Post by KenWood on Aug 18, 2008 13:40:20 GMT -5
He’s leaving home..
Cynthia Lennon seemed to have everything as the wife of a Beatle. But behind the glamour, she writes, drugs destroyed the marriage and left her son Julian fatherless
It was supposed to be a belated honeymoon but there were four of us in the bed: John, me and two other girls, all too drunk to move. This was Paris in 1963, the year that changed our lives. She Loves You was at the top of the British charts and John had taken me away to a city where we could still be unrecognised.
A couple of days into our stay we heard that Astrid Kirchherr, a key figure from the Beatles’ Hamburg days — she invented the Beatle haircut — was also in Paris.
We met her and a girlfriend and moved from one wine bar to the next, knocking back rough red wine in vast quantities. When dawn broke the four of us could barely walk. We stumbled back to Astrid’s lodgings and downed another bottle before collapsing on her single bed. Unbelievably the four of us slept there, piled together like sardines.
Those were strange days. Despite our growing celebrity status we had no sophistication or sense of style. Back in Liverpool our idea of a classy night out had been a Scotch and Coke or a Babycham
in the pub.
The boys were now spending most of their time in London so it made sense to find homes there. Brian Epstein, their manager, was already installed in Belgravia and wasted no time in acquainting himself with the best people and places. John and I asked him to show us the ropes since we hadn’t a clue.
He took us to La Poule au Pot in Ebury Street, run by a couple of French gays.
Because homosexuality was still illegal it was only in places like this, where it was acceptable to be openly gay, that he could let down his guard. He ordered French onion soup, coq au vin and poire belle hélène. To us it was the height of sophistication.
Money was now no object, as we discovered when we talked to our accountant about buying a house. He lived in Weybridge, Surrey, and we found the perfect place nearby: Kenwood, a 16-room mock-Tudor house on the St George’s Hill estate.
We developed a taste for London’s nightlife. A favourite haunt was the Ad Lib club. We’d talk, drink and dance the night away with our old Liverpool mates, Freddie and the Dreamers and Gerry and the Pacemakers, plus the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Animals and Georgie Fame. Keith Moon, the Who’s drummer, and I had wonderful philosophical conversations. Despite his mad rocker image I found him sensitive and serious-minded.
After a night of partying, we’d leave at dawn, get the chauffeur to stop at a cafe for a meat pie and be home in time for me to get our son Julian up and off to school.
John made friends with Peter Cook, the satirist. He and his wife Wendy invited us to lunch. Their home in Hampstead was like something out of a glossy magazine. We had our first taste of garlic — unheard of in Liverpool. These people seemed effortlessly perfect.
I looked at John in horror when he invited them back to dinner. As the day approached I drew up the most impressive menu I could think of. Prawn thingytail — sauce out of a bottle, frozen prawns. Roast lamb. Apple crumble out of a packet. Custard out of a tin.
The Cooks were due at eight. John had promised to be home in plenty of time. With 15 minutes to go I tried to compose myself. Peter and Wendy arrived. I poured drinks and handed them nuts and crisps. With no sign of John, I did my best to keep the conversation going and the glasses full. The next two hours were probably the most embarrassing of my life. And the food was gently disintegrating in the oven.
It was 10 when John rolled in with a beatific smile, clearly stoned. He had fortified himself with a few joints and lost track of time. The night, however, was a great success. Peter and Wendy accepted a joint from John and by the time I served the meal they were so stoned that they wolfed it down, oblivious to its hideous state.
I didn’t go on many shopping sprees, but when I did it was for shoes. John loved shopping even more than I did. Stores would open out of hours for the boys and they’d scoop up goodies in their own version of a supermarket trolley dash. John had a thing about lingerie, unbelievably extravagant creations that I paraded for him in our bedroom.
When it came to clothes for himself, he’d ask: ”How does this look, Cyn? Does it go better with this? Do the colours look okay together? Are the trousers too baggy?” A trying-on session could last hours.
One of his biggest indulgences was cars. One day he made me cover my eyes and led me outside. Standing on the drive was a gold Porsche — for me. A few weeks later, however, the Porsche was gone and in its place was a red Ferrari. John had part-exchanged my car for one for himself.
He was an appalling driver. His passengers had to suffer a hideous rollercoaster ride as the car hit the kerb or mounted the pavement at breathtaking speed.
BRIAN EPSTEIN had always said the Beatles would be bigger than Elvis. By 1965 his prediction had come true: the Beatles were the biggest pop act in the world. We were at the epicentre of the Swinging Sixties. While John took to it with ease, I was painfully aware of my lack of sophistication.
One evening Cilla Black gave a party, swarming with the famous. She walked into her bedroom to find Georgie Fame talking to her wardrobe. “Come on out, Cyn,” he begged. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ll come out when John realises I’ve gone missing,” my voice replied tearfully.
Cilla, panicking at my drunken state among her expensive dresses, helped to coax me out and took me off for another drink. John never even noticed I’d gone missing.
At another party I became more and more upset as he flirted with other women. Lulu, the singer, shouted at him that he should be ashamed of himself. I began to wonder if he was being unfaithful with Alma Cogan, the 1950s singing star. The Beatles had met her on her television show and she loved them, especially John. We were frequently invited to parties in her opulent apartment on Kensington High Street. I had thought of her as out of date, but in the flesh she was beautiful, intelligent and funny. I could see the sexual tension between her and John.
All of us Beatles women knew that girls threw themselves at the boys on tour, but we also knew they came home to us, so we ignored it. So when I began to wonder if John had had affairs I decided to let it go.
The biggest change in our lives, and the biggest single factor that led to our break-up, was John’s interest in drugs. The Beatles had been introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan. I felt it helped John to relax after working for 12 or 15 hours at a stretch. But the effects of LSD were very different.
At a dinner party we’d gone to with George Harrison and his wife Patti, the host spiked our drinks with it. The room swam and we had no idea what was going on until our laughing hosts enlightened us. Frightened, we rushed out of the house, desperate to get home. We piled into George’s new Mini.
The trouble was that George had no idea which way up the world was. God knows how he made it, but after we had gone round in circles for hours we eventually arrived at his home. John and I weren’t capable of getting back to Kenwood, so the four of us sat up for the rest of the night as the walls moved, the plants talked, other people looked like ghouls and time stood still. It was horrific.
Although John had been as shocked and scared as the rest of us, he began to take LSD daily, convinced that this was the way to greater enlightenment, creativity and happiness.
Soon he was bringing home a ragged assortment of people he’d met through drugs. They’d crash out on the sofas, beds and floors. John begged me to try LSD again: “Cyn, you know how much I love you . . . It would bring us even closer together.” Finally, I agreed.
A group of friends came over to “support” me, including George and Patti. This was “Mission Cynthia” to ease me into the joys of LSD. I think I was given the drug in my drink, so I wouldn’t refuse at the last minute. I looked in the mirror and saw my own skeleton. I thought I was in hell. The carpet seemed to be breathing. Everything changed its form and colour — even the cat.
As the drug wore off my first coherent thought was that I didn’t want to tamper with my sanity. I wanted calm, clear thought. I wanted to be there for my son.
After three years of non-stop touring, recording and performing, John, Paul, George and Ringo were exhausted so they decided to stop performing live.
The Beatles had become a magnet for the sick and disabled on their tours. For some reason disability terrified John. In our student days he’d mocked the disabled and drawn cartoons of cripples. So it had been little short of a nightmare when queues of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, or with learning difficulties, plus their helpers, had formed outside the boys’ dressing rooms. All John wanted now was to be at home without anyone bothering him.
One morning at breakfast he pointed out an article in the newspaper. It was about a Japanese artist, Yoko Ono, who had made a film of people’s bottoms. “It must be a joke,” he said. “Christ, what next? She can’t be serious! Mad.”
We didn’t discuss her again until one night we were in bed reading. I asked what his book was. “Oh, something that weird artist woman sent me,” he said.
“I didn’t know you’d met her.”
“Yeah, I went to her exhibition. John Dunbar asked me. It was nutty.”
Dunbar, former husband of Mick Jagger’s girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, owned an art gallery. It wasn’t unusual for him to invite friends so I didn’t think any more about it.
By the time John had been at home for nine months, he was still taking drugs almost daily and was distant, moody and unpredictable. The drugs had ruined his appetite and he looked terrible. I feared he might kill himself. I found it hard to understand his attraction to drugs. Was it a way of blotting out the pain of his childhood? It seemed to me that, initially, success had done that. But eventually the fame had become too much, and I believe he had turned to drugs to escape.
Almost miraculously, the motivation to give up drugs appeared in a visit to Britain by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the summer of 1967. The Maharishi said that through meditation you could reach a natural high as powerful as any drugs could induce. When he invited the Beatles to a conference in Bangor, north Wales, I was happy to go along. Mick and Marianne were also coming.
We were to travel with the Maharishi’s party, but we drew up at Euston station with only five minutes to catch the train. John leapt out of the car and ran, leaving me with our bags. I followed as fast as I could but the station was mayhem. A huge policeman said: “Sorry, love, too late, the train’s going,” and pushed me aside. I was left with tears pouring down my cheeks. The incident seemed symbolic of my marriage.
When I finally got to Bangor I found we were staying at a training college. The rooms had bunk beds. Mick and Marianne looked bewildered. The psychedelically clad pop star elite sat cross-legged around the Maharishi. Marianne whispered she’d started her period and did I have anything with me? Fortunately I did. I liked her: she was sweet and seemed too fragile for the world of drugs and rock.
That afternoon the Beatles held a press conference renouncing the use of drugs. The press was wildly excited. This had barely hit the newsstands, however, when it was overtaken by appalling news: Brian Epstein was dead from a drugs overdose. “Christ, Cyn, what are we going to do?” John said, the blood draining from his face.
The Maharishi summoned us to a room full of flowers and colour where he talked about life’s journey, reincarnation and release from pain. He said for Brian to have an easy passage we must laugh and be happy because negative feelings would hold him back. Some of the press, catching the Beatles smiling, interpreted this as callousness. But John and the others were devastated, their smiles an attempt to do something for Brian.
To the world Brian had had everything. Why would he want to die? But we knew he was a complex and insecure man. He had had lovers but never found a stable, loving relationship. He had been taking antidepressants and sleeping pills, more than he was supposed to. The inquest concluded that he had not intended to kill himself.
What had begun as a passing interest in the Maharishi now became a life quest for John and George. They agreed to go to his ashram in India. Patti and I would go too. John seemed almost like his old self. “We can make it work, Cyn,” he said. He even talked of having “loads more kids”.
Shortly before our departure, we met the Maharishi’s assistant at a house in London. As we entered I saw a Japanese woman seated in a corner. I guessed this was Yoko Ono. John appeared not to notice her. At the end of the evening our chauffeur opened our car door and, to my astonishment, Yoko got in. John gave me a look that intimated he didn’t know what was going on. He asked if we could give her a lift. “Oh, yes, please: 25 Hanover Gate,” Yoko replied. Not another word was said until we dropped her off, when she said: “Goodbye. Thank you.”
“How bizarre,” I said. “What was that all about?”
“Search me, Cyn,” said John.
In a pile of fan mail I came across a letter from Yoko to John. She said that when she didn’t see him she was thinking very much about him. John told me: “She’s crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her.”
The Maharishi’s meditation centre was set above the foothills of the Himalayas, surrounded by vibrant flowers and shrubs. I loved being there away from the fans and flashing cameras. Best of all, John and I could be together.
The singer Donovan turned up with his friend, a burly bloke called Gypsy. Donovan was having a romance with Patti’s sister Jenny, who was also with us. He wrote his hit song Jennifer Juniper for her in India.
Four days later Paul, his girlfriend Jane Asher, Ringo and Maureen arrived. Ringo brought a crate of baked beans, but he and Maureen stayed for only 10 days. “That Maharishi’s a nice man,” Ringo said, “but he’s not for me.”
I was not having the second honeymoon I’d hoped for. After a week or two John moved into a separate room. From then on he virtually ignored me. He said it was the effect of the meditation: “It’s nothing to do with you.”
I didn’t know that each morning he rushed to the post office hoping for a letter from Yoko, who was writing almost daily.
Back home in England, John remained distant towards me. There was just one moment of real warmth between us and that was, ironically, when he confessed he had been unfaithful. I was standing by the kitchen sink when he said out of the blue: “There have been other women, you know, Cyn.”
“That’s okay,” I said, taken aback by his honesty.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, Cyn,” he said, kissing me. “I still love you and I always will.”
A couple of weeks later he suggested I join Jenny, Donovan, Gypsy and Magic Alex — an electronics expert who was part of the Beatles’ circle — on a two-week holiday in Greece. “I’ve got a lot on at the moment and I can’t go, but you should,” he said.
He persisted and I decided to go. Julian went to stay with Dot, our housekeeper. Surprisingly, it was a lovely holiday. I missed John badly and convinced myself we could make a fresh start. I was full of plans for our future.
On the way home we landed in Rome and had lunch. Wouldn’t it be fun to finish the day with dinner in London with John, after breakfast in Greece and lunch in Rome? Alex suggested I ring him to tell him what time we would be back. John’s reply on the phone sounded normal: “Fine, see you later.”
Jenny and Alex came with me to Kenwood. We arrived at 4pm and immediately I knew something was wrong: the porch light was on, the curtains were drawn and everything was silent. We walked in and began to look for John, Julian and Dot. “Where are you all?” I called.
As I put my hand on the sunroom door I felt a sudden frisson of fear. Inside, the curtains were closed and it took me a moment to focus. I froze. John and Yoko were sitting on the floor, facing each other, beside a table covered with dirty dishes. They were wearing towelling robes from the poolhouse.
John looked at me, expressionless, and said: “Oh, hi.”
I blurted out the only thing I could think of: “We were all looking forward to dinner in London after lunch in Rome and breakfast in Greece. Would you like to come?”
“No, thanks,” he said.
The stupidity of my question has haunted me ever since. Confronted by my husband and his lover — wearing my dressing-gown — all I could do was carry on as if everything were normal. It was clear they had arranged for me to find them like that and the cruelty of John’s betrayal was hard to absorb. I ran towards the stairs with no idea other than to escape. On the landing I stumbled across a pair of small Japanese slippers, placed neatly outside the guest bedroom. The bed hadn’t been used. I threw a few things into a bag and, barely 20 minutes after I had arrived for what I had hoped would be a loving reunion, I got back into the waiting taxi with Jenny and Alex and drove away.
I have no memory of the journey to the house they shared. Jenny went to her room to sleep when we arrived. I collapsed on a sofa.
“I think you need a drink, Cyn,” said Alex, lighting candles. He brought out a bottle of red wine. I knocked back several glasses. Then we drank a second bottle.
Groggy, I suddenly realised what Alex was saying: “Do you know, Cyn? I’ve always loved you. This is perfect. How much money do you have? Why don’t you and I run away together?”
I answered, without thinking, that I had a mere £1,000. No riches, nothing. I was sick in the bathroom and then collapsed on a bed fully clothed, pulled the covers over me and passed out. Some time later Alex crept into the bed and attempted to kiss and fondle me. I pushed him away, sickened.
The next morning Alex kept a low profile. But after two days I knew I had to go home. Kenwood was astonishingly normal. Julian leapt into my arms and
John wandered out of the den, saying: “Oh, hi. Where have you been?” Surely he was joking. But no, he seemed pleased to see me. He planted a kiss on my cheek.
I didn’t want to say anything in front of Julian. It was evening before I had a chance to ask about Yoko. “Oh, her?” he said. “Nothing, it’s not important.”
John talked again about his other women and insisted Yoko was no more important than they had been: “It’s you I love, Cyn . . . more than I ever have before.”
That night we made love. John was so completely different from the man who had sat with Yoko in the sunroom that it was hard to accept they were the same person. Had he been on drugs?
This happy respite soon ended. John was due to go to the States. I suggested I go with him so we could spend more time together. His answer was a flat no. He was irritable and withdrawn and I felt a rising panic. I didn’t want to be left alone in the house while he was away, so I asked if he would mind me taking my mother and Julian to Italy. “Yeah, sure,” he replied.
We stayed at a hotel in Pesaro. One of the waitresses, a Lancashire girl, was friendly and suggested we go out for a night. I didn’t want us to look like two single girls trying to pick up men, so she asked Roberto Bassanini, son of the hotel owners, to take us out. For a few hours I forgot my troubles. Roberto seemed to know everyone, introducing us to dozens of people as we moved from bar to bar.
When our car drew up outside the hotel at about 2am, Roberto opened the door for me and I stepped out to see Magic Alex. What was he doing there? Here I was in the small hours with a good-looking young Italian. God forbid that Alex might think I was having a holiday romance.
“I’ve come with a message from John,” Alex said. “He is going to divorce you, take Julian away from you and send you back to Hoylake [my home town].” All I could think was how cowardly John was to send his lapdog because he couldn’t face me. It was sinister and cruel.
I woke next morning with a fever and laryngitis. Signora Bassanini fussed over me with hot drinks and cold flannels. When she brought me the newspapers, they had a picture of John and Yoko, hand in hand, attending the opening of the play In His Own Write adapted from his books. The papers called her John’s “new love”. Yoko had got her man. My man.
When I returned to London a letter was delivered by hand informing me that John was suing me for divorce on the grounds of my adultery with Roberto. It was laughable. Would I next be accused of an affair with Alex?
Back at Kenwood, Julian kept asking when John was coming home. I tried to explain that Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t be together any more. “Why not?” All I could offer was, “We weren’t getting on very well.”
John refused to see me but eventually agreed to come to Kenwood. Mum, Dot and I were in the kitchen when the door bell rang. I looked out of the window. John and Yoko were standing outside dressed in black. God! He’d brought her. Mum was ready to annihilate them both and Dot had to physically restrain her.
I barely recognised John. He was thinner, almost gaunt. There was no hint of a smile, even when Julian ran up. After an initial hug John ignored him.
“What did you want to see me for?” he asked me coldly.
“Look, John, can’t we find a better way to do this? I haven’t been unfaithful to you, I’m sure you know that.”
“Forget all that bullnuts. You’re no innocent little flower.”
“I was with my family in Italy. I was with Julian. Do you honestly think I would do that to them or to you? Let’s discuss things.”
“We can do that through the lawyers.” He called “bye” to Julian and marched out, Yoko at his heels.
I counter-sued for divorce, citing his adultery.
I did my best to keep cheerful with Julian, but every now and then he would catch me crying. He’d throw his arms round me, saying: “Don’t cry, Mummy, please don’t cry.”
Mum and Dot were there keeping an eye on me, but I heard from hardly another soul. It seemed that John had cut me off not just from himself but from the whole Beatles family. The only person who came to see me was Paul. He arrived one sunny afternoon with a red rose and said: “I’m so sorry, Cyn, I don’t know what’s come over him. This isn’t right.”
On the way down he had written a song for Julian. It began as Hey Jules and became Hey Jude. Ironically John thought it was about him when he first heard it.
Paul told me he had broken up with Jane Asher. In a scenario bizarrely like ours, she had come home early from a theatre tour and had caught him in their home with another girl. Understandably she had walked out. Paul blamed himself and was heartbroken.
He was the only member of the Beatles family with the courage to defy John, who had apparently made it clear he expected everyone to follow his lead in cutting me off. I felt as though John had amputated me like a gangrenous limb.
When Yoko revealed she was pregnant, my humiliation was complete. I was sorry when she lost the baby, but John could hardly deny his adultery now. He agreed not to contest my divorce petition and conceded custody of Julian to me.
Money was perhaps the toughest issue. I disagreeets included £1,000 in the bank, my clothes and a Mercedes car. John’s were submitted at £750,000 [about £7.5m today], although he was undoubtedly worth far more. A QC said I could take him to the cleaners for half his fortune, but I wanted to sort it out amicably so I phoned him.
“What do you want?” he snapped. I said I wanted to reach a friendly settlement. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “My final offer is £75,000. That’s like winning the pools so what are you moaning about? You’re not worth any more.” He hung up.
He eventually raised his offer to £100,000. This was broken down into £25,000 for a house and £75,000 to support me and Julian until he was 21. Allowing for inflation, it would not be enough to cover even our modest expenses.
A further £100,000 was put into a trust fund for Julian but withdrawals would have to be approved by John and Yoko. And if John had more children the fund would be shared equally with them.
While I realised I was lucky compared with most divorcing women, John was being meaner than I’d ever known him. But I had no energy for a fight. Still smarting from John’s withering remark about winning the pools, I accepted his offer. It would haunt me for decades afterwards.
© Cynthia Lennon 2005
Extracted from John by Cynthia Lennon to be published by Hodder & Stoughton
Cynthia Lennon seemed to have everything as the wife of a Beatle. But behind the glamour, she writes, drugs destroyed the marriage and left her son Julian fatherless
It was supposed to be a belated honeymoon but there were four of us in the bed: John, me and two other girls, all too drunk to move. This was Paris in 1963, the year that changed our lives. She Loves You was at the top of the British charts and John had taken me away to a city where we could still be unrecognised.
A couple of days into our stay we heard that Astrid Kirchherr, a key figure from the Beatles’ Hamburg days — she invented the Beatle haircut — was also in Paris.
We met her and a girlfriend and moved from one wine bar to the next, knocking back rough red wine in vast quantities. When dawn broke the four of us could barely walk. We stumbled back to Astrid’s lodgings and downed another bottle before collapsing on her single bed. Unbelievably the four of us slept there, piled together like sardines.
Those were strange days. Despite our growing celebrity status we had no sophistication or sense of style. Back in Liverpool our idea of a classy night out had been a Scotch and Coke or a Babycham
in the pub.
The boys were now spending most of their time in London so it made sense to find homes there. Brian Epstein, their manager, was already installed in Belgravia and wasted no time in acquainting himself with the best people and places. John and I asked him to show us the ropes since we hadn’t a clue.
He took us to La Poule au Pot in Ebury Street, run by a couple of French gays.
Because homosexuality was still illegal it was only in places like this, where it was acceptable to be openly gay, that he could let down his guard. He ordered French onion soup, coq au vin and poire belle hélène. To us it was the height of sophistication.
Money was now no object, as we discovered when we talked to our accountant about buying a house. He lived in Weybridge, Surrey, and we found the perfect place nearby: Kenwood, a 16-room mock-Tudor house on the St George’s Hill estate.
We developed a taste for London’s nightlife. A favourite haunt was the Ad Lib club. We’d talk, drink and dance the night away with our old Liverpool mates, Freddie and the Dreamers and Gerry and the Pacemakers, plus the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Animals and Georgie Fame. Keith Moon, the Who’s drummer, and I had wonderful philosophical conversations. Despite his mad rocker image I found him sensitive and serious-minded.
After a night of partying, we’d leave at dawn, get the chauffeur to stop at a cafe for a meat pie and be home in time for me to get our son Julian up and off to school.
John made friends with Peter Cook, the satirist. He and his wife Wendy invited us to lunch. Their home in Hampstead was like something out of a glossy magazine. We had our first taste of garlic — unheard of in Liverpool. These people seemed effortlessly perfect.
I looked at John in horror when he invited them back to dinner. As the day approached I drew up the most impressive menu I could think of. Prawn thingytail — sauce out of a bottle, frozen prawns. Roast lamb. Apple crumble out of a packet. Custard out of a tin.
The Cooks were due at eight. John had promised to be home in plenty of time. With 15 minutes to go I tried to compose myself. Peter and Wendy arrived. I poured drinks and handed them nuts and crisps. With no sign of John, I did my best to keep the conversation going and the glasses full. The next two hours were probably the most embarrassing of my life. And the food was gently disintegrating in the oven.
It was 10 when John rolled in with a beatific smile, clearly stoned. He had fortified himself with a few joints and lost track of time. The night, however, was a great success. Peter and Wendy accepted a joint from John and by the time I served the meal they were so stoned that they wolfed it down, oblivious to its hideous state.
I didn’t go on many shopping sprees, but when I did it was for shoes. John loved shopping even more than I did. Stores would open out of hours for the boys and they’d scoop up goodies in their own version of a supermarket trolley dash. John had a thing about lingerie, unbelievably extravagant creations that I paraded for him in our bedroom.
When it came to clothes for himself, he’d ask: ”How does this look, Cyn? Does it go better with this? Do the colours look okay together? Are the trousers too baggy?” A trying-on session could last hours.
One of his biggest indulgences was cars. One day he made me cover my eyes and led me outside. Standing on the drive was a gold Porsche — for me. A few weeks later, however, the Porsche was gone and in its place was a red Ferrari. John had part-exchanged my car for one for himself.
He was an appalling driver. His passengers had to suffer a hideous rollercoaster ride as the car hit the kerb or mounted the pavement at breathtaking speed.
BRIAN EPSTEIN had always said the Beatles would be bigger than Elvis. By 1965 his prediction had come true: the Beatles were the biggest pop act in the world. We were at the epicentre of the Swinging Sixties. While John took to it with ease, I was painfully aware of my lack of sophistication.
One evening Cilla Black gave a party, swarming with the famous. She walked into her bedroom to find Georgie Fame talking to her wardrobe. “Come on out, Cyn,” he begged. “What’s the matter?”
“I’ll come out when John realises I’ve gone missing,” my voice replied tearfully.
Cilla, panicking at my drunken state among her expensive dresses, helped to coax me out and took me off for another drink. John never even noticed I’d gone missing.
At another party I became more and more upset as he flirted with other women. Lulu, the singer, shouted at him that he should be ashamed of himself. I began to wonder if he was being unfaithful with Alma Cogan, the 1950s singing star. The Beatles had met her on her television show and she loved them, especially John. We were frequently invited to parties in her opulent apartment on Kensington High Street. I had thought of her as out of date, but in the flesh she was beautiful, intelligent and funny. I could see the sexual tension between her and John.
All of us Beatles women knew that girls threw themselves at the boys on tour, but we also knew they came home to us, so we ignored it. So when I began to wonder if John had had affairs I decided to let it go.
The biggest change in our lives, and the biggest single factor that led to our break-up, was John’s interest in drugs. The Beatles had been introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan. I felt it helped John to relax after working for 12 or 15 hours at a stretch. But the effects of LSD were very different.
At a dinner party we’d gone to with George Harrison and his wife Patti, the host spiked our drinks with it. The room swam and we had no idea what was going on until our laughing hosts enlightened us. Frightened, we rushed out of the house, desperate to get home. We piled into George’s new Mini.
The trouble was that George had no idea which way up the world was. God knows how he made it, but after we had gone round in circles for hours we eventually arrived at his home. John and I weren’t capable of getting back to Kenwood, so the four of us sat up for the rest of the night as the walls moved, the plants talked, other people looked like ghouls and time stood still. It was horrific.
Although John had been as shocked and scared as the rest of us, he began to take LSD daily, convinced that this was the way to greater enlightenment, creativity and happiness.
Soon he was bringing home a ragged assortment of people he’d met through drugs. They’d crash out on the sofas, beds and floors. John begged me to try LSD again: “Cyn, you know how much I love you . . . It would bring us even closer together.” Finally, I agreed.
A group of friends came over to “support” me, including George and Patti. This was “Mission Cynthia” to ease me into the joys of LSD. I think I was given the drug in my drink, so I wouldn’t refuse at the last minute. I looked in the mirror and saw my own skeleton. I thought I was in hell. The carpet seemed to be breathing. Everything changed its form and colour — even the cat.
As the drug wore off my first coherent thought was that I didn’t want to tamper with my sanity. I wanted calm, clear thought. I wanted to be there for my son.
After three years of non-stop touring, recording and performing, John, Paul, George and Ringo were exhausted so they decided to stop performing live.
The Beatles had become a magnet for the sick and disabled on their tours. For some reason disability terrified John. In our student days he’d mocked the disabled and drawn cartoons of cripples. So it had been little short of a nightmare when queues of people in wheelchairs, on crutches, or with learning difficulties, plus their helpers, had formed outside the boys’ dressing rooms. All John wanted now was to be at home without anyone bothering him.
One morning at breakfast he pointed out an article in the newspaper. It was about a Japanese artist, Yoko Ono, who had made a film of people’s bottoms. “It must be a joke,” he said. “Christ, what next? She can’t be serious! Mad.”
We didn’t discuss her again until one night we were in bed reading. I asked what his book was. “Oh, something that weird artist woman sent me,” he said.
“I didn’t know you’d met her.”
“Yeah, I went to her exhibition. John Dunbar asked me. It was nutty.”
Dunbar, former husband of Mick Jagger’s girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, owned an art gallery. It wasn’t unusual for him to invite friends so I didn’t think any more about it.
By the time John had been at home for nine months, he was still taking drugs almost daily and was distant, moody and unpredictable. The drugs had ruined his appetite and he looked terrible. I feared he might kill himself. I found it hard to understand his attraction to drugs. Was it a way of blotting out the pain of his childhood? It seemed to me that, initially, success had done that. But eventually the fame had become too much, and I believe he had turned to drugs to escape.
Almost miraculously, the motivation to give up drugs appeared in a visit to Britain by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the summer of 1967. The Maharishi said that through meditation you could reach a natural high as powerful as any drugs could induce. When he invited the Beatles to a conference in Bangor, north Wales, I was happy to go along. Mick and Marianne were also coming.
We were to travel with the Maharishi’s party, but we drew up at Euston station with only five minutes to catch the train. John leapt out of the car and ran, leaving me with our bags. I followed as fast as I could but the station was mayhem. A huge policeman said: “Sorry, love, too late, the train’s going,” and pushed me aside. I was left with tears pouring down my cheeks. The incident seemed symbolic of my marriage.
When I finally got to Bangor I found we were staying at a training college. The rooms had bunk beds. Mick and Marianne looked bewildered. The psychedelically clad pop star elite sat cross-legged around the Maharishi. Marianne whispered she’d started her period and did I have anything with me? Fortunately I did. I liked her: she was sweet and seemed too fragile for the world of drugs and rock.
That afternoon the Beatles held a press conference renouncing the use of drugs. The press was wildly excited. This had barely hit the newsstands, however, when it was overtaken by appalling news: Brian Epstein was dead from a drugs overdose. “Christ, Cyn, what are we going to do?” John said, the blood draining from his face.
The Maharishi summoned us to a room full of flowers and colour where he talked about life’s journey, reincarnation and release from pain. He said for Brian to have an easy passage we must laugh and be happy because negative feelings would hold him back. Some of the press, catching the Beatles smiling, interpreted this as callousness. But John and the others were devastated, their smiles an attempt to do something for Brian.
To the world Brian had had everything. Why would he want to die? But we knew he was a complex and insecure man. He had had lovers but never found a stable, loving relationship. He had been taking antidepressants and sleeping pills, more than he was supposed to. The inquest concluded that he had not intended to kill himself.
What had begun as a passing interest in the Maharishi now became a life quest for John and George. They agreed to go to his ashram in India. Patti and I would go too. John seemed almost like his old self. “We can make it work, Cyn,” he said. He even talked of having “loads more kids”.
Shortly before our departure, we met the Maharishi’s assistant at a house in London. As we entered I saw a Japanese woman seated in a corner. I guessed this was Yoko Ono. John appeared not to notice her. At the end of the evening our chauffeur opened our car door and, to my astonishment, Yoko got in. John gave me a look that intimated he didn’t know what was going on. He asked if we could give her a lift. “Oh, yes, please: 25 Hanover Gate,” Yoko replied. Not another word was said until we dropped her off, when she said: “Goodbye. Thank you.”
“How bizarre,” I said. “What was that all about?”
“Search me, Cyn,” said John.
In a pile of fan mail I came across a letter from Yoko to John. She said that when she didn’t see him she was thinking very much about him. John told me: “She’s crackers, just a weirdo artist who wants me to sponsor her.”
The Maharishi’s meditation centre was set above the foothills of the Himalayas, surrounded by vibrant flowers and shrubs. I loved being there away from the fans and flashing cameras. Best of all, John and I could be together.
The singer Donovan turned up with his friend, a burly bloke called Gypsy. Donovan was having a romance with Patti’s sister Jenny, who was also with us. He wrote his hit song Jennifer Juniper for her in India.
Four days later Paul, his girlfriend Jane Asher, Ringo and Maureen arrived. Ringo brought a crate of baked beans, but he and Maureen stayed for only 10 days. “That Maharishi’s a nice man,” Ringo said, “but he’s not for me.”
I was not having the second honeymoon I’d hoped for. After a week or two John moved into a separate room. From then on he virtually ignored me. He said it was the effect of the meditation: “It’s nothing to do with you.”
I didn’t know that each morning he rushed to the post office hoping for a letter from Yoko, who was writing almost daily.
Back home in England, John remained distant towards me. There was just one moment of real warmth between us and that was, ironically, when he confessed he had been unfaithful. I was standing by the kitchen sink when he said out of the blue: “There have been other women, you know, Cyn.”
“That’s okay,” I said, taken aback by his honesty.
“You’re the only one I’ve ever loved, Cyn,” he said, kissing me. “I still love you and I always will.”
A couple of weeks later he suggested I join Jenny, Donovan, Gypsy and Magic Alex — an electronics expert who was part of the Beatles’ circle — on a two-week holiday in Greece. “I’ve got a lot on at the moment and I can’t go, but you should,” he said.
He persisted and I decided to go. Julian went to stay with Dot, our housekeeper. Surprisingly, it was a lovely holiday. I missed John badly and convinced myself we could make a fresh start. I was full of plans for our future.
On the way home we landed in Rome and had lunch. Wouldn’t it be fun to finish the day with dinner in London with John, after breakfast in Greece and lunch in Rome? Alex suggested I ring him to tell him what time we would be back. John’s reply on the phone sounded normal: “Fine, see you later.”
Jenny and Alex came with me to Kenwood. We arrived at 4pm and immediately I knew something was wrong: the porch light was on, the curtains were drawn and everything was silent. We walked in and began to look for John, Julian and Dot. “Where are you all?” I called.
As I put my hand on the sunroom door I felt a sudden frisson of fear. Inside, the curtains were closed and it took me a moment to focus. I froze. John and Yoko were sitting on the floor, facing each other, beside a table covered with dirty dishes. They were wearing towelling robes from the poolhouse.
John looked at me, expressionless, and said: “Oh, hi.”
I blurted out the only thing I could think of: “We were all looking forward to dinner in London after lunch in Rome and breakfast in Greece. Would you like to come?”
“No, thanks,” he said.
The stupidity of my question has haunted me ever since. Confronted by my husband and his lover — wearing my dressing-gown — all I could do was carry on as if everything were normal. It was clear they had arranged for me to find them like that and the cruelty of John’s betrayal was hard to absorb. I ran towards the stairs with no idea other than to escape. On the landing I stumbled across a pair of small Japanese slippers, placed neatly outside the guest bedroom. The bed hadn’t been used. I threw a few things into a bag and, barely 20 minutes after I had arrived for what I had hoped would be a loving reunion, I got back into the waiting taxi with Jenny and Alex and drove away.
I have no memory of the journey to the house they shared. Jenny went to her room to sleep when we arrived. I collapsed on a sofa.
“I think you need a drink, Cyn,” said Alex, lighting candles. He brought out a bottle of red wine. I knocked back several glasses. Then we drank a second bottle.
Groggy, I suddenly realised what Alex was saying: “Do you know, Cyn? I’ve always loved you. This is perfect. How much money do you have? Why don’t you and I run away together?”
I answered, without thinking, that I had a mere £1,000. No riches, nothing. I was sick in the bathroom and then collapsed on a bed fully clothed, pulled the covers over me and passed out. Some time later Alex crept into the bed and attempted to kiss and fondle me. I pushed him away, sickened.
The next morning Alex kept a low profile. But after two days I knew I had to go home. Kenwood was astonishingly normal. Julian leapt into my arms and
John wandered out of the den, saying: “Oh, hi. Where have you been?” Surely he was joking. But no, he seemed pleased to see me. He planted a kiss on my cheek.
I didn’t want to say anything in front of Julian. It was evening before I had a chance to ask about Yoko. “Oh, her?” he said. “Nothing, it’s not important.”
John talked again about his other women and insisted Yoko was no more important than they had been: “It’s you I love, Cyn . . . more than I ever have before.”
That night we made love. John was so completely different from the man who had sat with Yoko in the sunroom that it was hard to accept they were the same person. Had he been on drugs?
This happy respite soon ended. John was due to go to the States. I suggested I go with him so we could spend more time together. His answer was a flat no. He was irritable and withdrawn and I felt a rising panic. I didn’t want to be left alone in the house while he was away, so I asked if he would mind me taking my mother and Julian to Italy. “Yeah, sure,” he replied.
We stayed at a hotel in Pesaro. One of the waitresses, a Lancashire girl, was friendly and suggested we go out for a night. I didn’t want us to look like two single girls trying to pick up men, so she asked Roberto Bassanini, son of the hotel owners, to take us out. For a few hours I forgot my troubles. Roberto seemed to know everyone, introducing us to dozens of people as we moved from bar to bar.
When our car drew up outside the hotel at about 2am, Roberto opened the door for me and I stepped out to see Magic Alex. What was he doing there? Here I was in the small hours with a good-looking young Italian. God forbid that Alex might think I was having a holiday romance.
“I’ve come with a message from John,” Alex said. “He is going to divorce you, take Julian away from you and send you back to Hoylake [my home town].” All I could think was how cowardly John was to send his lapdog because he couldn’t face me. It was sinister and cruel.
I woke next morning with a fever and laryngitis. Signora Bassanini fussed over me with hot drinks and cold flannels. When she brought me the newspapers, they had a picture of John and Yoko, hand in hand, attending the opening of the play In His Own Write adapted from his books. The papers called her John’s “new love”. Yoko had got her man. My man.
When I returned to London a letter was delivered by hand informing me that John was suing me for divorce on the grounds of my adultery with Roberto. It was laughable. Would I next be accused of an affair with Alex?
Back at Kenwood, Julian kept asking when John was coming home. I tried to explain that Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t be together any more. “Why not?” All I could offer was, “We weren’t getting on very well.”
John refused to see me but eventually agreed to come to Kenwood. Mum, Dot and I were in the kitchen when the door bell rang. I looked out of the window. John and Yoko were standing outside dressed in black. God! He’d brought her. Mum was ready to annihilate them both and Dot had to physically restrain her.
I barely recognised John. He was thinner, almost gaunt. There was no hint of a smile, even when Julian ran up. After an initial hug John ignored him.
“What did you want to see me for?” he asked me coldly.
“Look, John, can’t we find a better way to do this? I haven’t been unfaithful to you, I’m sure you know that.”
“Forget all that bullnuts. You’re no innocent little flower.”
“I was with my family in Italy. I was with Julian. Do you honestly think I would do that to them or to you? Let’s discuss things.”
“We can do that through the lawyers.” He called “bye” to Julian and marched out, Yoko at his heels.
I counter-sued for divorce, citing his adultery.
I did my best to keep cheerful with Julian, but every now and then he would catch me crying. He’d throw his arms round me, saying: “Don’t cry, Mummy, please don’t cry.”
Mum and Dot were there keeping an eye on me, but I heard from hardly another soul. It seemed that John had cut me off not just from himself but from the whole Beatles family. The only person who came to see me was Paul. He arrived one sunny afternoon with a red rose and said: “I’m so sorry, Cyn, I don’t know what’s come over him. This isn’t right.”
On the way down he had written a song for Julian. It began as Hey Jules and became Hey Jude. Ironically John thought it was about him when he first heard it.
Paul told me he had broken up with Jane Asher. In a scenario bizarrely like ours, she had come home early from a theatre tour and had caught him in their home with another girl. Understandably she had walked out. Paul blamed himself and was heartbroken.
He was the only member of the Beatles family with the courage to defy John, who had apparently made it clear he expected everyone to follow his lead in cutting me off. I felt as though John had amputated me like a gangrenous limb.
When Yoko revealed she was pregnant, my humiliation was complete. I was sorry when she lost the baby, but John could hardly deny his adultery now. He agreed not to contest my divorce petition and conceded custody of Julian to me.
Money was perhaps the toughest issue. I disagreeets included £1,000 in the bank, my clothes and a Mercedes car. John’s were submitted at £750,000 [about £7.5m today], although he was undoubtedly worth far more. A QC said I could take him to the cleaners for half his fortune, but I wanted to sort it out amicably so I phoned him.
“What do you want?” he snapped. I said I wanted to reach a friendly settlement. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “My final offer is £75,000. That’s like winning the pools so what are you moaning about? You’re not worth any more.” He hung up.
He eventually raised his offer to £100,000. This was broken down into £25,000 for a house and £75,000 to support me and Julian until he was 21. Allowing for inflation, it would not be enough to cover even our modest expenses.
A further £100,000 was put into a trust fund for Julian but withdrawals would have to be approved by John and Yoko. And if John had more children the fund would be shared equally with them.
While I realised I was lucky compared with most divorcing women, John was being meaner than I’d ever known him. But I had no energy for a fight. Still smarting from John’s withering remark about winning the pools, I accepted his offer. It would haunt me for decades afterwards.
© Cynthia Lennon 2005
Extracted from John by Cynthia Lennon to be published by Hodder & Stoughton