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JOHN LENNON TIMELINE
Wednesday, October 9, 1940: John Winston Lennon is born at Liverpool Maternity Hos-
pital, Oxford Street, the child of Alfred ‘Freddie’ Lennon and his wife Julia, nee Stanley.
1940-45: John spends the first few years of his life living with his mother at 9 Newcastle
Road and, for a time, at 120a Allerton Road.
1945: John goes to live with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George Smith at 251 Menlove Av-
enue, Woolton, which will be his home until the early 1960s.
Mary ‘Mimi’ Smith was the eldest of the five daughters of George and Annie Stanley –
Mary, Elizabeth, Annie, Julia and Harriet.
November 1945: Five-year-old John goes to Mosspits Primary School in Wavertree.
1946-52: John becomes a pupil at Dovedale Primary School, just off Penny Lane, where
classmates include Pete Shotton and Jimmy Tarbuck.
1952: John passes the 11+ and starts at Quarry Bank school.
June 5, 1955: Uncle George Smith dies suddenly from a haemorrhage of his liver, aged 52.
1955/6: The teenage Lennon is taught how to play banjo chords by his mother Julia at her
home in Blomfield Road, Allerton. Early songs he learns include That’ll Be The Day. She
later teaches him the piano accordion.
September 1956: John forms the Quarrymen, enlisting fellow students Pete Shotton, Eric
Griffiths and Rod Davis.
1957: Julia Lennon buys John his first guitar, a Gallotone Champion acoustic costing £5
10s. John writes his first song, Hello Little Girl, later recorded by The Fourmost.
July 6, 1957: The Quarrymen play at Woolton Church Fete, where mutual friend Ivan
Vaughan introduces John to 15-year-old Paul McCartney.
August 7, 1957: The Quarrymen play the Cavern for the first time. During the perfor-
mance, owner Alan Sytner tells John to ‘cut out the rock’.
October 1957: Paul McCartney joins the Quarrymen. And after a dismal showing in his
O Levels, John is accepted by Liverpool College of Art, based next to the Liverpool Insti-
tute in Hope Street, where he meets Cynthia Powell in ‘lettering’ class.
March 1958: George Harrison joins the Quarrymen after being introduced to Lennon by
McCartney.
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