While at the hospital to see Julian for the first time, John told Cynthia that during the first break the Beatles were going to get that he is going to go to Spain… with Brian Epstein. It's the first break John has had since they got married, no! Before! John has had hardly a break since I suppose his 21st birthday in 1961 to Paris with Paul (Cynthia didn't go, she had to go to college). Cynthia understood but not thrilled. I bet! I wonder why Brian thought to take John? Paul, George, and Ringo were going to the Canary Islands… I honestly can't picture John stuck at home. Julian couldn't certainly travel (maybe now these days but in 1963? Not likely) and Cynthia couldn't travel either; not only she was still recovering from birth but she was breast feeding and was learning how to be a first time mother/parent. Brian knew Cynthia had the baby but still deciding to take John away. Maybe Brian thought neighborhood local fans in the Mendips area would see John walking around with Cynthia and Julian on the street? Maybe the reality of fatherhood scared the crap out of John? I don't think neither Brian nor John thought this through of what about Cynthia and consider her feelings in this holiday arrangement. Sadly, it was the first out of countless times John would put himself first rather than putting Cynthia and Julian’s needs ahead of his own.
It's fair to say that both John and Cynthia were inexperienced with babies. I don't think they were around as many to know what to do and how to read cries of the baby's wants (fed, diaper change). While pregnant, Cynthia was not offered, nor did she thought of asking, about classes of baby 101. She had to learn and trust her instincts through trial and error. In a way, with John gone in Spain, she felt it would be better to concentrate on Julian with full attention. No matter the reasoning, it did not win John any favors as a good Dad.
“I was on holiday with Brian Epstein in Spain, where the rumors went round that he and I were having a love affair… We left Cyn with the baby, and I went to Spain and we had lots of funny stories, you know…”
John
“Cyn was having a baby and the holiday was planned, but I wasn't going to break the holiday for a baby and that's what a bastard I was. And I just went on holiday.”
John, 1970
At least John realized it was a bastard thing to do. He had to realized it many times. Okay, moving on: when John returned, he was refreshed and back to work. His marriage and fatherhood was still kept secret but was slowly coming out.
“She was a very nice person and Brian often said how good an influence she was on John. But it suited the grand plan to keep her well in the background, baby and all. They lived as quietly as possible with John’s Aunt Mimi in Liverpool.”
Alistair Taylor, Brian's assistant
“Another girl I knew who was a big John Lennon fan, she said to me, 'I know he's married and he's got a baby daughter.’ I looked away and I said, 'He hasn't got a baby daughter,’ because at least that was true. I just knew you didn't say things.”
Freda Kelly, The Beatles Fan Club secretary
Julian was not an easy baby. He cried and cried and cried. Cynthia thought maybe it was the result of the tension in the house with Aunt Mimi who barely, if rarely, lifted a finger to help the new mom. I personally think that Julian could have had colic. When his crying got too much for her and couldn't figure out what to do, Cynthia would wrap him up and put him in the pram aka stroller and push him at the end of the garden where he can scream while Cynthia was nervous that Mimi was distrubed by the crying. I do wonder about something though… did Cynthia ever heard of Dr. Spock? Or go to the library or bookstore to find parenting and baby books?
By the time Julian was six months old (October), his grandmother Lillian moved back to Liverpool after her Nanny job was done. She was understandably anxious to see her first grandchild for the first time. She moved in at Mimi's house! Oh the fun… now, why couldn't Lillian stay with her son Tony as she did a year before? Why be in a house where she knew that the owner by the name of Mimi was no fan of hers and vice versa? John was probably thankful not to be there. Before Lillian's arrival, Mimi told Cynthia that she had a dream that she shut the door on Lillian and not welcoming her in, brushing it off as a silly dream. It certainly wasn't silly to Cynthia! Cynthia knew just then that she, John, and Julian had to move out. I think it would have been easier if Lillian stayed at Tony's but visited Cynthia during the day, but nope… Not long after Lillian's arrival, Cynthia started looking for a temporary home. Their family home in Hoylake was still being rented out but the contract was soon going to be expired so Cynthia found a little apartment that's not exactly child friendly but desperate times called for desperate measures. Julian was still fussy but once the Powell family home was available, he settled down and slept through the night. No tension in the house and where Cynthia can finally breathe. I don't think John was thrilled at all but he wasn't living in the family drama. Plus he knew something that Cynthia didn't: John was planning to make the move down to London where he had been spending most of his time and yes, Cynthia and Julian were to come down and live with him. By the end of the year, John found an apartment in London, above photographer Robert Freeman’s apartment. Cynthia and Julian soon moved in with Lillian in tow to help.
“I was told to keep a low profile, to put it mildly. It wasn't considered good for the Beatles’ image for John to admit to having a wife, and certainly not a child.”
Cynthia, 1985
“That was how it was in those days, it was amateur and naive. I was walking round Derry and Toms trying to get the cheapest furniture for this flat and pushing Julian round in a pram and, of course, John was not there. Nobody knew what I looked like or who I was. I could have got away with murder.”
Cynthia, 2005
“Julian still has on a tape we must have made when he was in his pram. It's lovely to have that reminder of everyday happiness because ours was such an abnormal marriage, John's and mine. Nothing was normal about it."
Cynthia, 1999
"I went to stay with my mother and the press must have been tipped off, because I was chased in and out of shops with the pram. My mum went out to face them, and when they said, ‘Is that Cynthia, John's wife?’ she said, ‘No, it's her twin sister.’”
Cynthia, 1999
"It was beautiful. We moved from Liverpool, actually Hoylake where I was staying with Mum. John had just started touring, we moved to a maisonette near Cromwell Road and I had Julian. There wasn't a lift and we had to go up and down stairs. Eventually there were always crowds of people outside when we went out so we both agreed we ought to do the proper thing and go and buy a mansion in Weybridge. That was in 1964 and the mansion cost £19,000."
Cynthia, 1988
When you're not traveling and recording, and you are living at home, do you sleep late or get up early? (Interview Q&A 1964)
“I sleep late, Cyn has to get up early for the baby, unless we’ve got her mother over or a nurse, somebody to look after him. We're not a normal family. Cyn and I go out all night, just as if we were still engaged.”
What does your wife think about this, does she enjoy it or let's say get pestered by the onsault of gifts or does she pick them out or what? (Interview Q &A 1964)
“She doesn't get pestered because I try to keep her out of the limelight. There's very few photographs of her, so if she wants to go sort of in the town anyway, she can go around, you know, because people don't know what she looks like, really.”
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