The last time John Lennon saw his father
John Lennon always had a frosty relationship with his father, Alf, who abandoned him as a child. Understandably, things were never the same following his father’s initial departure from his life, and their final meeting also left things on a sour note.
Alf was a merchant seaman of Irish heritage who was largely absent during the war for the first few years of John’s life. While he occasionally came home, his visits were brief, and Alf wasn’t present for long enough to form a bond with his son.
Out of nowhere, Alf went off-grid and AWOL from the army. As a result, the cheques he regularly sent to his wife, Julia, stopped. Understandably, Julia was under the impression that their marriage was over, and when he eventually returned to the family abode, she was pregnant from a new relationship.
Lennon was raised primarily by his Aunt Mimi, and in 1946, Alf surprised them. He took John for a trip to Blackpool and plotted to secretly take his son to New Zealand to begin a new life, which would have stopped The Beatles from forming a decade later. Thankfully, Julia stopped him from proceeding with his plan, and Lennon stayed in Merseyside.
It wasn’t until money entered John’s life that his father contacted him again, suggesting ulterior motives were in play. Their final meeting came in 1970, the day after Lennon recorded his solo song, ‘Remember’, and they had dinner at Tittenhurst Park. Alf arrived with his considerably younger wife, Pauline, and introduced John to his baby brother, David. In theory, it should have been the beginning of a beautiful reconciliation, but it was an unpleasant evening for all involved.
In a letter sent to his solicitor, Alf later detailed the dinner (via BeatlesBible): “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…”
Alf concluded: “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.”
Tragically, Lennon never had a relationship with his father, and they were effectively strangers with matching DNA. Their final meeting is a heartbreaking way for a father and son to depart each other’s lives, but Lennon likely didn’t lose any sleep over the encounter.
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