue, Manhattan.

John and Yoko had just bought 1 pound of Columbian and 1 pound of Haitian coffee at a total cost of 4 pounds. They were discussing whether to buy a coffee post costing 9 pounds when this couple spotted them through the window.

Shop partner Joe Pumphrey, aged 28, told me “They obviously recognized John and Yoko, walked on, walked back and then came into the shop.  They made this big pretense that they were looking for some herb tea and kept speaking very loudly about the relative merits of the various teas. I knew they had no intention of buying anything.  All the time they kept edging closer to John, almost begging him to join in the discussion.

“I saw John’s face and I could see he realized what was going on this couple and he had a sort of strange look on his face. It was a smile, but not a nice sort of smile.

“Herb tea? He said. “You want herb tea? Well in my opinion you’ll want this.”

“Then he picked up the most expensive brand of herb tea in the largest container we’d got, it must have been about 10 pounds.  ‘But this,’ he said.   This couple looked terrified.  It sounds when you repeat it as though it was a recommendation, but it wasn’t.  It was an order. 

The couple took the tea, paid for it, and hurried out of the shop. “

Rarely do John and Yoko venture out of the Dakota Mansions on Manhattan’s West Side, home of film actress Lauren Bacall, and husband and wife pop stars Carly Simon and James Taylor.

And no one gets in unless the security guard in his sentry box has written instructions. Black cast-iron gates electronically locked, seal off the giant inner courtyard.  The security guard on duty is former Panzer crewman, Heinz, who was born in Berlin.

He told me, “That John, you know, you hardly see him.  Even now there are girls, teenage girls, they wait on the corner for him.  It’s hard for him to go out getting pestered all the time for autographs.  “He’s a strange chap, John.  When he comes out and passes me, he always says, ‘Morning.’   It doesn’t matter whether it’s afternoon or evening, always the same. I suppose that is an English sense of humour.”

But when the Lennons do come out they push Sean in their English made baby carriage through Central Park, braving photographers, autograph hunters and well-wishers.

Almost all their needs can be met in less than a 400 yard walk from their home. And they go no further.  Inside the flat, the Lennons listen to records – many by Elvis Presley.  “I basically became a musician because of Elvis,” says John. “Elvis was for me and my generation what the Beatles were to the Sixties.”  There are several Japanese restaurants on Columbus Avenue, and John and Yoko are frequent guests.

Their favourite is the Lenge where they take a favourite corner table in the dimly lit bamboo walled dining area. Their bill rarely exceeds 11 pounds. A waiter said, “Yoko orders in Japanese and I think it’s a pleasure for her to speak.  Sometimes we chat about things in our language.  John just sits there and smiles politely. I think he only knows a few words of the language like “thank you” and “please.” He is a very polite man.  Mr. Lennon, not like Americans.  He is very considerate.”

Next door to Dakota Mansions is an underground car park open to the public – if the public can afford their prices, which are up to 55 pounds a month.   That is where Lennon leaves his old-style Rolls Royce, where it stands in an inch-deep pool of oily water while the couple visit Japan.

The Rolls rarely leaves the garage. The Puerto Rican garage attendant told me “It’s always there. I bet the battery is flat. If there was a fire here, we’d never get it out.  That Beatle, he never comes out of that apartment. I’m a poor man, but I bet I’m happier than he is. At least I can walk down the street in peace.”

The number of Lennon’s apartment is top secret.  But one stranger at least has got in.

Nelson Segal make furniture and sells wood products from a sawdust covered store at the corner.  One day last year a young woman walked into the shop and ordered 250 pounds worth of cupboards for the Lennon apartment.

Says Nelson aged 61:  “I gather she was the nanny and I think the cupboard were for her quarters.  But Lennon is paying.  OK. I established that from the beginning. In this business you got to know who is paying.  And that they can. I figured Lennon has got to be OK for a few bucks, right? 

“So I finish these cupboards and I ring the Lennon household.  They gave me a number I should call.  Some woman maybe it’s Yoko, maybe it’s the nanny; I dunno, says: “We don’t want them yet.”  “So I says, ‘Lady you may not want them yet, but , I want the money yet’ So I take them round, with an assistant, and they let us in and we are fitting these cupboards.   Next day, I get a cheque signed by Lennon.  That’s the sort of customer I like.  Good payers.”

Recently, John claimed he had given up drinking saying he used the tragedies of the poets Brendan Behan and Dylan Thomas as a warning to himself.  “Those two poets are legendary,” he said.  “They came to America, did the college lecture circuit, and ultimately drank themselves to death probably with an audience around them.  When I’ve been drunk or disembowelled in one way or another, there are always friends and hangers on who sit around applauding as they hand me more and more stuff to kill myself with.

John has turned his back on the hangers-on. He feels safer with Aunt Mimi.

 

A visit to Mendips

 April 21, 1964 - Liverpool, England 

Aunt Mimi's birthday

 

Thinking of John's Aunt Mimi today on her birthday.   I hate how Mimi is now historically seen as the mean, old aunt that did not believe in John.    Mimi was the mother figure in John's life and loved him just as much as if she had given birth to him herself.   She was strict, but a lot of people have strict mothers, and they aren't seen as mean.   I will always be thankful for Mimi for raising John and for being so kind to John's fans.  

Dancing with Aunt Mimi

Aunt Mimi's special day

Today is Aunt Mimi's birthday!   So in order to remember her today, I thought I would post this photograph of Mimi with her nephew, John's cat.   

Visiting Aunt Mimi -- my friend

This is a lovely story of a fan that spent the day with Aunt Mimi in 1967    Aunt Mimi was really sweet to the fans that wrote to her or visited her.   She doesn't ever get the credit for her kindness towards John's fans.    I am glad to have found a story like this that shows that she was so much like Mrs. Harrison in her kindness. 

Can you imagine listening to Sgt. Pepper with Aunt Mimi?    I am not sure what the writing was talking about with the stereo.  

Story found in the January 1968 "Lennon Lyric" fan magazine.    

This photo of John, Julian and Mimi would have been taken a few months before this story takes place.

September 16, 1967

I had been writing to Aunt Mimi for a few months, and I had phoned her the night before we met.  She was fabulous, and you could see so much of her in John.   She met us at her front door with smiles and a cheery voice.  I was frightened at first, but Lynne and I followed her into her large living room and made ourselves comfortable.   The first thing I noticed was the beautiful view from her large bay window of the water outside, the boats and the islands across from her. 

 When we finally did get situated, we told Aunt Mimi about meeting Paul and Ringo, about visiting Liverpool – Menlove Avenue, Forthlin road, NEMS, The Beatles Fan club,  Penny Lane, the Art College, and of course the Cavern  this is where she started her story of John, of catching him at the Cavern during his lunch hour from school and pulling him out.  She went on to tell us of many things, and she also showed us a few photos and cards made by John in his school days. 

  From the living room we went into the lounge (I supposed you’d call it that) where she has this enormous photo of John on the wall which Astrid, Stu’s girlfriend, had done of him when he was 18 years old.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Then we went back into the living room and talked some more – about life in general, The Beatles, their records, fans, and about us.  We drank tea, joked, took photos, and had a very good time.  

We had intended to stay just a little while, but time seemed to slip by so very quickly.  I, myself, was enjoying every minute and, through Aunt Mimi, I found myself knowing John so much better – not as a Beatle but as John Lennon, a young man from Liverpool.  And I felt myself so close to him, someone I hadn’t even met but already knew. 

  Aunt Mimi asked us to stay longer, and called the train station for us to find out when the trains left for London.  After that she insisted on finding us something to eat, something which she never does or had done for visiting fans.  I felt out of place with her going out of her way for us, but we helped in the kitchen, chatting on like old friends.  She fixed us John’s favorite of scrambled eggs with cheese on buttered toast.   Drinking more tea, eating and chatting, we sat in the dining room in a world of wonderment with a woman who was just Aunt Mimi when we arrived, but now had become a very deep friend to us. 

 After dinner, we went back into the living room and saw Tim, one of John’s old cats—quite beautiful he was, with long rusty-white fur.  We decided then to go out back and take photos and look at the waterfront.  From there we went back into the lounge where Aunt Mimi put on Sgt. Pepper for us on this enormous stereo John had sent it for her; it was the one on which he, Paul, George and Ringo had recorded their very first record, Love me do.  Lynne sat at one speaker and I at the other, listening and singing along with the music.  Mimi sat watching, occasionally going into he living room or fixing Tim something to eat. 

 Time seemed to be slipping by so quickly, but we had to leave.  Aunt Mimi did tell us that John’s cousin David was down from Scotland and she wanted us to meet him.  He was out at the shore spending the day.  We did have to leave, and I felt like crying because she was so wonderful and so much a friend.  She walked us out to catch the bus, and Lynne took moving pictures of her.  As the bus came, she held on to both my hands and told me to please return next year and visit her.   I f she only knew how much I wanted to…if she only knew how much she meant to me now, as a friend….a woman of dignity, sincerity and Love. 

111 years ago today

John's dear Aunt Mimi was born today 111 years ago!   I am very thankful for Aunt Mimi for raising John and for always being his fan.    She was a strict woman but she loved John as if he were her biological son.

John Lennon returns to Mendips???? No--he goes to Sandbanks to see Mimi!

These two photographs of John and Cynthia were sold this past week on ebay.    The description said that were from 1967 and were taken outside of John's old house, Mendips in Liverpool.    It said that they were taken in the back garden of the house.

So this confuses me.  You might recall my most embarrassing moment of this blog.   When I traveled to Liverpool in 2010 I returned home with the story of a photograph that I saw inside of Paul's childhood home of John Lennon and a girl (looking much like he did in this photo).  According to the guy that was in charge of Paul's home at the time, he told me that the photograph was taken when John visited Liverpool and was spotted by the girl who lived in the McCartney home at the time.  She saw John standing outside of Mendips and ran home to get a camera.    I posted this story without doing any research only to have it quickly debunked my Mark Lewishon.      I was pretty embarrassed and for some reason the story got shared on a Paul is Dead site, and so I get all sorts of strange comments and questions about it.  

So now this photo appears.   And John is supposedly standing outside of Mendips in late 1967, only I am not so sure it is Mendips.   It sort of looks like the house and then it sort of doesn't at the same time.

I need some super sleuths on the case to help me out with this one.


Edited:   See comments section for where this photo was taken!

Keep it in the family

Aunt Mimi with family members she met up with in New Zealand in 1964

John's button

More proof that Aunt Mimi was not the evil woman that films portray her to be.   Fans from all around England would write to Mimi at Mendips and ask for some little trinket that belongs to John.  Mimi would send back something---although who knows if it was really John's or something off an old blouse in her own closet?   But here is a button that was sent back to a fan, who without a doubt was happy to have it in her possession.

A Visit with Aunt Mimi

Before I post this article about Aunt Mimi, I want to take the time to remember a wonderful friend of this blog, Kathy Burns, who passed away last week.  Kathy was a Beatles fan from the beginning up until her death---she was a John girl and ran the Cyn Lennon fan club in the 1960s.  Kathy wrote a great book about her friendship with Aunt Mimi called "The Guitar's All Right as a Hobby, John." Kathy was a very nice woman, and she is going to be missed by everyone who knew her. 

A Visit with Aunt Mimi

By Alanna Nash

Freelance writer Alanna Nash of Louisville, KY, wrote the following account of her 1971 visit to Mimi Smith, John Lennon’s famous aunt. By the way, she says she took no photos that day at Aunt Mimi’s because “I got the impression that she didn’t want any made.” (The truth is, she was pretty intimidating.) Aunt Mimi also was none too pleased with Lennon’s activist lifestyle at that time.

When John Lennon was gunned down in front of his New York apartment building on December 8, 1980, his widow, Yoko Ono, made three phone calls.

According to Newsweek magazine, she called “the people that John would have wanted to know.” – his 17-year-old son Julian, from his marriage to Cynthia Powell; his former partner Paul McCartney, and his aunt, Mimi Smith, who reared him from the age of four.

Twelve years ago, as a college student studying in England, I paid Mary Elizabeth Smith—Aunt Mimi—a visit in her Sandbanks, Dorset, home.  During my teen years, when Beatlemania was at its height, I had carried on a long correspondence with George Harrison’s parents.  But my only communication with Aunt Mimi had been a brief postcard she’d sent me some years back in response to my many letters.

Still, I figured that was enough to get me through the door, and I invited a fellow exchange student to go along.  Once we got to Sandbanks, a mechanic at a corner garage pointed the way to Aunt Mimi’s home- a large, $50,000 “holiday cottage” on Poole Harbor that Lennon had originally bought for himself.

“Mrs. Smith?”  I began.  She peered around the door the way women in Hitchcock films do just before they become victims. I quickly dredged up the ancient postcard, and while Mrs. Smith stood there teetering between entry and denial, my friend, a tall, soft-spoken boy with a Beatle haircut and round, Lennon-like spectacles, convinced her we didn’t mean any harm that we were just “into the Beatles.”

Slowly, the door opened, and we got our first good look at her. What struck me most was how much older she looked than in Beatle days, but her resemblance to Lennon was unmistakable—the same straight, narrow nose, the same shaped eyes and face, the same intellectual bearing. “You can only stay a little while, I’m afraid.” Six hours later, as we packed up to leave, I remembered that.

Aunt Mimi told us she lived alone, except for a housekeeper, who had the day off.  She showed us the living room, a cozy room furnished with good pieces that looked as though they’d gotten a lot of use, and excused herself to make a pot of tea.  I remember that the room was filled with books – and with Beatles mementos, displayed tastefully on the walls and shelves.  We were looking at the awards – including a 1963 Billboard magazine plaque for Most Promising Group – when Mrs. Smith returned with the tea and asked us to look over the mantle.  There hung a plaque that an anonymous American fan had sent immortalizing her famous words, “The guitar’s all right as a hobby, John, but you’ll never make a living at it.”

We started out slowly, exchanging pleasantries and asking questions about the Beatles' early days (“the boys had talent, yes, but they had a lot of luck, too. When they first played me ‘Love Me Do’ I didn’t think much of it), but soon, Aunt Mimi was ready to move on to stormier topics.

“I don’t know what all this business between John and Paul is about,” she said of their breakup. But I don’t dare ask John. I did ring Paul about it, and he told me things would straighten up. The boys have been friends for so long. I remember them coming home from school together on their bikes, begging for biscuits. I’m sure they’ll get back together again. This is just a phase they’re passing through.”

If Mrs. Smith was really certain of that, she was, however, disturbed by much of her famous nephew’s behavior.  “I’ve just quit reading the papers now,” she said.  “Apple sends me his records, but I won’t play them.  And I’ve asked my friends not to tell me about them.  That shameful album cover (Two Virgins) and that art show of his,” she said, referring to Lennon’s London gallery exhibit of erotic lithographs.  “He’s been naughty, and the public doesn’t like it, and he’s sorry for it.  Now, he wants sympathy.  That’s why he’s come out with these fantastic stories about an unhappy childhood.”“It’s true that his mother wasn’t there and there was no father around,” she continued, “but my husband and I gave him a wonderful home.  John didn’t buy me these furnishings,” she said with a sweep of a hand, “My husband bought these things.  John and Paul and George wrote songs together sitting on the sofa you’re sitting on now, long before you ever heard of The Beatles. Why, John had a pony when he was a little boy!  He certainly didn’t come from a slum!  None of the boys did!  The Harrisons weren’t as well-off as the other families,  perhaps, but George wasn’t from a slum, either, the way the press had it.  And that’s why you never see photographs of John’s boyhood home!  We certainly weren’t impoverished, the way John’s talking now!”

I asked what she thought had changed him.  Mrs. Smith leaned toward us and whispered as if there were someone else in the house who might hear.  “She’s responsible for all this,” she said.  “Yoko.  She changed him, and I’m sure she and Linda are behind this split with John and Paul.  Cynthia was such a nice girl,” she added, smiling, “When she and John were in art college, she’d come to my house and say, ‘Oh, Mimi, what am I going to do about John?’  She’d sit there until he came home.  She really pursued him.  He’d walk up the road and back until she got tired of waiting and went home.  I think he was afraid of her, actually.”

With that, I said something about what a different man he had become, writing songs like ‘Power to the People’ and staging a “bed in “ for peace.  Mrs. Smith became visibly enraged, “Don’t talk to me of such things!”  she said.  “I know that boy.  He doesn’t know what he’s saying!  It’s all an act.  If there were a revolution, John would be first in the queue!  First to run!  Why, he’s scared to death of things like that! That’s Yoko talking, not John!”

“I had a fan tell me she went up to John and Yoko on the street for an autograph, and Yoko said she could have the signatures, but a far better thing for her to do would be to go up the street and jump in the fountain and feel the water of life rush over her!”  Yoko, Aunt Mimi concluded, was not exactly right in the head.

“Every time John does something bad and gets his picture in the papers, “ she continued, “he rings me up to smooth me over.  See that new color television?  It was a Christmas present, but he had it delivered early.  A big present arrives every time he’s been naughty.”

I remember reading that before Lennon returned his M.B.E. award to the Queen in protest against Britain’s involvement in Biafra and Vietnam, it sat on Aunt Mimi’s T.V. set.  I mentioned that, and Mrs. Smith took us into the music room -  John’s bedroom when he lived there.  She opened the closet, and there, in a haphazard pile on the floor, lay John’s gold records.  Mrs. Smith picked up a frame nearby.  “He sent back the medal, but I still have this,”  she said, handing me the M.B.E. certificate.  John had crossed out the Queen’s signature with red ink and neatly returned the paper to its frame. 

“I usually have a large photograph of John hanging in there,” Mrs. Smith said on the walk back to the living room.  “When he’s a good boy, it’ll go back up again.”  Five years later, in 1976, I recalled that visit to Rick Mitz, my editor at a now-defunct magazine.  We talked about my writing a story about it and decided we’d better first find out if Aunt Mimi was still alive.  Rick dashed off a letter to John at the Dakota and back came the following reply:

Dear R.M.

She’s alive

I’m busy

Luv, John Lennon

A letter from Mimi

Here is a letter Aunt Mimi wrote to a fan after John's death.    I think we often forget how difficult John's death was on Mimi and how far away she must have felt afterwards.    Thank goodness Yoko allowed her to keep her house!

We are family

Some great photos taken in New Zealand on June 23, 1964 when John and his Aunt Mimi visited with members of their family (ones that John didn't know, but he sure smiled nicely for photos with them).  

Family reunion

John's Aunt Mimi traveled with the boys to Australia, not to enjoy the music of the boy she raised and his friends, but to meet up with family members that lived in Eketahuna, New Zealand.   Mimi was with the Beatles at the beginning of the tour, but left for NZ a week earlier and spent time with her cousin Jim  Mathews, whom she had been corresponding with through letters for many, many years. 

On June 23, 1964 Mimi came along with Jim Mathew's daughter Lynda and three other cousins to the St. George hotel to visit with her nephew and his friends.   Mimi was also there to tell him that she was going to stay in New Zealand longer than originally planned and that she would find her own way home to Liverpool.    While this has never been confirmed in any way, I can't help but wonder f the fact that Mimi's boyfriend, who was a former boarder at Mendips, was also living in New Zealand at this time.  Mimi ended up staying in New Zealand for 3-4 more months.

Mimi and the family she stayed with in New Zeland

Anyhow---back to the visit with John's relatives from his mother's side of the family.  John's second cousin, Lynda recently spoke about her visit with her famous cousin

Getting through the crowd was really hard because the police had to take us through and girls were spitting and obviously there was anger that we were getting through and they couldn't. Then we were just sitting in their bedrooms and drinking and talking. And they all came in to see me as they came out of having had a shower," she said.

"He just kissed me and said 'hello, love' straight away. He spoke of seeing my sister and about how Aunt Mimi was getting on. Because Aunt Mimi at that stage had been here with my parents for a week nearly."

Fifty years later, Lynda Mathews finds the experience more surreal than she did then.

"Just holding onto the memories. It's been good to share with other relatives and remember those who aren't here with us as well. Just remember the really good times about it and that the music still goes on and on."

Autograph John signed for Lynda

John's cousin also got to meet the other Beatles!

I already wrote about Lynda's story for this blog, and you can find the story here 

John and Mimi with Mark, Susan and Helen Parker "The Dominion Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library".

John with his 2nd cousins Mark, Susan and Helen Parker "The Dominion Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library".

Mimi and John with Mr. F. Parker "The Dominion Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library".

 

The Guitar's All Right as a hobby, John -- a book review

Mimi Smith at her home, Harbor's Edge in 1976. Photo posted with permission

The author, Kathy Burns with Mimi Smith in 1981.  copyright Kathy Burns and used with permission

The Guitar's All Right  as a Hobby, John -- a book review
by Sara Schmidt

John Lennon's aunt, Mary "Mimi" Smith, has been depicted as many things over the past 50 years in various books and films.  Most of these show Mimi to be the strict guardian of John who did not support him in any way.  But as a fan who loves John, I always knew there was more to Mimi than what I read in the biographies. In Kathy Burn's book, The Guitar's All Right as a Hobby John, she sets out to show a more complete story of Mimi Smith.

Kathy is a first generation Beatles fan who got involved in the Beatles fan club. She started a division of the Beatles fan club in America that was devoted to Cynthia Lennon.  It became very popular and had hundreds of members.  In the midst of the club's popularity, Kathy wrote a letter to John Lennon's Aunt Mimi to ask her if she would like to be a charter member.  This is what was the beginning of a correspondence between the two ladies that lasted Mimi's whole life.  This book is based a lot on the letters between the two and Kathy's personal memories.

The Cyn fan club sadly ended when John got together with Yoko, but Kathy continued to write to Mimi and stayed involved in the fan clubs. In 1973, Kathy and some friends from With a Little Help From my Friends traveled to England. Paul McCartney fans will be interested in reading the humorous stories of personal encounters Kathy and her friends had with Paul and Linda during that time. 

Mimi had invited her to come visit at the home John had bought for her in the town of Poole. It was here that Kathy and Mimi became friends. They would stay up all night smoking and chatting about John, the Beatles, and the gossip of the time. Mimi allowed Kathy to sleep in John's room.  It is interesting to note that when John moved out of Kenwood, John's driver found all of the gold records and awards the Beatles received in the trash. He took them out to Mimi and she decorated her house in Beatles awards, never believing they were worth a small fortune.

Kathy returned to England in 1981 and got to see firsthand the emotional toll John's death had on his aunt.

This book shows that Mimi Smith truly was the mother figure of John Lennon.  Like any mother, she worried about him, supported him, and was outspoken when he did something that was embarrassing, but all of that never stopped her from loving him.

Mimi had a strong opinion and was never afraid to share her honest thoughts. She openly shared what she thought of Cynthia, Linda, Yoko, Beatlefest, author Phillip Norman, Paul, and basically anyone in the Beatles circle. She also enjoyed hearing the gossip and news from the Beatles fans.

Like the other Beatle parents, Mimi was extremely kind to the fans who wrote to her or stopped by her home. She'd often welcome them inside and give them a cup of tea while chatting about John, and when they left, she would give them a small souvenir, like a button off of one of John's shirts.

While John and Mimi did not call each other every week, as some people believe, John was in regular contact with Mimi and wanted her to move to New York.  He sent her photographs of Sean and wrote her letters about all of his milestones and wanted her to be there to see her "grandson."  However, Mimi was content in England, where she lived out her life.

While this book does not answer every question fans might have about Aunt Mimi, it does show a glimpse of what she was really like.  At only $15, it is a book that needs to be added to your summer reading list.

You can purchase this book from Amazon. There are no photos in the book; however, the author has set up a lovely Facebook page that I recommend joining because she has posted many rare photos, mostly of Mimi but also some of Paul McCartney.  

The link below is the affiliate link to Amazon, where you can purchase this book.  I get a small percentage of anything purchased through this link.  Money made from the Amazon Afflication is used to pay the annual fee to keep this site online.  Thank you for your support.  Sara

https://amzn.to/49FZ8rT