John Lennon, Paul McCartney and the grief that united two lost teens
Paul McCartney and John Lennon met on Saturday, July 6, 1957 — 12 years after the war, 10 years before they released Sgt Pepper — amid the pageantry of a suburban English garden party in Woolton, Liverpool: brass band, fancy-dress parades, cake stalls and hoopla games. Paul, 15 years old, was over from Allerton, a mile or two across the golf course. He didn’t hang out in Woolton much — it was a posh neighbourhood, a little prissy — but a friend from school, Ivan, lived there, and had suggested they go to the fête. There would be girls, plus Ivan had this local friend, John Lennon, whom Paul might like to meet, or at least see play with his group, the Quarry Men.
At about 4pm, he and Ivan arrived at St Peter’s Church. The noise of Lennon’s group was billowing through humid air from the field next to the church. Paul had seen John around, on the bus, in the chip shop, and he was already fascinated by him. Paul was an intellectually hungry boy who was unconvinced by school and unimpressed by the prospect of an office job. Here was this older lad, nearly 17, a leather-jacketed, sideburned, vulpine rocker who seemed to have already made an irreversible break from workaday life.
Source: thetimes.com/Ian Leslie
