John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono has bought the former Beatle’s childhood home – where he learnt to play guitar and wrote some of the band’s early hits – in order to donate it to the National Trust, it was revealed on Thursday.
Negotiating anonymously through a third party, Yoko is believed to have paid more than £150,000 for the semi-detached property at 251 Menlove Avenue in Liverpool, where John lived with his Aunt Mimi from the age of five, after his parents split up. Yoko is said to be “thrilled” to have acquired it.
John once described the place as “a nice semi-detached place with a small garden” and his teenage band, The Quarry Men, used to rehearse there. The early Beatles’ hit Please Please Me was written in one of the upstairs’ bedrooms.
Yoko said she wanted to ensure the house – which had been on the market for months – remained in the hands of the people of Liverpool. There had been fears the property might be acquired by someone who had little sympathy for its unique place in popular music, after the National Trust declined the purchase. At one stage there were concerns a private overseas company would buy the property.
“I am thrilled that we have been able to buy John’s main childhood home,” said Yoko. “It is especially pleasing that we will be able to keep such an important part of John and The Beatles’ history intact and out of the hands of unsympathetic private developers.
“I think Menlove Avenue has an important place in Beatles’ history and it saddened me to think that it might be lost. The fact that this is happening in the same week that Liverpool airport is officially opened as Liverpool John Lennon Airport would have made my husband very happy.”
The late Beatle’s wife joined Cherie Booth at the new airport on Friday to unveil a statue of her late husband who was murdered in 1980. Yoko gave her backing to a campaign to save his childhood home when she visited John’s old school, Dovedale Primary, last year and received an honorary degree from Liverpool University.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
