#durness

On December 8th 1980, John Lennon was gunned down and killed in New York.

Over the years  it is Paul McCartney who is the Beatle most connected with Scotland, but John Lennon has links with our country going back to his childhood.

The ex-Beatle was a regular visitor to Durness in Sutherland during his younger years after his dear Aunt Mater remarried a dentist called Bert who owned a home that overlooked Sango Bay. John, who travelled north with his cousin Stanley Parks, who lived in Edinburgh and later in Largs, would head to the coast for weeks on end, often being dragged into helping his uncle fix up the house.

“The family party roughed it in a primitive farmhouse lit by oil lamp and candles and noisy with the screeches of Mater’s pet parrot,” wrote Philip Norman in his biography John Lennon: The Life. 

The house where Lennon holidayed at Sangomore, a settlement at Durness, was demolished just a few years ago with a new property built by the owners.

Parkes also recalled:

John never forgot those times at Durness. They were among his happiest memories. He loved the wilderness. John was nine when he started coming up with my family to the croft in Durness. The croft belonged to my stepfather, Robert Sutherland, and John just loved the wildness and the openness of the place. We went fishing and hunting and John loved going up into the hills to draw or write poetry. John really loved hill walking, shooting and fishing. He used to catch salmon. He would have been quite a laird. In the last letter to me before he was killed he quoted a famous Scottish saying that says ‘It’s a braw, bricht moonlicht nicht since I last had a word’.

John later took his to Scotland, but his visit was tainted by an accident he had in his Austin Maxi car.

He, Ono and Kyoko sustained cuts to the face and Ono’s back was injured.They were taken to Golspie’s Lawson Memorial Hospital where Lennon was given facial stitches, Ono 14 in her forehead, and Kyoko four. Julian Lennon was treated for shock but was otherwise unhurt. He was taken to stay with Lennon’s Aunt Mater in Durness, around 50 miles away, before his mother Cynthia took him back to London the following day.When she arrived at the hospital to demand an explanation from Lennon he refused to see her.Lennon remained in hospital for five days and famously told reporters: 

“If you’re going to have a car crash, try to arrange for it to happen in the Highlands.“The hospital there was just great.”

Lennon was never a confident driver and gave up driving after the accident, hiring a chauffeur to take him wherever he needed to go and reportedly having the old car’s carcass mounted on a pillar at his English estate.

This 1969 crash wasn’t John’s first brush with danger on Scottish roads; Ken McNab, author of The Beatles in Scotland, revealed that the Beatles had an accident during their first tour in 1960, when they were backing up singer Johnny Gentle as the Silver Beetles.

As McNab put it, “John Lennon began the ’60s with a car crash in Scotland and managed to end the decade with another car crash in Scotland.”

Trek home from the pub.

hannahyearsleyx

Balnakeil Church, Durness, Sutherland - UK

Look also for the grave of Elizabeth Parkes, aunt of Beatle John Lennon. Lennon visited Durness frequently, and it is said that his song In My Life is based on his experiences in this area.

Across the lane from Balnakeil Church is Balnakeil House, one of the residences of the chiefs of Clan MacKay. The house contains stones brought from the summer house of the Bishops of Caithness. The current Balnakeil House dates to 1744, but there has been a residence here since the 16th century. Around the corner from Balnakeil House is Balnakeil Mill, built around 1819 but now derelict.