The Day John Lennon Died

I have a vivid memory of the day I learned that John Lennon had been shot. I'd had one of those bad nights of delirious fever dreams, because I was off school with glandular fever (mono), and that night had been my worst and only bad one.

Then my sister came into my room just after 6:30 in the morning, and shook me awake with the words, "Bob, Bob! John Lennon's been shot!"

It all seemed like it was part of the nightmare from which I'd just woken. I'd turned 18 five days before, but I'd been off school for a while with the mono. I spent the day listening to the radio on the old (valve) radiogram in our front room. I'd been seriously into music only for about 4 years. From the ages 14 to 16 I'd assiduously collected all the Beatles records, singles and albums, and, as was the case for many people, John was my favourite.

If nothing else he was the saviour of guys like me, who had to wear National Health spectacles. Rich kids had expensive frames, but with the National Health the choice offered was sort of Buddy Holly or worse, or you could get the round ones that were a bit like the ones Lennon wore around 1970. They were as cheap as the others, but wearing them made you feel cool, like going to school dressed as a rock star.

This was the 70s, the years of punk and new wave, and I was considered eccentric by most of my school contemporaries. We've probably said before on this blog how strange it is that, in the late 70s, the era of the Beatles seemed impossibly distant. 1980, the last year of the 70s, really was a different age, politically, socially, and musically. I'd always been wise to the fact that Lennon's post-Beatle output wasn't up to much. I owned Shaved Fish, the compilation that came out in '75; and Rock and Roll, his compilation of cover versions that came out in the same year. 1975 was probably a year before I started to buy my own records, and 1980 was the first time Lennon had done anything in all the years he'd been my favourite Beatle.

Even so, I was too savvy to go and buy Double Fantasy. As soon as you knew it was fifty percent Yoko, you knew it would be a swizz.

A few days later, I went out to the doctors to get the all clear on the glandular fever, which - like most things - never affected me as much as it did other people. I had that one bad night and a very sore throat, whereas someone else I was at school with ended up on a kidney machine, and another friend couldn't even swallow his own spit. At the surgery, I met Joanne Nye, who was the daughter of a friend of my mother's. She was very attractive, blonde, a year older than me. I'd danced with her once, but never allowed myself to get into her because it would have been too weird - her mum talking to mine, and so on.

But we met in the surgery, and then I bumped into her in town later. She had laryngitis, something like that, and was off work. I'd just bought a copy of Playboy, because it had a Lennon interview in it. We went back to her house and she got out her record player and her parents' collection of original Beatles 45s. We had a cup of tea and some biscuits, and then, because her mum would be coming home at lunch time, I scarpered.

Never saw her again, but I think of her whenever I think about Lennon's death, and the aftermath. She was a lovely girl, and I was a callow fool.