Let’s take you down... Strawberry Fields open to public
BEATLES fans can now follow in the footsteps of John Lennon as the grounds of the children’s home which inspired Strawberry Fields Forever are opened to the public.
From tomorrow, visitors will have the chance to walk through the gardens of the home in Woolton, Liverpool, where Lennon played as a boy after scaling the walls.
Lennon’s half-sister, Julia Baird, 72, who is also honorary president of the Strawberry Field project, said the garden had been a “sanctuary” for the musician as a youngster.
She said: “I suppose as children we all have somewhere that’s a bit ours, a bit special.
“It might be a little hidey-hole under the stairs or it might be up an oak tree but it’s somewhere we take ourselves. It seems from the song that this was John’s special place.”
Lennon was brought up by his aunt Mimi, although his mother Julia lived nearby until she was killed by a car in 1958.
The home was made famous by The Beatles song in 1967 and around 60,000 tourists pose for photos outside its gates every year. The Salvation Army ran a children’s home from the site from 1936 until 2005. Since then it has been closed.
Replica red gates are now in place but the originals will be on display for visitors as the Salvation Army reopens the site as a tourist attraction and youth training centre.
The newly-built centre will include a cafe and exhibition on Lennon’s early life. Artefacts from Elvis’s home Graceland have been loaned to show Lennon’s love for Presley and there is also a virtual Mellotron, a tape-replay keyboard, so visitors can try to recreate the eerie sound of Strawberry Fields Forever.
The site but will also provide training for 18 to 25-year-olds with mild to moderate learning disabilities and help to teach them life skills.
Julia said: “I think John would have loved this because he was not mainstream and was very aware of it.”