Jack Webster talks to John Lennon's cousin about
boyhood memories and happy Highland connections
AT HIS villa tucked away in a secluded corner of Largs, Stanley Parkes
lives quietly with his memories of the boy who used to idolise him as
the older cousin. The fact that that boy himself became an idol of the
world, once identifying himself, infamously, with greater popularity
than Jesus Christ, gives Stanley some difficulty in recognising the lad
who was just another member of his family.
For John Lennon was the young cousin who would follow him around as a
boy. He would take him to the park or the pictures or down the road for
a haircut.
But most of all they would enjoy holidays at the family croft at
Durness, in the far north-west of Scotland, a connection of the famous
Beatle which is surprisingly little known.
Among Stanley's mementoes is correspondence from Lennon, waxing
nostalgic from the distance of New York and concluding: ''I miss
Scotland more than England.''
It is weird to see his handwriting dealing with the simple
relationships we all know, about this aunt or that cousin or some veiled
family problem. For all his intelligence, the grammar, spelling, and
punctuation are mediocre. But then you don't need to spell or punctuate
to become a legend.
Stanley Parkes, who eventually took over the running of that croft at
Durness and has only more recently moved to Largs, remembers John as the
lively, artistic boy who would roam across the hills of north-west
Scotland, comb the beaches, build dykes, sketch a little, and get to
know the local crofters.
The Scots connection takes a little explaining since the family base
was, of course, in Liverpool, where commonplace names like Penny Lane
and Strawberry Fields would take on new significance.
It was there that John Lennon and Stanley Parkes grew up, the sons of
two sisters from a formidable family where the women were decidedly
dominant. The image of Lennon coming from a working-class background
irritates his older cousin, because it's false.
''On our side, you would find businessmen, a civil servant, and an
army major in what was really a professional, middle-class family,'' he
says.
Lennon's father was not without his background either, though he
turned out an irresponsible rake, generally frowned upon in the Stanley
family as ''that Alf Lennon''. He was a steward on the Queen Mary who
jumped ship in New York during the war, afraid they might be torpedoed,
reappeared briefly when he wanted custody of John but didn't show up
again until 1965 when his son was famous.
John's mother Julia had gone off to live with another man and one of
her sisters, the famous Aunt Mimi, matriarch of the family, took on the
mother role for John. Stanley Parkes, however, disputes the notion that
Lennon's mother deserted him and tells of their regular contact. Indeed,
John was clearing up the tea dishes in her house on the tragic night in
1958 when she went off across Liverpool to visit Aunt Mimi. Leaving to
catch her bus back home, she was killed by a car outside Mimi's house.
''I remember Julia as a happy-go-lucky woman who was very musical,''
says Stanley. ''She had my grandfather's banjo and taught John to play
the basic chords when he was 12.
''When he started to form the group with Paul McCartney, John was
playing banjo chords on the guitar and Paul told him 'You can't do
that'. He taught him to play guitar chords.
''John and his mother were great fans of Elvis. He was also very keen
on the Goons and Frankie Howerd, as well as Buddy Holly. I remember he
and Paul went to see Buddy Holly at the Liverpool Empire and noticed
that he was playing just three basic chords. 'We could do that!' they
said.''
And they did. The rest is the history of The Beatles, with some
preliminaries as The Silver Beatles.
But what about Scotland? Stanley Parkes's father died early and the
boy was sent to a boarding-school in Peebles. Meanwhile his mother met a
friend of her husband, Bertie Sutherland, a dentist from Edinburgh, and
when they were married in 1949, Stanley's home became 15 Ormidale
Terrace, overlooking Murrayfield Stadium.
''That was when I started going down to Liverpool and bringing John up
by bus to Edinburgh. He and our cousin Leila and I were very close. From
Edinburgh, we would bundle into the car and head up to the family croft
at Durness, which Bertie had inherited. That went on from about the time
John was nine until he was 16 and he loved his holidays up there.''
They were still in close contact when fame overtook The Beatles.
Stanley had married Jan, daughter of John Caldwell, a Third Lanark
footballer who went to play professionally in America.
They settled at 45 Bryce Crescent, Currie, near Edinburgh, where John
Lennon used to visit. ''I remember one time he came to the house in
great excitement,'' says Stanley. ''He had just made a record, he said.
It was Love Me Do.''
He would stay overnight when the group was appearing in Scotland and
Stanley would drive him to the next venue to catch up with George, Paul,
and Ringo, risking the scratches and lipstick daubs on his car.
Stanley retains a Beatles schedule from those early days. I wonder who
remembers that they appeared at the Longmore Hall, Keith, on January 2,
1963, and followed up with engagements at the Two Red Shoes Ballroom,
Elgin, the Town Hall, Dingwall, the Museum Hall, Bridge of Allan, and
the Beach Ballroom, Aberdeen?
Stanley was privileged to turn up at the famous Abbey Road studios
when The Beatles were recording, sometimes playing his part with
effects. He was with John when he was composing Imagine.
Meanwhile, those Highland visits continued right up to his association
with Yoko Ono, when he wanted to bring her north to meet Stanley's
mother.
''He was very shortsighted and he wasn't a good driver,'' Stanley
recalls. ''He got from London to Edinburgh but I warned him to be very
careful on the single-track roads up north.''
Well, John Lennon was travelling from Durness to Tongue when he faced
an on-coming vehicle, panicked, and landed in the ditch. He and Yoko and
son Julian were rushed to Lawson Memorial Hospital, Golspie, with severe
facial injuries and detained for five days.
That association with Yoko took Lennon off to New York and away from
close relationships at home. Stanley didn't like what he was hearing
about the lifestyle and told John to get a grip of himself.
There is an interesting note in Lennon's handwriting, light-hearted
and conciliatory, on the lines of ''Come on, man, send me a postcard!
Life is short . . . Love and Happy New Year . . . John.''
Life would indeed be short. Stanley fell heir to the Durness croft and
went back to reinstate it as a working unit. Here John Lennon had spent
some of his happiest days.
Jan Parkes, a quietly observant woman, was very fond of his first
wife, Cynthia. As for John, she felt he was slightly afraid of women,
almost too shy to get into conversation. She remembered his sarcasm but
put it down to a defence mechanism.
Stanley switched on the radio that December morning of 1980 and heard
that his beloved cousin had been shot by a maniacal fan on the steps of
his Manhattan home. The world took on a different hue.
Stanley's diabetes required a move nearer a hospital and that took him
to Largs. A quiet and gentle man, he is the antithesis of Beatlemania,
custodian of a story which has more to do with a family circle than an
international legend.
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