Yoko Ono, the widow of murdered Beatle John Lennon, opened his childhood home in Liverpool on Thursday, expecting it to draw thousands of visitors every year. “This is so important and so meaningful for all the fans around the world and people who might become fans,” she told BBC radio.
MENDIPS, the modest suburban semi-detached house Lennon grew up in with his Aunt Mimi, was donated to the National Trust by Yoko Ono Lennon with the wish it be kept as a testimony to her late husband.
The National Trust is a non-governmental body which runs some of Britain’s finest houses and countryside.
Ono Lennon said she had bought the house to stop it being sold to a commercial concern.
“When John’s house came up for sale I wanted to preserve it for the people of Liverpool, and John Lennon and Beatles fans all over the world,” she said in a statement.
“The house resonates with a special atmosphere. It was after all, where some of John’s songs that we now hold so dear were born,” she said.
John Lennon lived at Mendips, 251 Menlove Avenue, in Woolton, Liverpool from the age of five to 23, when he left to enjoy the fame and fortune derived from the astounding success of the Beatles.
The porch of the house is where Lennon formed his first band, The Quarrymen, and later rehearsed with Paul McCartney. The two later became some of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century.
The house has been restored as closely as possible to how it looked when Lennon lived there in the 1950s and early 1960s. It opens to the public on Saturday, March 29.
McCartney’s former home, a smaller terraced house at 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool, already belongs to the National Trust.© 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.