Books: John Lennon; The Boy Who Became A Legend’

Books about John Lennon lie thick on the shelves. Few are unique. However, this one is.Read how Michael Hill turned his best friend John Lennon onto rock ‘n’ roll, a journey which took John from being a mere schoolboy in Liverpool to becoming the music legend known around the world.

Whereas other John Lennon tomes basically rehash the same details Michael Hill provides telling insight into a significant part of the story others have only ever skimmed. For together with John in Liverpool, Michael attended Dovedale Primary School and Quarry Bank High School for Boys. The same age as each other, throughout they were members of the same classes. So while this is Michael’s autobiography, John shares every page. Source: Here

Close friends, they played together as little boys and, as teenagers, shared a passion for rock ‘n’ roll. It was at Michael’s house where John and his cronies would convene for lunch to enjoy a chip dinner, play cards, smoke, chat and listen to Michael’s impressive record collection. In April 1956 it was where John first heard Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’, which Michael had purchased on a school trip to Amsterdam, several months before any record by Little Richard was released in the UK. A moment of epiphany for John: by his own admission it shaped his musical destiny.

“Little Richard was one of the all-time greats. The first time I heard him, a friend of mine (Mike Hill) had been to Holland and brought back a 78 with ‘Long Tall Sally’. That’s the music that brought me from the provinces of England to the world. That’s what made me what I am.” JW Lennon

Thanks to our long and intimate friendship, I was able to observe John Lennon closely throughout his formative years, from the age of five when we met, to seventeen when we began to go our separate ways. Since then, I have had a lifetime to reflect on how his childhood experiences, some of them traumatic, profoundly shaped his adult attitudes and character. The ancient Chinese proverb, ‘In the boy the man’, seems particularly apt in the case of John Lennon. By writing this book I hope to set the record straight and to provide unique and revealing insights into the boy I knew who grew up to become the man the world knew.

Michael Hill lived close to Dovedale School and Quarry Bank, on Dovedale Road.

Michael, John, Pete Shotton and Don Beattie would go back to Michael’s house for lunch. It was here that Michael inspired John Lennon by playing him a new record he had purchased in Amsterdam