From
Ananova
Yoko has bought John Lennon's childhood home to save it for England.
Yoko, who visited Liverpool on Friday (March 15, 2002), has bought the
house in the city where he lived with his Aunt Mimi, 251 Menlove Avenue.
She had wanted to ensure the house - where John wrote the early Beatles
hit "Please Please Me" - remained in the hands of the people
of Liverpool and she has donated it to the National Trust.
There had been fears that the property
would go to someone who may have had little sympathy for its unique
place in the history of popular music. At one stage there were concerns
that a private overseas company would buy it.
Yoko gave her backing to a campaign to
save the building when she visited John's old school Dovedale Primary
last year and received an honorary degree from Liverpool University.
The house - where John's teen band The
Quarry Men and then The Beatles rehearsed - had been on the market for
months and is thought to have cost in excess of £150,000. Lennon has
described the home as "a nice semi-detached place with a small
garden". He wrote "Please Please Me" in the bedroom.
Yoko worked anonymously through a third
party to secure the property as a reminder of his work and links to the
city.
She said: "I am thrilled that we
have managed to buy John's main childhood home. It is especially
pleasing that we will be able to keep such an important part of John's
and The Beatles' history intact and out of the hands of unsympathetic
private developers.
"I think Menlove Avenue has an
important place in Beatles history and it saddened me to think that it
might be lost. The fact that this is happening in the same week that
Liverpool Airport is officially opened as Liverpool John Lennon Airport
would have made my husband very happy."
|
