Cynthia Powell was born to Charles Edwin and Lillian Anne Roby Powell on September 10, 1939 in Blackpool, England.
John and his mother Julia in 1949
By the time John and Cynthia started dating, John's mother Julia and Cynthia's father Charles were already deceased. John's father Alfred was pretty much long gone and out of John's life at this point and he was living with Julia’s eldest sister Mimi (who deserves her own post!) since he was five. Although he saw his mother occasionally while growing up, they didn't get to spend more time together until his teens. Cynthia was living with her mother and she had a normal childhood; she had both of her parents until her father died of lung cancer. His death shattered Lillian and Cynthia to the point where Cynthia was willing to drop her art college dreams but her mother insisted to pursued her dreams. They would find ways to manage.
Some say that Julia would have loved Cynthia while she believed that if her father had lived, Charles wouldn't have liked John…
“Mummy would have loved her and the adoring way she was with John.”
Julia Baird
“I knew Dad would have advised me against him and perhaps I would have listened. But Dad wasn't there and Mum was still too weighed down by her own grief to guide me. So I plunged right in and went for broke.”
Cynthia, 1994
“Even so, had my father not died when I was 17, I think that's exactly what I would have done- ignore it. I could never have taken John home to meet my beloved Dad. My gentle, unassuming father just wouldn't have understood John and I knew it. With Dad there to guide me, I think I’d steered well clear of 'dangerous’ John Lennon. But there you are, he wasn't, and I plunged joyfully into the deep end. That's fate. John and I were obviously meant to be together.”
Cynthia, 1994
When John and Cynthia became a solid couple and this wasn't going to be a passing affair, they decided it was time to meet the families. Lillian did take notice of how often Cynthia was out while Mimi was aware of Cynthia's existence… but as I wrote earlier, Mimi will have a post all of her own.
Then, there's Alfred. He was a Seaman, working at… well, the sea! It seemed to have been a big job in those days. After all, Liverpool was the biggest industrialized porting city in the world in that time! He’d come home at various inconsistency times while John was a toddler. Julia wasn't too happy about that and had an affair with an another man. She got pregnant; during his visits, Freddie seemed to have understood the affair and offered to raise the baby as his own. But Julia refused. He was away far more than he was at home. Freddie left Julia for good and only returned once to take five years old John to Blackpool. John started living with Mimi at the time; how Alfred managed to get John away, he must've been quite a charmer for Mimi to relent. After the due date came and went to return John to Mimi, Alfred was deciding to keep John with him. But Julia discovered his whereabouts and John chosed to go back to Liverpool with Julia, back to Mimi. It would be 20 years later for father and son to reunite. As for the baby, well, she was given up for adoption as Julia had very few to no options else to do in 1945. Anyway, while John and Cynthia were getting to know each other, Alfred was a rare subject. John's fairytale belief was that his father had a great singing voice, a hero in the distance with important work on the sea. Cynthia did eventually meet Alfred when she was already John's wife, mother of Julian, and living in a mansion- but that's for Volume 2 of family members (Volume 1 is dating, Volume 2 is marriage and beyond). History does tend to repeat itself in the Lennon family.
At first sight, possibly by first discussion, it was quite clear that Lillian and John weren't each other's favorite person. I suppose the best way to put this is that they tolerated each other (up to a point) for Cynthia's sake. Yet, Cynthia always said Lillian and John got along, while everyone else says opposite. Maybe she was in denial or wanted to focus on positive so much that the negative faded? Who knows? Lillian would have preferred if Cynthia had a much better potential future boyfriend rather than some Teddy Boy rocker with attitude. According to Pete Shotton, Lillian had Cynthia under her thumb.
“I wasn't in a hurry to introduce John to my mother. I wanted to prepare her for the shock. He was never over polite and he looked so scruffy and like a Teddy Boy. My mother played it cool. She was good, really, though I'm sure she was hoping for it to peter out. But she never tried to stop it.”
Cynthia, 1968
“He ran out of the house after he and Mum hadn't got on well. It was all very tense, that first meeting. I ran after him and found him halfway between the house and the station. He wanted to get back to Liverpool quickly. But I persuaded him to return and patch up the argument for my sake. Mum wasn't mad about his appearance and made it clear to him. She’d much rather I’d chosen a clean-cut office type.”
Cynthia, 1985
Cynthia's father Charles and her two brothers, Charles and Tony circa 1931
From Julian Lennon's Instagram @julespicturepalace
Cynthia told a familiar story of John leaving her house in her 2005 book (John) and she chasing after him but used it for the time Lillian and Mimi met face to face. Did John run out of the house on both occasions? I’ll discuss more on that momentarily. Anyway, after that first meeting, John rarely went over to the Powell family home while dating Cynthia. More about John and Lillian's relationship in Volume 2.
The one other rare time John was visiting Cynthia's family home, her eldest brother Charles was visiting. He realized John had little money and offered him his old sweaters. John was touched and from that moment on (at least until the divorce), John had a soft spot for Charles. Charles eventually moved to Libya and in February of 1967, he married Penny Jackson. John met Cynthia's other older brother, Tony, at his wedding to Marjory Joyce in April of 1960. Cynthia was the bridesmaid and John agreed to go and surprised Cynthia by dressing in a suit, wore his glasses, and was on his best behavior to meet her extended family for the first time. John bonded with Tony by their sense of humor. Tony and Marjory were the only family guests to later attend John and Cynthia's wedding in 1962.
I don't know exactly when John and Cynthia decided that it was time for Lillian and Mimi to meet. Of course it was inevitable. Lillian and Mimi did have a few things in common: both were widows, taken in lodgers to help make ends meet, both grew up in the same generation. John and Cynthia probably thought the women could be best friends and have an once a week tea get together. Nope. Well, at first, it went well. Cynthia and Lillian tidied up their house, used their best plates and silverware, and John even looked decent. There was a pleasant conversation that was just about to become a relaxing atmosphere when, bang! Mimi made a comment about Cynthia taking John's attention away from his studies. Let's be honest here, folks… Cynthia is not to blame on that accusation. Maybe partial but it was definitely music! Naturally, Lillian defended Cynthia and the two women went at it, picking faults about John and Cynthia. After that meeting, Lillian and Mimi were mostly kept apart.
“John and I were very upset. We were both in love with each other, and for the two dearest people in our lives to stand in front of us saying what terrible people we were, and how they hated us for getting together, was awful. I think they did it because they didn't get on and they didn't want us to get on either. But the experience was horrible.”
Cynthia, 1985
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