Revealed, John Lennon’s Scots skit
KNOWN as the smartest of the Fab Four, John Lennon was renowned for his witty retorts and controversial opinions.
And it appears he was no stranger to stirring up mischief as a teenager as this comic book dig at Scots shows.
The character Fungus Mucdungheap was created by the Beatle in 1957 when he was aged only 16 as part of a joke newspaper he named the ‘Daily Hool (Scotch edition)’.
Costing ‘one haggis’, the doodle introduces a red-haired Highlander as ‘the son of a bagpipe who invented the haggae (plural)’.
Lennon’s drawing also points out his comic creation’s ‘muscle from porridge’ and depicts him holding a ‘Scotch cosh’.
Readers are further informed that ‘some Scotchmen live in caves... walk on their hands to save their shoes and have tartan hair’.
The character, wearing tartan drainpipe trousers, also sports a pair of circular NHS spectacles, identical to those Lennon would later became famous for wearing.
His drawing is thought to have been inspired by family holidays he took as a child to visit in Edinburgh and Sutherland where he would draw, fish and hunt.
The childhood work went on display at the weekend after being loaned to the Museum of Liverpool by Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono. A new exhibition, Double Fantasy – John & Yoko, features other Lennon memorabilia including family photographs, a white T-shirt worn by the singer that bears the logo ‘New York City’ and a bed used by Lennon and Yoko during their now famous ‘bed-ins for peace’ protests against the war raging in Vietnam in 1969.
Speaking at the opening last Friday Yoko, 85, said: ‘I am so happy and grateful that we are having our Double Fantasy – John & Yoko show in Liverpool. This is where John was born and I know John would be very happy too.
‘We were a very simple couple just loving each other every day and I wanted to show the simple truth of us. In our personal life we were pretty simple people, and we made all sorts of things with love for each other. I feel John and I are still working together. I always feel his warmth next to me.’
Lennon was killed outside his Manhattan home by Mark Chapman in 1980.