Beatles A Day in the Life Blog posts of '1969' 'December'

John and Yoko Ono flew to Denmark today.

During his stay in Denmark, Lennon decided to withdraw his support for the International Peace Festival, announced to be held in Canada in 1970 but which never took place, unless the promoters agreed to waive an entrance fee.

The #1 song in the US on December 28, 1967
Hello, Goodbye - The Beatles

The #1 song on the UK Singles Chart on December 27, 1964

I Feel Fine - The Beatles

Merry Christmas!

Today on Christmas Eve, John and Yoko arrived back in England from Canada, where they had launched their global peace campaign. Part of the campaign was to have been a Christmas Eve antiwar demonstration due to take place in various countries, for which the couple had tape-recorded a greeting to be played.

Upon their arrival back in the UK, they were driven to Rochester Cathedral in Kent, where they intended to join a fast and sit-in calling for peace and to highlight world poverty. They arrived, accompanied by comedian Dick Gregory, in a white Rolls-Royce.

They were due to take part in a 24-hour sleepover with the homeless of Kent. However, a small crowd was already present when they arrived, and it was felt likely that their continued presence would have caused a commotion.

Lennon, Ono and Gregory posed for press photographers, and briefly went inside the cathedral but soon returned to their limousine to avoid being mobbed. They later attended midnight mass in the cathedral before returning to Tittenhurst Park in Ascot, Berkshire.

Today, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1969 peace campaign came to a close following a meeting with Canada’s prime minister Pierre Trudeau which took place in the Centre Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Lennon and Ono had arrived in the city at 2am that morning, having traveled from Toronto via Montreal.

They arrived at the Parliament Building at 11am, with a scrum of photographers ready to snap the moment they met the Canadian PM. It was the only time Lennon and Ono were able to take their peace campaign directly to a world leader.

The meeting lasted for 51 minutes behind closed doors, although news cameras were on hand before and after. When they emerged, a reporter asked Lennon and Ono what had taken them so long. Ono replied that it was because they had all been enjoying the conversation.

Lennon added: “We spent about 50 minutes together, which was longer than he had spent with any head of state. If all politicians were like Mr Trudeau there would be world peace.”

Today John Lennon and Yoko Ono travelled to Ottawa, stopping briefly in Montreal during their Peace campaign.  They gave a press conference to local journalists at Montreal’s Château Champlain hotel.

Both Lennon and Ono dressed in black and were surrounded by War Is Over posters. A brief colour clip from the conference was later included in the 1988 documentary Imagine: John Lennon.

Today was the final Beatles-related studio booking in 1969. It was a mixing and editing session for the unreleased Get Back album. None of The Beatles attended.

It lasted two hours, from 2-4pm, and was a continuation of Glyn Johns’ work-in-progress on the LP. It is not known which songs were worked on.

Johns had been asked by The Beatles to compile the album, which was to more closely follow the songs in the film than his previous effort had. His first session for this part of the project had taken place on 15 December.