“We met at art school in Liverpool. I was 18 and he was 17. He’d just lost his mother. I had a boyfriend when I was 17, he was a lot older than me, about 25. And John went out with a girl called Barbara for a couple of years before he met me. So we’d both been through the first flush of romance. I was a bit apprehensive of him. I thought he was very funny, but in a rather cruel sort of way. He was fighting the world.”
Cynthia
“He was scruffy, dangerous looking, and totally disruptive. He frightened the life out of me.”
Cynthia
“My impression when I first met John- he was outrageous. At art school, his work was innovative- totally different from everybody else's. I was an art student who followed the rules. But John wanted to break all the rules and that's what made him such an individual and such a terror. With John, there was an element of fear. He really quite frightened people, including me in the beginning, because of his attitude. He was rough-ready and not my type at all, to start with. But this enigmatic character you couldn't resist. He walked around without his glasses, because you know there were lots of rough characters in Liverpool and, wearing glasses, he would be picked on. And because he couldn't see, he felt he was being attacked, so he was always on the run. Even though he’d come from the middle class, his dress was very teddy boy, his hair slicked back with grease, no glasses, a guitar slung over his shoulder, and a look that said 'kill’... I think after losing his mum, which had only just been a year before I met him- his whole world had collapsed and this was his battle. He was a mixture of war and peace. There was a lot of battling and the peace eventually came out.”
Cynthia, 1988
“I met Cynthia at art school. She was a right Hoylake runt. Dead snobby. We used to poke fun at her and mock her, me and Geoff Mohammed. 'Quiet please,’ we’d shout, 'no dirty jokes, it's Cynthia.’”
John, 1968
“I was in his camp of boys because I was a bit of an arty beatnik. Cynthia was dainty and sweet. We used to take the mickey out of her, but John always said he fancied her. He was certainly always attracted to her from the first time he saw her in the canteen.”
Thelma Pickles, 1985
“I hate the word, but posh best describes John's first impression of Cynthia. He was clearly attracted to her but hid that behind a regular barrage of bad jokes about her. She was the most important to him for a long time, but John did not want to look weak to his peers, to be soppy over a girl.”
Pauline Sutcliffe
'His whole persona was really rebellious. He didn't give a damn about anybody: He would not work when he should be working. He’d have everybody in fits of laughter, because his jokes were very crude and very cruel. He was one-off. I don't know why he fell for me because I was the exact opposite of him. But that's how I was attracted to him. And of course, we were in quite close quarters in college, so we got to know each other very slowly, but that was it.”
Cynthia
“It was just an instant attraction. It was probably from the inside, not the outside, because he wasn't very attractive on the outside when I met him. But there was something about him that was for me. I was fascinated to the point where I wanted to know who he was, what he was, where he’d come from, and what made him into who he was at that time, which we all found out later on. That was it really, it was an attraction I couldn't help.”
Cynthia
“I always sensed it, and I was very attuned, but I dismissed it because I thought she'd be far too good for him. She was sweet and lovely, a very nice, quiet girl who would blush and be embarrassed.”
Thelma Pickles
Cynthia and John outside of Ye Cracke pub in Liverpool
John and Cynthia met at Liverpool College of Art. Cynthia enrolled in September of 1956, after her father's death in June of that year. John enrolled the following year and started to date Thelma Pickles. Cynthia was dating a man named Barry for about 3 years and he worked as a window cleaner with his father. They were thinking about getting engaged by the time John and Cynthia started the same class together: Lettering. John sat behind Cynthia, borrowing her prepared utensils and didn't return them. Cynthia wasn't a fan and wanted nothing to do with him. Over time, Cynthia got curious and fascinated of John.
“He was always around, always surrounded by people who were in awe of him. He was such a rebel. He was always somewhere around college, putting on his act, doing his thing, and people were having hysterics. He was embarrassingly funny and you couldn't resist it. I’d never met anybody like this before. I was new to college. I was definitely brought into his orbit when he was moved into my class.”
Cynthia, 2005
“I saw him around college frequently and he was a scruffy teddy boy, but what fascinated me was that he was always surrounded by crowds of people who were laughing. He kept them all laughing- he joked and he was grotesque, but he was a clown. I was just an onlooker until he came into the same class, that's where we came into close quarters. He was changing at that point. He’d got rid of most of his teddy boy outfits and was trying to blend into the arty style, the bohemian style of dress.”
Cynthia, 2005
“He would entertain people with his rebellion but if he actually had to confront anybody on an one-to-one basis and be aggressive to them, he couldn't do that unless he drank. He couldn't take his drink; it made him very aggressive.”
Cynthia, 2005
“It was his charisma. Even though he didn't fit into any kind of pattern in terms of college, I think if he’d done anything in that college he would have succeeded if he put his mind to it. But music was his greatest love and that's what ended up in his life.”
Cynthia, 2005
“He was not to be confronted, let's put it that way. You either loved him or you hated him, and that's still the same now, even though he's not here. You either loved him or you hated him, but you could not ignore him.”
Cynthia, 2009
“We were such opposites. I was conscientious, very studious. John was foolhardy, disruptive.”
Cynthia, 1999
“He might have been scruffy, but he was always clean. And he was not mean- he’d usually offer to pay my fare, eight old pence, just because he knew I was, like him, a hard up student at college.”
Phyllis Mackenzie, 1985
John already had nicknames for Cynthia while teasing her: Miss Powell and Miss Prim. There's an old saying that if a boy teases a girl, he likes her.
