Julia Lennon

She then had Mary, known as "Mimi" (1906–1991), Elizabeth "Mater" (1908–1976), Anne "Nanny" (1911–1988), Julia "Judy" (1914–1958), and Harriet "Harrie" (1916–1972).

John Lennon would later comment that the Stanley girls were "five, fantastic, strong, beautiful, and intelligent women".

Their father, George Ernest Stanley, retired from the Merchant Navy and found a job with the Liverpool & Glasgow Salvage Association as an insurance investigator.

He moved his family to the suburb of Wavertree, where they lived in a small terraced house at 9 Newcastle Road near to Penny Lane.

Julia Lennon (née Stanley; 12 March 1914 – 15 July 1958) was the mother of English musician John Lennon, who was born during her marriage to Alfred Lennon.

After complaints to Liverpool's Social Services by her eldest sister, Mimi Smith (née Stanley), she surrendered the care of her son to her sister Mimi.

She later had one daughter after an affair with a Welsh soldier, but the baby was placed for adoption after pressure from her family.

She then had two daughters, Julia and Jackie, with John "Bobby" Dykins.

She never divorced her husband, preferring to live as the common-law wife of Dykins for the rest of her life.

She was known as being high-spirited and impulsive, musical, and having a strong sense of humour.

She taught her son how to play the banjo and ukulele.

She kept in almost daily contact with John, and when he was in his teens he often stayed overnight at her and Dykins' house.

Julia Stanley, later known by the family as Judy, was born at 8 Head Street, Toxteth, South Liverpool in 1914, and was the fourth of five sisters.

Her mother, Annie Jane (née Millward), gave birth to a boy and then a girl, both of whom died shortly after birth.

On 3 December 1938, 11 years after they had first met, she married Alf Lennon after she had proposed to him.

They were married in the Bolton Street Registry office, although none of her family were present as she had not informed them of the wedding.

She wrote 'cinema usherette' as her occupation on the marriage certificate, even though she had never been one.

They spent their honeymoon eating at Reece's restaurant in Clayton Square (which is where their son would later dine after his marriage to Cynthia Powell), and then went to a cinema.

She walked into 9 Newcastle Road waving the marriage licence and said to her family, "There!—I've married him."

It was an act of defiance against her father, who had threatened to disown her if she ever cohabitated with a lover.

On their wedding night, she stayed at her parents' house, and Lennon went back to his boarding house.

The next day, he went back to sea for three months, on a ship bound for the West Indies.

Her mother died in 1945, and Julia had to take care of her father with help from her oldest sister.

Alfred Lennon—always called "Alf" by his family—was always joking but never held a job for very long, preferring to visit Liverpool's many vaudeville theatres and cinemas, where he knew the usherettes by name.

At the Trocadero club, a converted cinema on Camden Street, Liverpool, he first saw an "auburn-haired girl with a bright smile and high cheekbones", Julia Stanley.

He saw her again in Sefton Park, where he had gone with a friend to meet girls.

Lennon, who was dressed in a bowler hat and with a cigarette holder in hand, saw "this little waif" sitting on a wrought-iron bench.

Julia (14 years old) said that his hat looked "silly", to which the 15-year-old Alf replied that she looked "lovely", and sat down next to her.

She asked him to take off his hat, so he promptly threw it straight into the Sefton Park lake.

Despite standing only 5 ft tall in heels, she often caught the gaze of men in the street, being attractive and full-figured.

She was always well-dressed and even went to bed with make-up on so as to "look beautiful when she woke up".

A nephew later said that she could "make a joke out of nothing", and could have "walked out of a burning house with a smile and a joke".

She frequented Liverpool's dance halls and clubs where she was often asked to dance in jitterbug competitions with dockers, soldiers, sailors, and waiters.

It was remarked that she could be as humorous as any man and would sing the popular songs of the day at any time of day or night.

Her voice sounded similar to Vera Lynn's, whilst Lennon specialised in impersonating Louis Armstrong and Al Jolson.

She played the ukulele, the piano accordion, and the banjo (as did Lennon), although neither pursued music professionally.

They spent their days together walking around Liverpool and talking of what they would do in the future: opening a shop, a pub, a cafe, or a club.

On 15 July 1958, she was knocked down and killed by a car driven by an off-duty policeman, close to her sister's house at 251 Menlove Avenue.

John was traumatised by her death and wrote several songs about her, including "Julia" and "Mother".

Biographer Ian MacDonald wrote that she was, "to a great extent ... her son's muse".