John Lennon celebrates his 21st birthday with Paul McCartney in Paris

On 30 September 1961, John Lennon and Paul McCartney began hitchhiking from Liverpool to Paris where they celebrated Lennon’s 21st birthday.

Lennon had been given £100 as an early birthday present, and McCartney was duly invited to join him on the trip abroad. Lennon told his aunt Mimi that he was travelling abroad to sell his paintings.

Paul bought me a hamburger to celebrate.

I wasn’t too keen on reaching twenty-one. I remember one relative saying to me, ‘From now on, it’s all downhill,’ and I really got a shock. She told me how my skin would be getting older and that kind of jazz.