Customer Reviews

Giving a Voice to the Poor Relations
Julia Baird always speaks with humility and dignity about her brother, even when talking about the rifts, the years of lost contact. This book, too, speaks with that same authentic voice.

One detail that most reviews won't take on about the book is the powerful and divisive influence of Yoko Ono, the love of Lennon's life. Yet it's a key theme throughout the book.

Some Lennons experienced the humiliation of being in danger of eviction once Yoko inherited the Lennon fortune - because Lennon had never stipulated legally what he said by word of mouth: that two houses inhabited by Lennons were meant for the family in perpetuity. Even Aunt Mimi seems to have felt a little vulnerable to the landlady who owned her final house - the landlady being Yoko.

Yoko's view seems to have been that the family - Julia, for instance - hardly knew John and had no moral authority therefore to claim any heritage. Or to attend any funeral ceremony for the dead Lennon either.

The lack of respect for Lennon's past shown by Yoko's actions - for the ancestral connection with his fractured family who still seek the connections and resolutions that any family has a right to find - is appalling.

To my mind, it's got nothing to do with racism or misogyny and it's got everything to do with class. Yoko is a multi-billionaire and a corporate entity, a brand name even. The Lennons are the poor relations.

The appropriation of Lennon's past, Lennon's childhood properties and the dismissal of disenfranchised relatives, is part of the political history of Britain from the 1960s to the new millennium: corporate forces and property barons gained total control over the rights of the lower classes.

The Lennons have no rights under the tenure of the powerful corporation known as Yoko Ono, and anything she grants is a favour, not a moral obligation.

Despite all that, Julia Baird retains her dignity and tells a calm, low key account of growing up with her brother, the estrangement, the occasional reunions, the appalling way the Lennons heard of the murder in 1980 and how they were left in the dark, and life after the tragedy when people pull together and graveyards are visited and wounds are healed...with no help whatsoever from the billionaire and property holder of Lennon's past, Yoko Ono.

Skeletons out of the cupboard
After this book there would be little point in another by an outside writer.
No one could even have guessed what went on here

The sad childhood of John's little sister
The flood of biographies of the Beatles and their friends and families shows no sign of abating. Most of them repeat much of what we already know, with the occasional new insight or anecdote. This book stands out from the rest. As another reviewer puts it, this is "worthy in its own write [nice allusion!] as an autobiography of Julia Baird". Her story of her childhood would hit home even in an alternate universe where the Beatles had never happened.

We have long known that John was brought up by his Aunt Mimi, and that his mother's death in a road accident cruelly ended his chance to form an independent relationship with her. This book portrays as never before the stern matriarchy of the Stanley family, in which "keeping up appearances" was paramount. Although John's mother (Julia senior) was adored by her sisters, they came to see her as the black sheep of the family, and this contributed to the fractured, unhappy life of her and her children.

Julia Baird tells us about the sunshine as well as the shadows, and her love and admiration for her charismatic mother and brother are very evident. However, without stating the obvious she leaves us in little doubt why John, once plunged into the goldfish bowl of Beatlemania, had his own share of relationship problems.

Much of the book hinges around Mimi's alleged moral hypocrisy. According to Julia Baird, Mimi on her deathbed said she was frightened of dying because she had been so wicked. In her own biography of John, Cynthia Lennon (who is just as well-qualified to judge Mimi) quotes Julia's allegation, so it rings true.

Hopefully it is some small consolation to Julia Baird that her mother's name lives on in John's touching ballad "Julia" and in Julian's name too.

As in many accounts of John, Yoko is depicted in less than flattering terms.