So I sing a song of love for Julia

Feb 5 2007 by Laura Davis, Liverpool Daily Post

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

ON THE morning her half-brother was shot dead by a man told to carry out the killing by voices in his head, Julia Baird was getting her children ready for school.
 
Then came the dreadful news. Life had ended suddenly for Liverpool's John Lennon, the musician who was short in sight but whose vision for peace inspired millions.
 
It is hard under any circumstances to lose a brother, but it can be tougher still when the world is mourning too.
 
Once again Julia, then aged 33, would have been forced to witness her family's history laid bare for all to see had she not turned off the television news and shielded her eyes from the screaming newspaper headlines.
 
"I wish John had never seen a guitar," she confesses between sips of black coffee. "He could have been an artist instead, he was a genius, he would have made it in some way.
 
"I wish he had never put himself in that position with all the inherent dangers involved."
 
John's violent death, following those of Julia's father and the half-siblings' mother, another Julia, made it even harder to bear.
 
It took more than two decades for her to try to come to terms with all that had happened in their shared childhood and to start asking questions about the family secrets that ultimately resulted in her new auto-biography released today.
 
Although Julia admits this book would not exist had her older brother not become one of the most famous faces in the world, it is their mother who is very much its central character.
 
"Anyone might have skeletons in their closet but that's family business. In our case, they have been sky-written, we have always been in the public eye," explains the mother-of-three, who feels her own mother has been badly treated in previous accounts.