John Lennon’s Girlfriend Said He Could Be ‘Unbearable’ to Date
John Lennon’s most famous love affair was with Yoko Ono, but his romantic history began with his first girlfriend, Thelma Pickles. The couple met at art school and dated for a time before she broke things off with him. While she enjoyed parts of their relationship, Pickles said that dating Lennon could be unbearable. Looking back, she said she would never have wanted to marry him.
The couple met at art school in Liverpool
Lennon and Pickles both attended the Liverpool College of Art. He didn’t make a good first impression on her, but she soon softened toward him.
“My first impression of John was that he was a smartarse,” Pickles told The Guardian. “I was 16; a friend introduced us at Liverpool College of Art when we were waiting to register. There was a radio host at the time called Wilfred Pickles whose catchphrase was ‘Give them the money, Mabel!’ When John heard my name he asked, ‘Any relation to Wilfred?’ which I was sick of hearing.”
Quickly, though, she saw a different side of Lennon when another student asked him about his mother.
“Then a girl breezed in and said, ‘Hey John, I hear your mother’s dead,’ and I felt absolutely sick,” Pickles said. “He didn’t flinch, he simply replied, ‘Yeah.’ ‘It was a policeman that knocked her down, wasn’t it?’ Again he didn’t react, he just said, ‘That’s right, yeah.’ His mother had been killed two months earlier. I was stunned by his detachment, and impressed that he was brave enough to not break down or show any emotion. Of course, it was all a front.”
John Lennon’s girlfriend said he was a challenge to date
Lennon and Pickles began a relationship, and she saw a softer side to him.
“When we were alone together he was really soft, thoughtful and generous-spirited,” she explained. “Clearly his mother’s death had disturbed him. We both felt that we’d been dealt a raw deal in our family circumstances, which drew us together.”
Still, she said that he could be difficult to be around.
“He could be very unbearable at times,” she said, per the book John Lennon: The Life by Philip Norman. “He was never violent … but he would say things to hurt you. I think it was a defense thing, because he could be vulnerable at times [like] when you talked about his mother.”
Pickles said that an act of physical violence was what caused her to end the relationship.
“At an art school dance he took me to a darkened classroom,” she said. “We went thinking we’d have it to ourselves but it was evident from the din that we weren’t alone. I wasn’t going to have an intimate soirée with other people present. I refused to stay, and he yanked me back and whacked me one. He had aggressive traits, mainly verbal, but never in private had he ever been aggressive — quite the opposite. Once he’d hit me that was it for me, I wouldn’t speak to him. That one violent incident put paid to any closeness we had.”
John Lennon’s girlfriend said she wouldn’t have wanted to marry him
Pickles said that afterward, she missed how close she’d been with Lennon, but she never mourned the loss of the relationship.
“I’ve never wondered what might have been,” she said. “It sounds disingenuous, but I wouldn’t like to have been married to John — that would be quite a gargantuan task! He would’ve been 70 next year and I just cannot imagine a 70-year-old John Lennon. I’d be fearful that the fire would’ve gone out.”
How to get help: In the U.S., call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.
