Sunday, July 8, 2018

Pattie's Birthday Card

In her 2007 book, Wonderful Tonight, Pattie Boyd wrote that while in India, she (and husband George Harrison) celebrated her birthday where Cynthia gifted her a painting and John made her a card. In 2018, Pattie decided to put John's card up for auction and it was described that the drawing was of John while in her book she mentioned it was all of "us" meditating. Now that I finally get to see the card, it looks neither! It sort of looks like John but that doesn't look like his usual self-portrait doodles... 
Another interesting thing about the card is how John wrote his and Cynthia's first initials, J and C, backwards. However, it's nice of John including his wife's name on the card considering he barely spoke to Cynthia and was falling in love with Yoko during that time. 

Now I wonder where Cynthia's painting for Pattie is now? Does Pattie still have it? Or did it gotten lost during the 50 years of moving house, destroyed, or...? I am hoping Pattie still has it, especially now that Cynthia is now gone and probably a special possession for Pattie to remember her friend.
Update: yes, Pattie does still has Cynthia's painting; it's put away somewhere in her house. Source: Pattie's Instagram live chat April 5, 2020.

Saturday, July 7, 2018

John's Medical Card

Front
Back

John definitely wrote the back part of Death Benefits, relationship, and the address besides his signature on the first/front card (weren't they living in London by that time in January of 1964? Why did John listed Mendips? Was it the address he knew by heart? Did he knew he wouldn't be in his London apartment much longer?). I don't think John wrote the list of his family- although it is interesting that Julian was named 'John Lennon Jr'... And he is not technically a Junior!

Some Items from Kenwood




Sunday, July 1, 2018

John's Wedding Gift

Wow! Besides the wedding present of an apartment from Brian Epstein for the newlyweds, John got his own wedding gift from Brian, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison: a dressing kit!
The black leather case has his initials J. W. L. on it and contained a chromium plated mirror, a bottle opener, an empty glass aftershave bottle, a nylon bristle hairbrush, a plastic portable toothbrush and a metal Gillette razor. There's also a little silver ashtray engraved Good luck John & Cynthia from Brian, Paul & George 23 Aug 62 that was very well used… after all, they all smoked heavily then. The ashtray was later given to Mal Evans as a memento. It's nice that John made use of his wedding gift!