UNKNOWN FOOTAGE OF JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO

Fifty years after John Lennon and Yoko Ono famously staged a "bed-in" for peace in an Amsterdam hotel, a Dutchman has unearthed 30 minutes of colour footage of the event from his cellar.
The couple spent a week mostly at the Hilton hotel to spread a pacifist message while receiving journalists for interviews.

The European leg of their honeymoon, which included an unusual press conference in Vienna with the glamour pair obscured inside a giant "bag", was a huge media event-each step captured by photographers and videographers.
This included a Dutch team shooting footage for a two-part, 84-minute documentary, a kind of video diary filmed at the pair's request.
It was broadcast only once, shortly after the honeymoon, and shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival the same year before disappearing into the archives of broadcaster KRO, where Jan Hovers was employed in the 1980s.

As Amsterdam marks the 50th anniversary of the unusual honeymoon, a former colleague remembered that Hovers had once mentioned the find to him.
The colleague "knocked on the door and said: 'Didn't you have a film of John and Yoko from the time?' Only then did I fetch it from the cellar," Hovers said.
- 'Very special' -

Lennon and Beatles biographer Mark Lewinsohn told Nieuwsuur he had no idea the footage existed until now and described it as "very special"."It's a great addition to the archive... It's another half-an-hour of film of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that will tell us things that will make us more informed and better appreciate what they did."
The footage, parts of it broadcast by Nieuwsuur, shows the couple in long, white pyjamas in their bed on different days, with two large posters reading "Hair Peace" and "Bed Peace" sellotaped to the hotel window behind them.

JOHN LENNON/IMAGINE ANDY WARHOL UNPUBLISHED PHOTOS

ON THIS DAY: CYNTHIA LENNON DIES IN SPAIN

On this day....She died on 1 April 2015 at her home in Majorca, Spain, at the age of 75 after a short struggle with cancer, with her son Julian by her side. 

Public messages of condolence were made by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, with the former saying "She was a lovely lady who I've known since our early days together in Liverpool. She was a good mother to Julian and will be missed by us all ..." and the latter "Peace and love to Julian Lennon God bless Cynthia".


Ono also issued a statement, emphasizing the position she held in common: "Being a single parent of a strong and intelligent boy is never easy. Cynthia and I understood each other in that way, wishing well for our sons and their future."

Beatles biographer Hunter Davies, who had spent considerable time with her and John in the 1960s while researching his book, remembered her as "a lovely woman ... She was totally different from John in that she was quiet, reserved and calm."