Marriage and Julian
The Lennons were married on 23 August 1962, at the Mount Pleasant Register office in Liverpool. Fellow Beatles McCartney and George Harrison were in attendance, as was their manager, Brian Epstein, who was best man; no parents were there. The wedding was farcical, because as soon as the ceremony began a workman in the backyard of the building opposite started using a pneumatic drill which drowned out anything the registrar, Lennon, or Powell said. When the registrar asked for the groom to step forward, Harrison stepped forward instead. With no photographs or flowers the wedding party celebrated afterwards, at Epstein's invitation, in Reece's restaurant in Clayton Square, which was the same restaurant where Lennon's parents, Alfred Lennon and Julia Lennon, had celebrated their marriage 24 years earlier, in 1938. Lennon was 21 years old, and Powell 22. The newlyweds had no honeymoon, as Lennon had to play an engagement at the Riverpark Ballroom in Chester the same night, although they did travel to the Hotel George V in Paris, for a belated honeymoon on 16 September, but were accompanied by Epstein, even though he had not been invited to join them.
During her pregnancy, Epstein offered the couple the use of his flat at 36 Falkner Street, and later paid for a private hospital room when the pregnancy was coming to term. Although still completely unknown outside of Liverpool, by now the Beatles had a fanatical following among girls within the city. Epstein had one condition which the Lennons had to follow: the marriage and the baby were to be kept a close secret, so as not to upset any of these fans. One time when news of the wedding leaked out, the group denied it. Cynthia was happy to keep a low profile, not wanting to be the subject of public attention the way her husband was.
The Lennons' son, John Charles Julian Lennon, was born at 7.45 am on 8 April 1963, in Sefton Hospital. Lennon, being on tour at the time, did not see his son until three days later, and when he finally arrived at the hospital, said: "He's bloody marvellous, Cyn! ... Who's gonna be a famous rocker like his Dad then?" He then explained that he would be going on on a four-day holiday to Barcelona, with Epstein. Lennon would later refer to Julian as being a "Saturday night special; the way that most people get here", or that his son "came out of a whisky bottle".
Read more about this topic: Cynthia Lennon
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