JOHN LENNON 'WOULD HAVE LIKED TO BUY AN ENTIRE COUNTY IN SCOTLAND', JULIA BAIRD REVEALED

John Lennon, who would have turned 80 this year, had fond memories of childhood holidays north of the border.

And he longed to take his youngest child, Sean, to visit Edinburgh in 1981 - but never got the chance.

John, who married artist Yoko Ono and had two sons, Sean, and Julian, from his first marriage to Cynthia Lennon, went to live in New York in 1971.

His younger sister, Julia Baird, 73, revealed she had a conversation with John where he said he would have bought Durness, Sutherland, in the Highlands, which had sentimental value to the family.

Julia and John were raised in separate households - she was raised by their mother, also named Julia, while he was raised by strict Aunt Mimi - but they both spent holidays with their cousins in Durness.

They also had family in Edinburgh, where Julia lived aged 11 after her mum died tragically after being hit by a car in 1958.

At one point, Julia almost asked John to purchase, not just the family croft in Durness, but the entire region, when the land was up for sale in the mid-1970s.
Julia said: "Our cousin David rang me and said we should get John to buy it, to which I replied, ‘we can’t ask him to buy a county’.

"Later on, John found out about it and said, ‘I wish I’d known – I would’ve bought it’.

"John’s love for Scotland is blatant there.

"He obviously had really fond memories."

Julia last laid eyes on John in the spring of 1969, shortly before a car crash in a borrowed Austin Maxi that resulted in John, Yoko, John's first son Julian and Yoko’s daughter Kyoko, being rushed to the Lawson Memorial Hospital near Inverness.

The siblings lost contact - until John had a fling with his PA, May Pang, who told him to get in touch with his family in 1973.
Julia said: “One thing we have to thank May Pang for was that she told him, ‘get in touch with your family’. "