Mimi Smith

Marriage and 'Mendips'

In early 1932 she met George Smith, who lived across from the hospital where she worked, and to which he delivered milk every morning. Smith and his brother Frank operated a dairy farm and a shop in Woolton that had been in the Smith family for four generations. Smith started courting Mimi, but was constantly thwarted by her indifference and her father's interference. Stanley would allow the couple to sit in the back room at Newcastle Road only when he or his wife were in the front room, and before it grew too late he would burst into the back room and loudly order Smith home. The courtship lasted almost seven years, but Smith grew tired of waiting. After delivering milk to the hospital one morning he gave her an ultimatum that she must marry him, "or nothing at all!"

Mimi and Smith were finally married on 15 September 1939. They bought a semi-detached house called Mendips – named after the range of hills – at 251 Menlove Avenue, in a middle-class area of Liverpool. Menlove Avenue suffered extensive damage during World War II, and Mimi said that she often had to throw a wet blanket on incendiary bombs that fell in the garden. During the war, the government took over the Smiths' farmland for war work, and Smith was called up for service. However, he was discharged three years later and worked in an aircraft factory in Speke until the end of the war. According to Smith, she went straight to the hospital "as fast as [her] legs could carry me", during the middle of an air raid, and was forced to hide in doorways to avoid the shrapnel. Smith later recalled a story that began with a parachute-borne landmine landing outside the hospital: "My sister stayed in bed, and they put the baby under the bed. They wanted me to go into the basement, but I wouldn't. I ran all the way back to Newcastle Road to tell Father the news. 'Get under the shelter,' the wardens were shouting. 'Oh, be quiet,' I told them." Julia went to Blackpool and took John back to her house, but a few weeks later she handed him back to Smith. John then lived continuously at Mendips in the smallest bedroom, which was located above the front door. Although she was a caring guardian, Smith was also known for being very strict, compared to the more relaxing influence of her husband and John's mother. Family friends described Smith as stubborn, impatient and unforgiving, but also said that she had a strong sense of humour. On many occasions when she criticised John, he would respond with a joke and the two of them would be "rolling around, laughing together".

Smith bought volumes of short stories for John, and her husband taught him to read at the age of five by reading aloud the headlines of the Liverpool Echo. Every summer between 1949 and 1955, Smith sent John alone on a ten-hour bus journey to visit his Aunt Mater and her family at their home near Loch Meadie in Durness, on the north coast of Scotland. Smith also took her charge to a garden party in Calderstones Park every year, where a Salvation Army band played. Strawberry Field, in Beaconsfield Road, was the name of a Salvation Army house that Lennon would later immortalise in the Beatles' song, "Strawberry Fields Forever". She would later say: "John loved his uncle George. I felt quite left out of that. They'd go off together, just leaving me a bar of chocolate and a note saying 'Have a happy day'". One of the students who lodged there included John Cavill, who stayed from September 1949 until June 1950. Cavill played piano, but as the house had none he bought a guitar; admitting he knew almost nothing about chords: "My father had a violin and I had learned to play pizzicato on it, so when I got the guitar I played tunes on the strings, and John [Lennon] did the same".

George Smith died of a liver haemorrhage in June 1955, leaving £2,000 in his will (equivalent to £ in ). Three years later, Julia was killed on Menlove Avenue when she was knocked down by a car driven by an off-duty police officer, PC Eric Clague. Smith did not witness the fatal collision, but cried hysterically over Julia's body until the ambulance arrived. Clague was acquitted of all charges, given a reprimand and a short suspension from duty; when Smith heard the verdict, she shouted "Murderer!" at Clague.

After John Lennon became famous, Smith berated him for speaking in a Liverpudlian accent, but Lennon replied: "That's show business. They want me to speak more Liverpool.” Despite the talk of Lennon being working class – as were Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – he later rejected the idea, saying, "I was a nice clean-cut suburban boy."

John Lennon and music

Although Smith later claimed that she had bought John's first guitar, it was actually his mother who did so, after Lennon had pestered her incessantly for weeks. Julia insisted that the £5 instrument (equivalent to £ in ) had to be delivered to her house and not to her sister's. The two sisters first saw John perform with the Quarrymen at the St Peter's Church, Woolton fête on the afternoon of 6 July 1957. Julia, who knew that her son would be performing, heard music coming from the field behind the church (now the site of the Bishop Martin School), and pulled Smith along with her to listen. John saw his aunt coming through the crowd and comically changed the words of a song to feature her name: "Oh-oh, here comes Mimi down the aisle now...". Smith related two versions of what she thought that day after seeing him on stage: "I was horrified to behold John in front of a microphone", and "as pleased as Punch to see him up there".

With help from Smith and John's headmaster, Lennon was accepted into the Liverpool College of Art because his aunt insisted that he should have some sort of academic qualifications, even though he was beginning to show an interest in music. She opposed the idea of John forming a band and disapproved of Paul McCartney because he was "working class", calling him "John's little friend". When she later met George Harrison, she "hated him" because of his thick Scouse accent and Teddy Boy clothes. John and Paul often met at Mendips to write songs, and rehearsed in the glass-panelled porch at the front of the house, which was the only place where they were allowed to play. Mimi once asked Stanley Parkes, her nephew through her sister Mater, to take her to The Cavern to see John and the Beatles play. However, when she descended into the cellar full of screaming teenagers, she shouted to Parkes, "Get him [Lennon] out, get him out! Tell him to come off the stage! He can't stay here.... We'll have to stop this!" The band's first residency in Hamburg exasperated her because she wanted Lennon to continue his studies, but he placated her by greatly exaggerating the sum of money he would earn.

She hoped Lennon would become bored with music; often saying, "The guitar's all right, John, but you'll never make a living out of it". In later years, Lennon would jokingly remind her of the comment, and later had a silver plaque made engraved with her words. When later asked about the plaque, she would say that Lennon had it made for her husband, and not her. After Lennon's death, Ono and Sean Lennon visited Smith in Liverpool, where she was staying at her sister Annie's house because of a heart condition. She said, "Sean is like John in every way – looks and manner – and he has got John's sense of humour. As long as he keeps away from music, he will be all right".

Ono later bought Mendips and donated it to The National Trust. It was renovated to make it look as it was in the 1950s when Lennon lived there, and Ono paid a visit before it was opened to the public. The Lennons and their son visited her there in the summer of 1965, which was the last time all three of them visited the house together. Lennon gave his aunt his MBE medal, but later asked for it back so that he could return it in protest.

Lennon gave Smith an allowance of £30 per week (equivalent to £ in ), but when she found out that Lennon's first wife's mother was being given the same amount, she phoned the Lennons' house and said, "What has she [Cynthia's mother] done to deserve anything? Tell John, when you speak to him, that I am very, very annoyed", before slamming down the phone. Lennon moved to New York in 1971, and never returned to England again. Despite losing touch with several family members, he kept in close contact with her and telephoned her every week. In a 1981 television interview with Southern Television reporter Christopher Peacock, Smith stated that she spoke with Lennon by phone the night before he was murdered. He called her to say he was homesick and was planning a trip back to England. After Lennon's death, Smith was furious to find out that he had never transferred the ownership of the house over to her, which meant that Ono owned the house and could sell it at any time.

Death

Smith died on 6 December 1991, at the age of 85, while being cared for at home by auxiliary nurse Lynne Varcoe. On the day of her death, Smith collapsed in the bathroom, so Varcoe helped her to her bed, where Smith started Cheyne-Stokes respiration. According to Varcoe, her last words were, "Hello, John".

Although the oldest of the Stanley sisters, Smith was the last to die. Cynthia, Sean and Ono attended her funeral on 12 December 1991: McCartney, Harrison and Starr all sent floral arrangements. Despite the animosity between Cynthia and Smith, Varcoe remembered Cynthia crying throughout the whole funeral, and said that Smith had always spoken positively about her. The whereabouts of her ashes is unknown. Ono put Smith's house up for sale on the same day as the cremation; it was demolished in 1994, so a four-bedroomed house could be built on the site. The new house on the site is now called 'Imagine'.

Portrayals in film

Smith was portrayed on film by Eileen Kennally in Birth of the Beatles (1979), by Val McLane in John and Yoko: A Love Story (1985), by Blair Brown in In His Life: The John Lennon Story (2000), and by Kristin Scott Thomas in Nowhere Boy (2009).