John Lennon’s Father Was Absent for Most of His Life: ‘It Was Like He Was Dead’
John Lennon rose to international stardom as part of The Beatles. But before he was a famous, he was a young boy growing up in Liverpool with no idea of what was in store for him. During this time, he barely saw his own father, Freddie Lennon.
How John Lennon’s parents met
Bob Spitz’s 2005 book The Beatles: The Biography explores how Lennon’s parents met and how they came to parent one of the greatest rockers of all time. Freddie Lennon and Julia Stanley first crossed paths in Liverpool nightlife, but they ended up connecting on a random day in the park.
“It wasn’t until a chance meeting in Seton Park, where he and a friend had gone one midsummer afternoon to pick up girls, that Freddie and Julia struck up a fast acquaintance,” Spitz wrote. “Their encounter, as Freddie related it, read like a romantic-comedy script. He was strolling jauntily along a cobblestone path, dressed in a black bowler and fingering a cigarette holder, when he came upon ‘this little waif’ perched on a wrought-iron bench.”
Eventually, in early 1940, Stanley discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to John Winston Lennon in October 1940.
John Lennon’s father was absent most of his life
The book went on to describe how Freddie Lennon had very little involvement in his son’s upbringing.
“Aside from the resentment that lingered as a result of this circumstance, John’s knowledge of his father grew fainter with every year. ‘I soon forgot my father,’ he told Hunter Davies in 1968. ‘It was like he was dead.'”
The family of his mother was helpful in helping John forget about his father and his nonexistent role in his life. “‘They wanted nothing to do with him from the start,’ said his niece Leila Harvey. Julia’s father considered him below their station, ‘certainly not middle class,’ and Mimi later said that ‘we knew he would be no use to anyone, certainly not our Julia.'”
As a child, Freddie Lennon was a happy-go-lucky young person despite having a tough childhood. “‘Anywhere Freddie turned up always meant fun was about to start,’ said a relative. ‘He couldn’t resist having a good time.’ There wasn’t a room he couldn’t light up with a witty remark or well-timed rejoinder. Repartee came naturally to him, carried off with such endearing joie de vivre that friends assumed he would ultimately capitalize on his personality. But he was never able to put it all together. Too frivolous to master a vocation, he bounced from office job to odd job.”
He eventually became a superstar with The Beatles
In the early 1960s, Lennon joined forces with George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Stuart Sutcliffe to form the band The Quarrymen. They eventually changed their name to The Beatles, and Sutcliffe was replaced by bass guitarist Ringo Starr.
Lennon would achieve global fame with The Beatles as a co-founder, guitarist, and singer. Later, after The Beatles’ breakup in 1970, Lennon made a name for himself as a solo star. In 1981, he won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for his smash LP Double Fantasy.
