Prior to the recording session for the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album track ‘Remember’, John Lennon invited his father Alf to lunch at Tittenhurst Park in Ascot.
The occasion was John Lennon’s 30th birthday. This was the last time the pair would meet. Alf Lennon brought his young wife Pauline and their 18-month-old son David Henry Lennon, whom John had never before met.
The encounter was not a success, and Lennon launched into a tirade against his father. Much of the outburst can be attributed to the Primal Therapy that Lennon had recently undergone in Los Angeles, which encouraged him to relive his childhood in a bid to uncover sources of pain.
Alf Lennon was shaken by the experience, and later lodged a four-page handwritten statement with his solicitor.
He launched into an account of his recent visit to America, and as the story unfolded, so the self inflicted torture began to show in his face, and his voice rose to a scream as he likened himself to Jimi Hendrix and other pop stars who had recently departed from the scene, ending in a crescendo as he admitted he was ‘Bloody mad, insane’ and due for an early demise. It seemed he had gone to America, at great expense to have some kind of treatment through drugs, which enabled one to go back and relive from early childhood the happenings, which in his own case, he should have been happier to forget. I was now listening to the result of this treatment as he reviled his dead mother in unspeakable terms, referring, also, to the aunt who had brought him up, in similar derogatory terms, as well as one or two of his closest friends. I sat through it all, completely stunned, hardly believing that this was the kind considerate ‘Beatle’ John Lennon talking to his father with such evil intensity…There was no doubt whatsoever in my mind, that he meant every word he spoke, his countenance was frightful to behold, as he explained in detail, how I would be carried out to sea and dumped, ‘twenty – fifty – or perhaps you would prefer a hundred fathoms deep.’ The whole loathsome tirade was uttered with malignant glee, as though he were actually participating in the terrible deed.
Also on this day...
- 2023: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Charleston Coliseum, Charleston
- 2020: Celebrations take place for John Lennon’s 80th birthday
- 2017: New book! Riding So High – The Beatles and Drugs
- 2015: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live: Queen Elizabeth Theatre, Vancouver
- 2013: Paul McCartney live: Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, New York
- 2011: Sir Paul McCartney marries Nancy Shevell
- 2010: Photograph of John Lennon is projected onto Liverpool’s Albert Dock
- 2010: “And the world will be as one”: Global tributes take place for John Lennon’s 70th birthday
- 2010: Yoko Ono requests a million tweets for John Lennon
- 2009: Yoko Ono unveils Imagine Peace Tower in Second Life
- 2002: Paul McCartney live: Savvis Center, St Louis
- 2000: Tributes for John Lennon’s 60th birthday
- 1998: Yoko Ono dedicates a tree to John Lennon in Strawberry Fields
- 1993: Paul McCartney live: Rotterdam Ahoy, Rotterdam
- 1990: Imagine is broadcast around the world
- 1989: Paul McCartney live: Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, Paris
- 1988: John Lennon tributes are broadcast on US television
- 1985: Strawberry Fields is opened in Central Park, New York City
- 1984: Yoko Ono donates $90,000 to Strawberry Field in Liverpool
- 1981: John Lennon statue is unveiled in Los Angeles
- 1980: John Lennon’s 40th birthday
- 1979: John Lennon’s 39th birthday party, Tavern On The Green, New York
- 1978: John Lennon’s 38th birthday party, Tavern On The Green, New York
- 1976: John Lennon’s 36th birthday
- 1975: Sean Lennon is born
- 1971: John Lennon’s all-star 31st birthday party in Syracuse, New York
- 1971: Yoko Ono’s art exhibition This Is Not Here opens in Syracuse, New York
- 1970: Recording: Remember by John Lennon
- 1969: Yoko Ono is taken to hospital in London
- 1968: Recording, mixing: The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill, Long Long Long, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road
- 1967: John Lennon’s 27th birthday
- 1966: John Lennon celebrates his 26th birthday in Spain
- 1965: The Beatles celebrate John Lennon’s 25th birthday
- 1964: The Beatles live: Gaumont Cinema, Bradford
- 1963: Radio: The Ken Dodd Show
- 1962: The Beatles promote Love Me Do in London
- 1961: John Lennon celebrates his 21st birthday with Paul McCartney in Paris
- 1960: The Beatles live: Kaiserkeller, Hamburg
- 1956: John Lennon’s 16th birthday
- 1940: John Lennon is born
Want more? Visit the Beatles history section.
I can’t help but feel that John’s father deserved all the vitriol that John directed at him, but John’s cruel streak is an unappealing aspect of his personality.
he’s a human like us all.
What are you grounds for believing this? Alfred Lennon had his faults but I don’t think any average parent (because that’s what he was) deserves to be on the receiving end of a tirade like that.
John Lennon later came to regret this outburst and attempted to pay for his father’s funeral; but his stepmother, Pauline, was having none of it and told him to stuff his money.
I can very well understand and commisserate with John’s vitriol and anger
against his father Alf…as Alf was a ne’er-do-well who neither contributed to John’s welfare as a child or beyond that even …and only deigned contacting John when he became rich and world-famous…. He (ie Alf) unfortunately did not
achieve very much in his life…Alf should have been PROUD to have has such
a genial and successful son as John…in direct contrast to his fathers own wasted life!
Did brother David witness this tirade? If so what kind of impression did it make on him, if he was old enough to remember. Did John ever stay in touch with Pauline after he and Yoko moved to America?
David Lennon will have been too young to remember it.
I believe Lennon and his father resumed a correspondence sometime after this incident and Alfred did send John the proof of his own memoirs (which have never been published). John offered to pay for Fred’s funeral, but Pauline refused to let him.
Afaik, Pauline is still alive. David Lennon and his younger obviously prefer to avoid the limelight.
The dad seems to have been an opportunist, looking to gain something of his famous neglected son. Pathetic w****r
People seem to dress things up in their own terms. They anthropomorphise their dogs attributing characteristics to them they seldom possess; and regularly “their” children, pets, parents, heroes and idols are beyond reproach, but the man that went to sea to school and feed him is invited to tea only to suffer the ravings and threats of a spoilt drug casualty whose sycophants label some sought of Sabre toothed monster because John was nut, regardless that they don’t know the man from Adam.
The sooner you can weed out the hogwash from your own nut, the sooner there is room for something else that actually matters. Regardless of the mistakes Lennon’s father might of made, Lennon grew up fit and healthy enough as a product of this mans concerns and efforts to change the world, for good and ill, and the man has done his job faithfully.
The truth is John Lennon was a narcissist who damaged himself with hedonistic over indulgence and would very likely of destroyed himself if his friends had not tried to slow down the process even if Chapman had not of.
Because someone can develop skill with a box with strings on it so as to conjure hypnotically effective and artistic sounds from it does not make him a Saint. In fact most of the people that aspired to “musical” fame as in “rock bands” wanted it for the hedonistic and bridled greed of teenage lust, cash and drug abuse, which they eventually learn doesn’t make them as happy as they thought, whilst ignoring the souls and things that would.
It’s not what we think that is the problem, it what we think as true, that isn’t so.
Well, Cru, I suppose tonight you’re gonna party like it’s 1699.
I can understand why John confronted him . I was told to confront my so called parents also. I only wish I had. It would have released from the same pain and agony that John must have suffered.
Cru – you need to read Primal Scream. Honestly, I’m not having a dig at you. Just read it and you will realise that what you said is not real. John’s father didn’t, for example, “go to sea to school and feed him” – that’s the kind of distortion we all have to create about our own parents to make sense of it all.
John’s father was an ordinary, selfish human being (like most of us), who disregarded his son’s feelings. That’s all. When John finally admitted that to himself, he was angry. Understandable that he was angry, but true all the same. I don’t know why Alf Lennon left John, but it wasn’t for John’s sake. That much I do know.
Didn’t he abandon his own son Julian?
Not only that but he didn’t leave him anything in his will?
He did not exactly “abandon” Julian–you see there was this divorce, and although Lennon fought for custody he lost and so the boy went to live with his mother. Could he have seen his son more often in the 70s? Yes. But he DID see him on occasion. It wasn’t abandonment, at least not in the very real sense that Alfred abandoned John. I personally think Julian is being overly-bitter when he whines that his dad wasn’t there for him. I don’t know how many pictures I’ve seen of John playing with Julian as a boy, that Julian seems to have entirely forgotten about.
Julian is a very very kind and forgiving person. The way John treated Cynthia was terrible. John himself admitted that he was not there for Julian when he needed him as a father. John did bed-ins while Julian asked his mom why “daddy was in bed with another woman”. John left it all to Cynthia`s love to Julian and he knew that she would not let him down which she never did. Julian is a wonderful person! Just listen to Sean`s interview with him on BBC!
You got it backwards. John’s treatment of Julian was a much more straightforward abandonment. Alfred was faced with a set of difficult, sometimes rather extraordinary life circumstances, many outside of his control. First everyone forgets that his initial separation from his wife and child was a result of him being pressured by Julia’s family to find a lucrative occupation. Since his only significant work experience was as a merchant seaman and WWII broke out at the time, his job necessarily took him away from his family for long periods of time. When he returned from the war, Julia has already moved on, pregnant with another man, and pointedly rejected his offer to take care of her, John, and her adulterous baby. She soon started a relationship with Bobby Dykins and herself lost custody to her sister.
Could Alfred have made more of an effort to stay in contact with his son? Certainly. But remember that we’re talking about a man who perpetually struggled with money, professional and personal instability. Being rejected by his wife’s family didn’t help.
John on the other hand was financially secure from a young age, had a job that provided him with an abundance of free time (especially post-1966), a number of spacious luxury homes, an ability to provide his child with the best schooling options in the Western world, nannies… Yet after his divorce, he chose to see his son about as often as one visits the dentist. He had a (short) custody battle with Cyn, but she never prevented from seeing his son. Moving to the US was a choice, no one forced him. When your child lives in a given country and you choose to move to the other side of the world (where you have no ties), just because that’s what your new wife wants, it’s hard not to see it as abandonment.
John did see him “on occasion”, and took a few pictures with him as a boy, you say? Gee thanks… I think society expects a bit more from a father than the level of attention you give to an old college roommate.
John and Alfred were both bad fathers, but I feel, given his many privileges, John had much less mitigating circumstances for his behavior…
Julian himself stated many times, he only saw his dad a handful of times between ages 5 through John’s death, Julian age 17. He said his dad was not only a horrible father, but also a horrible person. He even mentioned in a 1980 interview for playboy that sean was made from pure love but julian was the product of a whiskey bottle. John was a musical genius but he was an immensely weak man who needed yoko to handle all his money and business and literally told him a fortune teller said john has to fly to one end of the world then to another and weak john did it. He admitted in 1980 yoko never needed him , its he who needs her and said he cant function without her . John also was a cuck as Sam Havadtoy lived with them in the Dakota and was f___ing Yoko . John knew .
Lol….yea dude….they kinda had an open marriage. He kept seeing May Pang after their separation with Yoko’s knowledge. Some couples are secure enough to do that. Don’t think it’s for you though, just based on your reaction. But there’s nothing wrong with that of course.
You’re also wrong about the playboy interview. He said the difference was that Sean was a planned child whilst Julian was not, but that he would still always be his son and he didn’t love him any less, regardless of where he came from (such as a whiskey bottle). He unfortunately never got the chance to reconcile as he said he was planning to do shortly before his death. I think Julian is just a little salty that he got basically nothing from the will.
100% correct and true.
He left nothing to his will because his son chose his mom over him so Cynthia left everything to Julian so primarily it was Julian’s fault.
The perfect parent does not exist. People act according to their belief system, their character and their experiences in life. You cannot expect someone to give what they never had, for they do not have it to give. Alf Lennon was in an orphanage, so how could he possibly know how to be a supportive father?….John Lennon was of course affected by his childhood experiences and it is that pain that may have been the catalyst to his musical genius. Suffering puts us in contact with our inner selves and releases profound feelings which in John’s case may have contributed to his music. Clearly his song “Julia” reflects that. He was a young man when he became ultra famous and his ego would have been the master, so he indulged his victimhood by blaming his father for all his troubles, whilst dishing out similar treatment to his own son Julian. As I stated earlier, you cannot expect people to give what they have not got, and fatherhood was not something he had for giving. As we go through life, we mature and change and perhaps he was a better father to his second son. At the end of the day, who are we to judge anybody at all, as we have never lived in their own shoes, genetic make up nor life experiences?. It is for that reason that we must learn to forgive others and ourselves from our own mistakes, and to appreciate there is always something positive from every single experience in life, even if the positive is simply to learn from the negative. Perhaps if John had lived longer, he might have arrived to that realization. It certainly took me decades to understand and free myself from my ego, and to try to forgive myself for the errors I committed. We all do the best we can, given our understanding, conditioning and capabilities, and when we look back in time, sometimes we wish we had done things differently. That is because we are always changing.
As others have stated here, there is no such thing as a perfect parent. There is no one on earth who is perfect. John’s childhood, adulthood and the things he did happened decades ago. The unfortunate part is that people will continue to focus on him, and on his good points and flaws. 2 years ago, I read an account where John found out his father was dying. So John reached out to his father and talked to him on the phone. Thank goodness he did, because Fred died 1 or 2 days later. Fred also wrote his own autobiography, explaining why he abandoned John and his version of events. After Fred died, his still unpublished autobiography was brought to NYC and given to John. I’m sure that John looked forward to reading it. And when he finished reading it, he stated that a huge hole within him had been filled. And I’m sure that John put to rest all of the animosity he held against his father. And Fred was able to die in peace, knowing that his son called him just days before Fred died. This is all that really matters. Time to put the past where it belongs—in the past. Let it go. Can’t change any of it. Let both Fred and John rest in peace. And let Julia and Cynthia rest in peace, too.
IMHO, Primal Scream Therapy is a bunch of hooey….