"The first time I met Yoko I was nothing short of scared..No one had ever told me my Mum and Dad were splitting up. He just seemed to be there one day and gone the next. Every Friday, a chauffeur-driven car would pick me up and take me down to Dad's place at Ascot. That's where I first met Yoko. There was this woman, a million miles away from my own Mum, Cynthia, in looks and ways. She was wearing a very short black skirt, black thigh-length boots, a black shirt, a black floppy hat, all topped off with this long black hair...She was simply introduced as Yoko. I didn't know what to make of her. I think I was scared of her. But she kept cuddling me and eventually, in my little mind, I somehow knew that if I wanted to keep my Dad, I had to like her. It wasn't until years later that I began to understand their relationship and suddenly stopped seeing her as the 'weird lady.' "
ON JOHN & YOKO'S RELATIONSHIP:
"..Slowly - and, if I'm honest, perhaps a bit reluctantly - I at last came to understand this weird relationship my Dad and Yoko shared. It was so intense, like their complete sharing of everything, almost to the point of telepathy. Yoko is a sharp lady. She's extremely intelligent and has the most amazing business brain. She really did become Dad's business eyes and ears as well as brain. He would consult her about everything. It was weird watching them - like she could read his mind. They were so in tune it was almost frightening. It's almost impossible to explain unless you saw it. They'd be sitting there together and Yoko seemed to know what Dad was going to say before he even opened his mouth."
ON HIS FEARS ABOUT HIS NEW LITTLE BROTHER:
"She (Yoko) was very loving toward me, even after their son, Sean, was born. Right at the beginning, I felt a few pangs. They were there with their own son. Where did I fit in? But everytime I went over, Dad would lay on amazing treats, and Yoko was always loving towards me."
TAROT CARDS AND BUSINESS:
"Even when it came to business matters, Yoko would consult her medium or card reader. If John and Yoko were discussing something in the middle of the night and they had to make a decision, she'd call her psychic advisers. Dad came to follow these readings - apart from the last one. When Yoko told him not to go out on what was to be the day of his death, he insisted on finishing his work on a new album. He never came back."
OLD AGE AND FEATHERS:
"When my Dad was killed I first didn't feel anything but numbness, and I cried for a long time. Then when I flew to New York, Yoko wouldn't see me for three days. I was so upset I couldn't understand what was happening. The only thing that kept me going was a strange talk I'd had with Dad about a year before. He seemed convinced that the only way he'd miss out on old age was through a nuclear war. But he said if anything happened to him, he'd send a sign back to us that he was okay. He said he'd make a feather float down the room. Ever since his death, I've been waiting for that sign. Everytime I'm alone in a room, I find myself staring around, looking for the feather. At first I thought I'd be frightened, but now it's reached the point where I'd feel nothing but relief if I did see it."
(IK Editor's Note: IK ran excerpts of an interview Yoko gave to the Daily Star and Sunday Mirror in December, 1981 in which she denied she refused to see Julian for three days. Quoting Yoko now: "...it's totally untrue. I was waiting for him to arrive so that he could see his daddy before he was cremated. I saw him as soon as he got here - there are lots of witnesses to that.")
WEEKENDS WITH DAD AND YOKO AFTER THE DIVORCE:
"...suddenly Dad was gone and Mum and I moved to a much smaller house. And then I'd live for the weekends I'd spend with Dad and his new love, Yoko, at Ascot. My feelings toward their relationship were helped by the way I was treated. I was given incredibly expensive toys to play with. I was left in a room full of miniature televisions and tape recorders. It was a dream to any little boy. There was always something happening. Once Dad had a sort of white shed built on an island in the middle of the lake on the grounds of the house. He had bought these little white amphicars that sped across the lake. The three of us all dressed in white to spend the day there. Crazy, but wonderful."
ON BEING JOHN'S SON AT A TENDER AGE:
There were times when being John Lennon's son was very difficult. Older boys wanted to beat my head in because I was a Beatle's son, and others would force me to play the guitar and then poke fun at me because it sounded awful. I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see my father again when Mum rang him out of the blue. It marked the beginning of a string of amazing visits to the States to taste a life that was a million miles away from my own. It was pure magic. I was able to talk to him as though we'd never been apart, and I felt much closer to him. He was back in my life and I was back wanting to please him."
DRUGS:
"On one of these visits Dad tried to introduce me to drugs - and I was only 12. We were sitting in the apartment when he suddenly reached in his pocket for a small box. He started to roll a cigarette and said he was going to smoke something that made him feel relaxed and good. Then he asked if I'd ever smoked a cigarette and when I said no, he passed the joint to me. I refused, but he never knew the reason. I had a vivid picture in my mind from when I was about 3 or 4. Mum, Dad, and I were still living together in Weybridge. Mum had gone to her mother's at Esher, and I was left in Dad's charge. I wandered into a room full of people. There was this strange smell and six or seven of them were lying about looking odd, passing a cigarette around. It wasn't until years later when Dad lit up again in the apartment in New York that I realized the smell was pot.
I suppose a lot of people would think it was disgusting for a man to smoke a joint and offer it to his 12-year-old son, but I'd rather think of it as a test. He wanted to see what my reaction would be, or maybe he thought if the mystery and the excitement were taken out of drugs, I wouldn't have much interest. Either way, it worked. I've tried pot twice, and it did absolutely nothing for me. I don't like drugs. I don't like the idea of not being able to cope or of having something to fall back on when I feel down. Drink is the same. I'm a disastrous drinker."
ON "LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS":
"..it was named after a little girl I knew. One day, I did a drawing of her looking like an angel in the sky, with diamonds for stars. When I showed Dad he asked who it was and I said: 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'"
ON HIS CURRENT STATUS WITH YOKO:
"There's been a lot written about Yoko and me and the money. Perhaps this was a test. Dad may have thought that if I was suddenly landed with millions of pounds, I'd give up and not try to do something with my life. Yoko has suggested I'm like a spoiled brat. I obviously wouldn't agree with that. She says she's given me things - musical equipment and money, but it's not true. Despite all this I'd like to see her again. The simple truth is, I can't let Yoko go. Despite all the wrangling over the will and everything else, she represents my link with Dad. Together, she and Dad are responsible for my feelings toward girls. I want the same sort of relationship that they had. Someone who can be so close to me. Someone I can be really at ease with."