John is a great book by his first wife Cynthia, which takes you inside the relationship & doesn't turn him into an angel, like some fans have been trying to do for over 20 years. He was a jerk in some ways, the way he treated her & Julian, but it probably was better for them to divorce.  Books will become extinct before too long, because of the internet, but you have to roll with the changes.

I've just finished reading this book and will be honest in saying that this was a difficult read for me.  
This book is not for anyone who wishes to keep John on a pedistal.  Its not for those who believe John was a God and could do no wrong.  
In fact, even for people like myself who were aware of some of the things he did even before reading the book, this was a hard read.  Its one thing to know that he cheated on his wife and left her for another woman.  Its one thing to know that he had little contact with his son as he grew up.  But to hear from that wife and that son exactly how Johns actions affected their lives (even to this day) and what he left them (or didn't leave them), its a sad thing and it brings John down to our level...sometimes even lower.
This book isn't written in a vengeful, hurtful way.  There is no cause to cry foul that Cynthia is speaking ill of the dead when they're no longer here to defend themselves.  She's honest.  She tells you exactly what happened, she doesn't sugar coat it.  But underneath everything she says, all the brutal details, you can always hear how much she loved John.  And to be fair, she dives deep into Johns upbringing and talks about his family and the infamous Aunt Mimi in great lengths in an effort to help explain why John was the way he was.  
In the end she believe he had intended to mend the relationships he had with the people he neglected but because of his death, never got the chance to see it through.

Here are some of my comments on Cynthia's book:
This is Cynthia Lennon’s second book about her relationship with her first husband, John Lennon and was reputed be more revealing about the relationship than ‘A Twist of Lennon’, originally published in 1978.

It was a much anticipated book, but contains an incredible amount of errors.

Cynthia claims that John and his group “performed as Johnny and the Rainbows from the back of a lorry at a street party to celebrate Empire Day in May 1956”.  She is referring to
a gig which actually took place in Rosebery Street on Saturday June 22 1957 and there are photographs of the event which clearly show the name Quarry Men on Colin Hanton’s drums. John didn’t form the Quarry Men until March 1957, so how could the group have been performing in May 1956?

Regarding John’s skiffle group the Quarry Men and their residency at the Casbah Club, she says “Pete (Best) had suggested to his mum that they ask one of the beat groups that were springing up all over town to come and play there. She agreed and they invited the Quarry Men.”  In fact, at the time Quarry Men had ceased to exist. George Harrison was in a group called the Les Stewart Quartet which had been booked for the Casbah residency. It was only after Stewart refused to accept the gig that George and fellow member Ken Brown decided to ask John and Paul, who were no longer performing, to reform the Quarry Men and ask Mrs Best if they could take over the residency.

She also writes, “Eventually Pete Best decided he wanted to be in a group, got himself a drum kit and formed the Blackjacks with Ken Brown, who left the Quarry Men.”

This is a distortion of the facts: When Ken Brown was ill one evening, but helped out at the door; Mrs Best paid him his share of the Quarry Men fee. Paul, John and George disagreed with this, chucked Brown out of the group and never appeared at the Casbah again until the end of 1960 when Pete was a member of the Beatles. It was Brown who approached Pete and suggested they form a group together.

Cynthia also says “The boys got an audition at the Manchester Hippodrome with a man called Carroll Levis…..they came back despondent, they had failed the audition, mainly because they lacked a drummer.” Actually, they appeared on his show at the Liverpool Empire on 8 June 1957 and, as a result, passed the audition and entered another heat in Manchester. They failed to wait until the end of the show because they had to return to Liverpool before all public transport systems closed for the night. As all entrants had to remain to the end of the show when voting took place, they automatically disqualified themselves. It had nothing to do with the lack of a drummer.

On the song-writing partnership she commented, “They had agreed that any songs they wrote, together or separately, would be by Lennon and McCartney.” This isn’t so. They agreed that whoever wrote the most part of a song would have his name first and it would be either McCartney & Lennon or Lennon & McCartney. This initially happened with their first two releases, but they were told by ‘the men in suits’ that they had to stick to the Lennon & McCartney credit, possibly because L comes before M in the alphabet.

She alleges, “Stuart (Sutcliffe) was so wrapped up in his work that he didn’t have a girlfriend and often forgot to eat.” Tell that to Susan Williams and the numerous other girlfriends Stuart had.

Cynthia writes that she became part of the fabric of John’s writing and she was part of the love songs. She says, “Some were extra special, such as ‘All My Loving’….John had written it for me during a time when we were often apart, and I loved its tender, romantic lyrics.”

This is strange because ‘All My Loving’ was written solely by Paul, with no help from John. Paul was to say, “It was the first song I ever wrote where I had the words before the music. I wrote the words on a bus on tour, then we got the tune when I arrived there.” John was to say, “’All My Loving’ is Paul, I regret to say…because it’s a damn good piece of work…but I play a pretty mean guitar in back.”  

What Cynthia wrote about John’s cousin Stan Parkes is also inaccurate. In her book she writes: “Elizabeth married Charles Parkes and had a son, Stanley. She refused to be called ‘Mummy’ – far too conventional – and settled on ‘Mater’, which soon became the name by which the whole family knew her. Her son, though, seldom had a chance to use it: Stanley was a delicate baby and she found it difficult to cope. When he was a few weeks old she handed him over to her mother, who brought him up until he was old enough to go to boarding school. Later she divorced Charles and married a dentist, Robert Sutherland, known as Bert.”

In fact, Elizabeth never divorced but only re-married some time after her first husband had died. Stan himself comments, “As usual everybody gets the story of ones background all twisted about. This is the actual truth: My mother never ever refused to be called Mummy. She was called Mummy by me until I was old enough to hear my Father referring to his Mother as Mater (Latin for Mother), so I asked my Mother can I call you Mater and she agreed.  In fact, it was me that nick-named all the Stanley Sisters because as a toddler I could not pronounce their proper names: i.e.  Mary became MIMI, My mother became Mater, Aunt Anne became NANNIE, Julia became JUDY, and Aunt Harriet became HARRIE.

”As I was born three months premature and was given up by the Doctor who thought I would not survive I did need a lot of extra nursing till I got stronger. My Grandmother was very much involved with my Father to see that I survived and lived to tell the tale. I have a photograph of me as a very new born baby in my mother’s arms in our garden at our bungalow home in Halewood before we moved over to Rock Ferry.

”My Grandmother certainly did not bring me up, I was often being babysat by her at 9 Newcastle Road.  I did not go to Boarding School till I was 10 years of age at Rossall School, Fleetwood, and then at 14 years of age up to Scotland.
  
”My Mother did not divorce my Father, my Father died when I was 11 years of age in 1944. My mother married a great friend of my Fathers a Dental Surgeon whilst we were living at Fleetwood, they married in Fleetwood in 1949.

”Where they get all this mis-information from God knows!

”I see Cyn said that John had a red Ferrari sports saloon, this is totally wrong, as I took photographs of the Ferrari which was originally light blue metallic, then John had it sprayed matt black. I had it in my possession for many weeks. How she could get that fact wrong I do not know.

”PS I also have family photographs of me at our home in Rock Ferry when I moved there as a toddler aged two and a half, and I can assure you, I am a fully strong healthy little boy by that stage.”

Cynthia also writes: “Alf’s mother had died giving birth to her youngest son, and his father died soon afterwards, so at five Alf, with his two younger brothers, was in an orphanage.”

Where did Cynthia get all this misinformation?

Charles Lennon was the last of Jack and Mary Lennon’s children and was born in 1918. John’s grandfather Jack actually died in 1921 and ‘Alf’s mother’ died in 1949 well past a child-bearing age.  When his father died, Alf was only seven years old and as his mother couldn’t afford to keep such a large family (she had six surviving children), she placed Alf and his sister Edith in the Bluecoat Orphanage – NOT Alf and his two younger brothers.

Cynthia mentions that Alf and Julia married “in December 1938.” Specific dates could easily have been included. The couple was married on Saturday 3 December 1938 at Mount Pleasant Registry Office.

She also says that after John’s birth he spent his first few years in the Penny Lane area of the city. He didn’t. He was raised for the first five years of his life at 9 Newcastle Road in Wavertree.

She mentions that Stu won “sixty pounds in a prestigious art competition, John persuaded him to spend the lot on a bass guitar and join the Quarry Men.”

Stuart won the money at the John Moore’s exhibition. At the time John had asked both Rod Murray and Stu if they’d join his group (no longer called the Quarry Men) on bass, but didn’t tell either he’d invited the other. Rod began to make a bass guitar. When Stu won the money he didn’t spend ‘the lot’ on a guitar, he just used some of the money to place as a deposit on hire purchase at Frank Hessy’s.

Cynthia also comes up with the story that Stu played with his back to the audience. Witnesses who actually watched the shows with Stuart in them deny this.

She also says “some of Liverpool’s biggest groups played at the Jac” referring to the Jacaranda. This isn’t so, the resident band was the Royal Carribbean Steel Band and when they left for Germany without telling him, Allan Williams booked the Beatles to appear there several times from 30 May 1960. Cynthia also says that they “dropped the old skiffle sound and the ballads of Cliff Richard…” They never played any Cliff Richard material at any time.

She says John came up with the name ‘Beetles’ while they were at Renshaw Hall. John and Stuart were talking about the names in their Gambier Terrace flat. It was Stuart who said that they should have a name similar to that of the Crickets, Buddy Holly’s backing group. They thought of insects and Stuart suggested ‘Beetles.’ They actually made several variations of this over the next few months – Beatals, the Silver Beats, the Silver Beetles, the Silver Beatles and, in August 1960, the Beatles.

She says local booking agent Allan Williams got them an audition with Larry Parnes – the lack of detail about these things is surprising. Parnes asked Williams to set up an audition for Liverpool bands at the Wyvern Club as he was looking for backing bands for his solo artists. Williams booked four groups. John and Stu then asked Williams if they could be one of the groups to audition and they were a late addition.  She says “as they still didn’t have a drummer, a guy from one of the other bands stood in at the audition to help them out.” Wrong! The Silver Beatles did have a drummer at the time. His name was Tommy Moore. He arrived late for the audition so Johnny Hutchinson of the Big Three sat in with them until Moore arrived. She then says they failed the audition. They didn’t. They were booked to back Johnny Gentle on a tour of Scotland – none of the groups backed Billy Fury, Parnes used them to back his other various solo artists.

As for their German debut, Cynthia says that Williams had been “exporting groups over there since a German seaman had heard a steel band playing in the Jacaranda and told people back home how good there were.” Williams had only sent a single band to Germany – Derry & the Seniors.
Cynthia says that Pete Best had no group, that the Blackjacks had ‘fallen apart’ when Pete was asked by Paul to join the Beatles. In fact, the Beatles went to see Pete performing with the Blackjacks at the Casbah, noticed his new drums and offered him an audition. As two of the members were intending to leave in the near future for college, Pete took up the offer.
Cynthia also writes: “The Beatles were moved to the Kaiserkeller where another Liverpool group Rory Storm & the Hurricanes, were playing.” No! The other Liverpool group was Derry & the Seniors and Bruno Koschmeder split up the band and had Stu playing with some members of the Seniors. The Hurricanes came later when the Seniors returned to Liverpool. She also states, “The Kaiserkeller, like the Indra, was situated on the Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s Soho.” No, both clubs were in the Grosse Freiheit. The Reeperbahn was another road where the Top Ten club was and the area was actually called St. Pauli.
If you’re writing about something which has become historically important, you shouldn’t get almost everything you write about it wrong. The pills they were taking were called Preludin (prellies) not Purple Hearts as Cynthia says.
As to their returning to Liverpool, Cynthia writes, “Stu was ordered to leave as well but as he had tonsillitis Astrid gave him the air-fare.” Stu actually stayed in Hamburg and on their initial three Liverpool gigs, the Beatles had to use Chas. Newby, a former bass player with the Blackjacks. John offered him the position permanently, but he turned it down. George wrote to Hamburg asking Stuart to return and join them.
John had left Hamburg by train on 10 December, contacted the others on 15 December and they appeared at the Casbah Club on 17 December, while Cynthia says that on his return he didn’t contact them for a couple of weeks. Cynthia says that all the groups were imitating Cliff Richard and the Shadows: tell that to the Big Three, Kingsize Taylor, the Undertakers, the Hurricanes and all the other Liverpool groups who were influenced by American rock and roll artists and NOT the Shadows. The Remo Four were the only major Liverpool group who played in the Shadows style.
Cynthia writes: “Bob (Wooler) first announced the Beatles at the Cavern on 21 March, 1961.”  Was she unaware that they had appeared at the Cavern on 8, 10, 14, 16 and 20 March?
Cynthia says that Allan Williams came to their rescue by getting them a season at Hamburg’s Top Ten with Pete Eckhorn. Actually, it was Pete Best who was contacting Eckhorn and got them the booking. When Williams heard he demanded a percentage, but they refused because they’d got the booking themselves and he wrote to them stating he’d make sure they’d never work again, but by then they’d severed associations with him.
Cynthia begins making comments about Pete Best, suggesting he didn’t get on with the other members of the group and says that when Astrid Kirchherr styled Stuart’s hair the others tried it too “all except Pete who refused to change his.” Pete was never asked to change his hair style and Astrid says she never suggested it because his hair was too curly and wouldn’t have suited it. It was Jurgen Vollmer who changed John and Paul’s hairstyle when they were in Paris later on.
They recorded ‘My Bonnie’ with Tony Sheridan on 22 and 23 June 1961.  Cynthia says, “Not that it sold many copies.”  Recording manager Bert Kaempfert said it sold 100,000 copies and entered the German Top 40 and remained there for twelve weeks, reaching No. 32.
Cynthia comes up with that hoary old chestnut that Brian Epstein hadn’t heard of the Beatles until a lad walked into his shop and asked for ‘My Bonnie.’ This is because Epstein opened his autobiography suggesting this, but it isn’t true. He says the event took place on 28 October 1961. Brian Epstein took copies of Mersey Beat from 6 July 1961. The second issue, which he ordered 144 copies of, featured the ‘My Bonnie’ story across the entire cover. Epstein became the Mersey Beat record reviewer with Issue No. 3. He took advertisements on pages with the Beatles features on them.
Cynthia says he read Mersey Beat “In which the Beatles were often mentioned and pictured, but he’d never noticed them.” What evidence does she have for that? Brian read Mersey Beat avidly. Why would he want to write record reviews for a paper if he never read it properly?
She says that Brian discovered “they had no manager and no record contract,” They had no manager, but they still had their record contract with Polydor which they’d signed on 1 May 1961 for one year, which was renewable for periods of one year and they were to record four songs a year.  Epstein wrote to Bert Kaempfert on 20 February 1962 asking him to release the Beatles from their Polydor contract, which he did.
Cynthia comments that Brian invited them to his office on 3 December for a chat, then a week later offered to be their manager and “a few days later they signed a contract, giving Brian 25 percent of their earnings.”  Actually, their first contract was signed on 24 January 1962 and Epstein’s commission was 10 per cent. Although the Beatles signed it, Brian didn’t and he had a new contract drawn up on 1 October 1962 in which he’d increased his percentage to 25 percent. If Cynthia wishes to write about specific contracts and percentages she should really get the facts right.
John, Paul and Ringo didn’t fly to Hamburg on 10 April and find that Stu had died only hours before, as Cynthia writes. Stu did die on 10 April but John and the others didn’t fly out to Hamburg until 11 April.
When writing about Ringo joining she states “When they heard he’d left Rory’s band they decided to offer him a job.” Wrong again. Rory was playing a season at Butlin’s with Rory Storm & The Hurricanes and they went up and offered him the job while he was still a Hurricane. He immediately left the Hurricanes in the lurch without a drummer and they had to use a Redcoat for the rest of the season.
She also says “He changed his name from Richard Starkey to Ringo Starr, ‘Ringo’ after the gold rings he always wore and ‘Starr’ because Butlins shortened his name so that they could call his solo spot ‘Star Time.’ Wrong. It was Rory Storm who decided to give the members of his group Western sounding names. His own name was Alan Caldwell.  He named Johnny Byrne Johnny Guitar after the Joan Crawford film, Wally Eymond became Lu Walters, Charles O’Brien became Ty Brien after Western star Ty Hardin and Richard Starkey became Ringo Starr, probably after Johnny Ringo. It was also Rory, not Butlin’s who decided on giving Ringo his own solo spot which Rory called ‘Ringo Starrtime’ during which Ringo performed numbers such as ‘Boys.’
Regarding the incident at Paul’s 21st birthday party when John beat up Bob Wooler, she says Wooler “made a crack about his holiday. John, who’d had plenty of drink, exploded.” This is scant information on what had happened. Wooler, who had a habit of making mischievous remarks, said “How was the honeymoon, John?” inferring that John had had a homosexual relationship with Brian Epstein on their recent trip to Spain. Cynthia then says, “He sent Bob a telegram saying, ‘Really sorry Bob stop terribly worried to realize what I had done what more can I say.’” John was unrepentant and didn’t send the telegram. Brian Epstein wrote it and sent it. When the Beatles arrived for their Civic Reception in Liverpool in 1964 John saw Wooler and said “Hi, Bob. Has anyone given you a black eye lately?”
She says that just prior to leaving for their first trip to America “they did a tour of France.” Sorry, Cynthia, it was a short season at the Olympia Theatre, Paris, hardly a tour of the country.
Of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ she says “the title, used for a hit single as well, came from a phrase Ringo had used.” Though this is generally acknowledged, I thought Cynthia had realised that the phrase had originally been used earlier by John. In his first book ‘In His Own Write’, in a story called ‘Sad Michael’, he’d written, “He’d had a hard day’s night that day, for Michael was a Cocky Watchtower.”
Discussing ‘Strawberry Fields’/’Penny Lane’, she writes, “The single reached number one, but it was the first to fail to go straight to the top of the charts since ‘Please Please Me.’” Of course, the single DIDN’T go to number one, its highest position was number two. Incidentally, ‘Please Please Me’ also officially only reached number two in the British charts
She talked of going to the Ad Lib club where they’d meet “our old Liverpool mates Freddie and the Dreamers.” Freddie and the Dreamers were actually a Manchester group, living in Manchester.
There are many other such mistakes, but it would be tedious to detail them all. Cynthia may have reached No. 2 in the best seller lists in the U.K. but she’s given an awful lot of misinformation about the Beatles early years to an awful lot of people!
The basic difference between this book and her earlier ‘A Twist of Lennon,’ was that she makes John’s Auntie Mimi into a monster. Admittedly, Mimi was a very strict woman, widowed when her husband George died, trying to bring up a young, rebellious teenager. June Furlong, the art college model was furious with the book, she said that Cynthia’s savaging of Mimi was unforgivable as Mimi had loved John, always ensured that he was clothed well and looked after and there was utter devotion there.
We all know the famous quote Mimi gave about John and the guitar – but the fact is that she was the person who bought John his guitar in the first place.
Although it’s refreshing to read a book which isn’t dominated by the John/Yoko relationship, the incredible amount of errors is really unforgivable, never mind items the editors should have noticed such as her reference to Gibraltar as an island

I agree with you akire74. I think the book makes people realize the other side of John Lennon, that many who aren't fans of The Beatles may not be aware of. And even people who are fans of the Beatles tend to forget that John wasn't really an all loving peace god, he had his bad aspects, that people seem to forget now that he's gone.

Having read this book myself, I feel I need to make a passing comment.

Whilst the errors are, as you say, shockingly frequent, I would also mention that this is a book that tells us a lot about Cynthia herself.

As a wife of a former band member myself, (not quite reaching the heights of the Beatles!!) I would have to say that I couldn't possibly accurately recall half the info about where/when they played, or significant facts about his childhood, etc. But I remember how it felt to see them play, observe song writing sessions and so on.

I don't want to make excuses for a startling lack of research (big mistake for Beatles circles); however, I think what attracted me to the book, and has stayed with me since reading it, was the glimpse it gives into what it was like to be Cynthia through those times. And that's probably what this book is for.

We'll have to turn to other tomes for the facts. And this site!

I can apprciate that Cynthia didn't know much about the musical background and what really happened, but she does make an astonishingly large amount of comments which are totally wrong. Since she didn't write the book herself, the publishers should have got an editor to go over the ghost writers work to check it for accuracy. The mistakes in her book will be repeated in other people's books - and I bet that you weren't even aware yourself of some of the mistakes.
Although Cynthia may not remember where they played or facts about his childhood, to say that John wrote 'All My Loving' for her is puzzling. What made her come to that conclusion. John didn't tell her because Paul wrote the song. I just wonder why she assumed that and why someone editing oe ghost writing a book about the Beatles didn't even bother to check some simple basics.

I fully agree with you about the editors/ghost writers, etc. Perhaps they thought the book would sell anyway, checked out or not? Maybe they're too young to know any different, and assume historical accuracy from such a 'direct source'? Who knows.
And the mistakes WILL be repeated down the years, as you point out. That's probably the biggest shame, because in years to come, researchers/historians/journalists will all turn to this book for verification, and won't bother checking things out fully. We've seen it happen so many times, haven't we?!
The 'All My Loving' thing IS odd, I thought that too when reading it, but as I said before, my feeling is that this book tells a lot (between the lines) about Cynthia herself, who I have always found an intriguing lady, not served well by many Beatle books.

I remember reading about Cynthia`s  having a very negative attitude towards Yoko Ono - naturally! - but  her never mentioning the fact that Yoko has always been very kind to Julian and has been giving him a lot of money from Lennon revenues.

I thought she was quite balanced about Yoko when I read it. The inevitable tensions were described well. She did go on to slate Yoko for not taking care of Julian or other lennon family assets though. I can't remember when the book was written and if Yoko changed things since?

Well, yes, as far as i remember, it might have happened in the last decade or at least two.

I do think that their are a lot of mistakes in the book. But I think once you get past that, she touches on an a part of John's personality that you don't get to hear about much.

And even though I love John, and appreciate him as a musician and as an artist. I feel as if people view John very single mindedly, as this guy who was all peace and love, but really he was hypocritical.
John's father left him, never had a relationship with his father. And he resented him for that, but he turned around and did the same thing to Julian. I never understood that and I never will. So, that's one thing I like that Cynthia touched on in the book.

Maybe it`s cause he didn`t love Cynthia. But he can`t have been an unjust person, remember, he was a Libra!

Why in the world would you say that he didn't love Cynthia?

I think the factual errors, though apparently many, are forgivable.  (But I haven't read the book.)  Errors of memory are understandable -- what wouldn't be so forgivable is if Cynthia completely botched the facts behind her divorce, or the Beatles breakup, or just fabricated stories about John to stain his image.

Regarding All My Loving -- maybe John in an off-the-cuff moment told her "It's all about you, Cyn."  Maybe he even meant it as a joke and she misunderstood.

Regarding Yoko -- there are probably two (or more) sides to the story of how generous/stingy she's been to Julian.  She may have given Julian a lot of money -- but if it wasn't as much as Sean is getting, then Julian and Cynthia have a right to be miffed about that.  It's a shame John didn't handle this during his life.

Quoted from JimmyMcCullochFan

Why in the world would you say that he didn't love Cynthia?

She was his girlfriend from the college. And as far as I know he married her when she got pregnant. And I read ( I quote ): Lennon had to marry Cynthia and soon considered her to be a burden, hid her farther away, at his aunt Mimi`s...When Beatles stopped touring and bought castles John found himself alone with no soul-mate, with nothing to do. He ate the same food -cornflakes with milk and sugar- lay on the sofa, looking through papers or watching TV. It was not just Fatigue and Lethargy, it turned out that without work his life had no meaning. If the other Beatles had smth to do: they spend time with their wives, had hobbies, Lennon seemed to have nothing to keep him steady in this life, to keep him going. At a loss what to do, faced with emptiness, he even had his house decorated with Beatles photos and looked at them all the time. He hated his wife now, and he hated his life. At this point he met his reflection Yoko Ono. This is a free translation but not a rendering, guys. I do not claim it is true to the fact but why not share it? I offer it to you for your consideration. What do you say?

^ I think you should read Cynthia's book because she addresses the whole "The only reason John married Cynthia because she was pregnant" thing.

Where exactly did that quote come from?

Quoted from Jane

When Beatles stopped touring and bought castles John found himself alone with no soul-mate, with nothing to do. He ate the same food -cornflakes with milk and sugar- lay on the sofa, looking through papers or watching TV. It was not just Fatigue and Lethargy, it turned out that without work his life had no meaning. If the other Beatles had smth to do: they spend time with their wives, had hobbies, Lennon seemed to have nothing to keep him steady in this life, to keep him going.

One could say that this feeling of John's was not solely related to Cynthia. I feel that this quote pictures his state of mind very well in the mid 70's.

I remember when Cynthia used to come to a few gigs and remember her sitting alone, out of the way, at Litherland Town Hall. The idea was that no one should know that John had a steady girl friend. Then Cynthia seemed to be absent from his life and when Virginia and I used to meet him at the Blue Angel he was going out with Ida Holly. At one time, when we left the Angel, we all shared a cab and we dropped Ida off at her home near Sefton Park.
Later on, we discovered that this must have been the time that Cynthia was pregnant, which is why she was 'out of sight', yet John then took up with Ida for a while.
She told me that she wanted to be a commere, so I fixed her up with some gigs at the Majestic ballroom and on the Mersey Beat boat to the Isle of Man.
If I knew how to put pictures on the forum I'd include one of her. She moved down to London and became a model known as Stevie Holly, but we lost touch

Bill, I'd like to report something that Rod Murray told me in 1987 or 1988. My memory is not that great, but I did make notes from my original tape of the interview.

Rod recalled that Stuart's painting, which was entered in the second John Moores Show, did not actually win a prize in the competition. John Moores bought it, himself, as a gift for his son, whom he had noticed admiring the piece.

Rod Murray was a wonderful interview subject, but very difficult to pin down. I believe I had to phone his office at  the Art College (Polytechnic) four or five times before he finally agreed to meet with me in his classroom/lab. I think he was working on the creation of a hologram project.

He was quite upbeat and had a great accent.

John Moore's did buy Stuart's 'Summer Painting', which was actually only one half a a large painting he'd done. He didn't use all the money to buy the guitar, just placed a deposit on it. The general reports were that Stuart had won the John Moore's exhibition, but I believe Rod was right. The money he received was for the sale of the painting. If he'd won the prize, he would have received a lot more money. Stuart attended the exhibition with his girlfriend Susan Williams.
I was at the Jacaranda with John when Stu and Rod painted the murals, with a little help from Rod Jones. After Alan Williams claimed
that John had been involved with the painting, which is not what I recall, I contacted Rod. He told me that John had nothing to do with it. He and Stu had painted murals in the Norris Green Territorial Army HQ and Ye Cracke and did them at the Jac. Yet I've just seen something Rod has written saying that John was involved with the murals, which contradicats everything he told me and what I observed.

Heard this book was supposed to be reallly good?
Anybody read it before?

It's one of my favorites books and I highly suggest you pick it up  

Oh okay. Sounds good to me. I'll have to read it sometime.