The 'shy, gentle and studious' Blackpool girl who grew up to become John Lennon's first wife

Cynthia Powell was the third child of Charles Powell, who worked for the electrical and engineering company GEC, and his wife, Lillian. She was born in the opening days of the Second World War, in Blackpool, to where her expecting mother had been evacuated from the family home in Liverpool along with other pregnant women.  As a child, Cynthia was described as "shy, gentle, and studious", and her upbringing was much stricter than her future husband's.

‌The family later moved back to the Wirral, settling in the seaside town of Hoylake. Cynthia showed artistic flair, and after attending Liverpool's Junior Art School, and at the age of 11 won an art prize in a Liverpool Echo competition. She went on to study at the Liverpool College of Art in 1957 where she met John Lennon.

Cynthia married Lennon in 1962, just before the Beatles released their first single, Love Me Do, after discovering she was pregnant with Julian. The Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, was best man. ‌

The marriage lasted just six years and ended after Cynthia reportedly returned home from a trip to Greece to find Lennon and Yoko Ono, in matching towelling robes, gazing at each other.

Cynthia started divorce proceedings after hearing that Ono was pregnant with Sean. Eventually John grudgingly agreed to pay Cynthia £100,000, plus maintenance of £2,400 a year, with another £100,000 placed in a trust fund for Julian.

Cynthia wrote a memoir of John in 2005 in which she said: “Having tried to live an ordinary life for so many years since John and I parted, I have come to realise that I will always be known as John’s first wife."

Source: Amy Fenton/lancs.live

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