Hundreds of Beatles fans typically frequent the pavements in the suburban south Liverpool neighborhoods that house the childhood homes of music legends McCartney and Lennon, though the June mid-week morning of my visit, there was no one in sight except for our small, mini-van-sized motley crew of international visitors intent on getting a gander inside these most compelling little National Trust properties.
"People do attempt to sneak in with the National Trust groups," explained Sylvia, our expert tour guide in residence at Mendips, checking for official tour badges at our first stop, the 3-bedroom semi-detached home on the corner of Vale Road and Menlove Avenue, where Lennon lived with his Aunt Mimi until his early twenties. Though uninvited visitors apparently rarely make it past the front or back door, back in the Beatles hey day, teenage fans in sleeping bags were a familiar sight, camped out in the front yard.
Not the working class boy of common misconception, Lennon was in fact, a self-described: "clean-cut suburban boy". Thousands and thousands of homes just like Mendips had been built on the outskirts of cities throughout Britain in the 1930s and with a decent sized, private back garden, these suburban homes are still as appealing to today's families as they must have been to Lennon's Aunt Mimi back in the late 1940s.
Visiting with my own parents, who'd each grown up in that same era, was an added bonus in hearing how a post second World War middle class home functioned on an everyday basis for ordinary folk such as Lennon and his aunt, prior to the artist's fortuitous teenage rebellion and subsequent song-writing alliance with a young Paul McCartney.
Sylvia told us how Yoko Ono had bought Mendips and gifted it to the National Trust on condition that it would remain as a private family house, not a museum. As resident caretakers and tour guides, Sylvia and her husband Colin, actually do live in the home that has been meticulously restored by the National Trust to depict exactly how it looked in family photographs. Lennon had bought his Aunt Mimi a bungalow by the seaside after Beatles fame brought too many campers to the front yard at Mendips. "Liverpool meant a great deal to John," writes Ono in the National Trust guide to the house. "It all started in Mendips, his childhood home," she says. "Whenever I came up to Liverpool with him, we would drive along Menlove Avenue, and he would point at the house and say, "Look, Yoko, look. That's it'. "
When she'd heard that Mendips was for sale she worried that it would fall into the wrong hands and might have been commercially exploited. By purchasing the house and making it possibly for people like you and I to step into John Lennon's boyhood, even for a brief little bit of time, his widow has provided the world with an incredibly profound opportunity to share an impression of where the dreams began.
I stood in the screened front porch with my own musician son, on Sylvia's suggestion, to hear how our vocal acoustics might echo in some sort of harmony with one another, as the teenage Lennon and McCartney would be famously accustomed to doing once Aunt Mimi had booted them out of her front room following early band rehearsals.
Picturing in our minds eye the two boys propped up against the sides of the porch on a summer's evening, singing away to the amusement of neighbors and passersby, we were so pleased that the place has not been turned into a Graceland-type tourist trap and that the hallowed space looks, except for its small, blue heritage plaque on the wall outside, like any ordinary family home.
Artifacts, photos as well as furniture was provided to the National Trust by the Lennon family.
A five minute drive back in the mini-van took us to the more blue collar neighborhood that McCartney's parents Jim and Mary moved their family to in 1947. It was here in the parlour of post-war-built Speke council housing estate at compact 20 Forthlin Road that Paul and John wrote 'Love Me Do' and "I Saw Her Standing There'. As 'Strawberry Fields' was next door to Mendips, "Penny Lane', the 'barber shop' and 'fire station' were all real places close to Forthlin Road that found their way into the songwriting duo's lyrics.
Colin's captivating, guided tour had us packed liked sardines into the tiny little rooms that would have been a close fit for lively young musicians. A sign above the front door, inside the house has been dedicated to 'Mum and Dad' by Paul and his brother Mike. Thanks to Mike McCartney's striking black and white photography, actual scenes shot of the family and band members in various stages of emerging popularity, have been blown up, framed and hung in position of where they were taken.
In recognition of Paul McCartney's 69th birthday, that week, Sylvia had placed fresh flower arrangements around the house.
"When I'm Sixty-Four" was written by McCartney, based on a tune he'd composed at Forthlin Road, where he'd taken his musical influence from his Dad, Jim, a musician himself.
The National Trust bought 20 Forthlin Road in 1995 with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund on recommendation by Liverpool-born John Birt, Director-General of the BBC and a contemporary of the Beetles. Mendips was purchased for the Trust by Ono a few years later once it became available.
There are of course, several other essential Beatles sights to soak in when in Liverpool, but the National Trust Beatles Childhood Homes Tour was for me, the most haunting.
Leaving Forthlin Road, several tourists had roused themselves out of the city center for a photo op, though the street scene was otherwise one of any council estate in England. Plumbing vans, a window cleaner, young mums pushing tots in strollers to the shops. All the more reason to imagine the possibilities for any aspiring artist whose vision might emerge and touch the lives of millions.
If you go, pre-book ahead of time for The National Trust Beatles Childhood Homes Tour as spaces are extremely limited.
