Cynthia Lennon
Cynthia Lennon was a British visual artist and opinion journalist, born in Blackpool on 10 September 1939.
Educated at Liverpool College of Art, she developed her practice as a visual artist while also writing in English as an opinion journalist. The combination of visual work and written commentary placed her across two distinct creative disciplines, each demanding its own form of attention and craft. Her training in Liverpool shaped the foundation of her artistic life, situating her within a city that carried considerable cultural weight during the decades she came of age.
A citizen of the United Kingdom throughout her life, Lennon worked across the visual and journalistic fields that defined her public identity. She died on 1 April 2015 in Mallorca, having spent her career engaged with both image-making and the written word. The dual nature of her output — as someone who produced visual art and contributed opinion writing in English — forms the most consistent thread running through the documented record of her work.
Quotes by Cynthia Lennon
Those weeks in Hamburg were among the happiest times John and I had together. We were free and in love, life was full of promise and the sun shone.
I met Brian soon after he had signed the Beatles. He was charming, polite, well spoken and I liked him. He accepted that I was John’s girlfriend, but he told John that it would be better if all girlfriends kept a low profile. I didn’t mind because I had no interest in the limelight. As long as I could be.
Outside, the rain was bucketing down. We ran along the street, laughing at the madness of it all, and burst into Reece’s, where we had to queue for the set lunch of soup, chicken and trifle. Reece’s had no licence so, when we finally got a table, we toasted ourselves with water. But we didn’t care: we were on a high. A full church wedding with all the extras couldn’t have made me happier.
Although George was quieter than the others too, when it came to banter he could give as good as he got. Just when you thought he wasn’t listening to one of John’s wicked teases he’d shoot back a withering line that had everyone in stitches.
In March Brian heard that Decca weren’t interested. The chap he spoke to told him groups with guitars were on the way out and they didn’t like the boys’ sound.
He took them to London on New Year’s Eve, while Brian went by train. Like the rest of the boys, Neil had never been to London.
Most descriptions of Mimi that have appeared in print were based on interviews with her – she outlived John by eleven years. She loved to fuel the image of the stern but loving aunt who provided the secure backdrop to John’s success. But that wasn’t the Mimi I knew. She battered away at John’s self-confidence and left him angry and hurt.
My feelings for John were very different from those I’d had for any other boy: more powerful, more exciting and totally unshakeable. And I sensed in John the same strong feelings. Perhaps each of us recognised and was drawn to a deep need in the other. But at the time I didn’t analyse it. I simply felt certain that this was no passing fling. It was real love.
Pete was getting on the others’ nerves. It wasn’t that he did anything wrong: he was a nice guy and a good enough drummer. It was simply that his personality was different: he preferred to sit on his own rather than join in with the others’ non-stop banter.