This is the famous mid 1960s photograph by Robert Whitaker that I was invited to discuss on a BBC Two documentary, “A Life in Ten Pictures: John Lennon”.
These were happy times at Kenwood, the Lennons’ lovely house in Weybridge, in marked contrast to the utter sadness of the last image featured, which left viewers feeling bereft and angry. I had tons more stories to share… but of course there wasn’t time to include all of them. I shall post some more anecdotes here on my blog starting with this one…
When John and Cyn moved into this house, there was an enormous cast iron, free-standing, rolltop Victorian bathtub in the main bathroom. The new fashion was for fitted bathrooms with boxed-in soaking tubs, so they ripped it out. When I visited, I said “I’ll have that, if you’re chucking it out?” John pointed out that it wouldn’t fit in my MINI, so I sent my dad (who was very good fun, with a wicked Liverpudlian sense of humour) down to Surrey to pick it up in a van. He had a fabulous evening with the family, stayed overnight and came back full of hilarious stories. The famous bathtub sadly was too big to fit through my parents’ bathroom door. So it lived in the garden and was sold with the house, a couple of years later, to someone who had absolutely no idea they were inheriting a genuine Beatles Bathtub.
It was fun to see old friends, acquaintances and contemporaries onscreen, including Hunter Davis, Mark Lewisohn (whom I first met as a researcher on the late Ray Coleman’s biography, entitled simply “Lennon”) and Mike McCartney, brother of Paul.
It's great to see here the 1960s fashion in full swing. Even at home these were two stylish people. See more sixties fashion in my gallery.
