JOHN Lennon's sister wants the world to know the truth about their mother. Laura Davis reports

"My mother was being told daily ‘you are not keeping this baby, you have done a dreadful thing'," says the younger Julia, who did not find out about her sister, Victoria (later named Ingrid by her adoptive family), until she was an adult.
 
"She spent the entire pregnancy indoors in her room. We would see her behaviour now as depression.
 
"I know that my mother fed the baby for six weeks. She fed her as Victoria and she was taken away as Ingrid."
 
Past accounts of Lennon's childhood have generally described his Aunt Mimi as a caring woman who gave the boy a home when his mother was unable to look after him.
 
His sister believes this is far from the truth.
 
"Instead of helping my mother, Mimi took her son away. Nanny (another of the Stanley sisters) said the only time Pop (their father) and Mary were ever united was in getting John."
 
Julia Lennon was in disgrace. She had lost a child, her father was disappointed in her behaviour, her husband was still away at sea, and she had seen him only a handful of times in five years.
 
In her lonely state, it was understandable that she would fall for John Albert Dykins, a dark-skinned man with deep brown eyes who was prepared to overlook her social standing and with whom she would have two daughters - Julia and Jackie.
 
When Alf returned in 1946, she told him that she considered their marriage to be over and moved in with Bobby, as she had begun calling her beau.
 
"Mimi made three visits," reveals Julia, who now lives close to the Cheshire-Shropshire border with her partner, Roger. Her first marriage ended shortly after John's death.