Bruno Dupont has sent more pics and information regarding the visit of Swedish schoolboy Richard Mühlrad to Kenwood in the summer of 1967. The new material comes from an old Scandinavian fan mag, and whilst not of the greatest image-quality, the latest photos are, nevertheless, fascinating.
I've used one of the (admittedly imperfect) online translators to decode the original Swedish captions, and fairly amusing reading they make too.
In the above pic, you can just see John and Terry Doran sitting in front of the dining room window, John (on the left) with meisterwerk-in-progress on lap, drawing away. But what is that black shape in front of them? According to the original caption...
"John Lennon's house, typically English, in a suburb of London. Richard Mühlrad found the house while strolling around the town." (Oh really??) "He went in and knocked. No one answered. But John Lennon's cat strolled leisurely by. Richard followed - and found John sitting with his gardener, drawing."
His gardener? I must admit (assuming the translation is correct) that raised a chuckle round these parts. (Mind you, Terry Doran did pretty much everything else at Kenwood, so he might as well have done a spot of weeding too, I suppose.) Presumably, this misnomer was down to John, being "foony".
But getting back to the above photo, and yes, that does indeed look like a cat, leading the way round to where John and the green-fingered Mr Doran were sitting. As we've seen before, here's what Richard found:
The following pic, showing Richard and John, has also been on these pages before. According to the caption, it was taken by that trusty gardener:
This pic, however, is new - and very interesting it is too. A look over John's shoulder at what he was working on that day:
Note the Vogue tea-tray (at least, I think that's what it is). I've previously guessed that the drawing was probably the charity Christmas card that appeared at the end of 1967; but I can't see anything in the new pic which exactly matches. However, that doesn't neccesarily mean this is a different drawing: John worked on this quite complex piece over several days, and it seems to be at an early stage in the over the shoulder shot. You can see several faces; stylistically it is similar. So I'd say that it is probably the same picture, though re-worked considerably before completion. (Unless, o' course, anyone out there recognises it as something else...):
Finally, Richard got a quick look in the sunroom. The caption states that he didn't get to see any of the rest of the house, but that John didn't mind him taking a snap in here. Interestingly, the caption further identifies the guitar that can be seen (side on) as being John's "first". Hmmmm:
Now, all that is great enough. However, not only did Richard get the above photos, but John also agreed to an interview, which Bruno has found too. I'm going to have this properly translated by a Swedish friend of mine, and will post it when I've done so; it's not that long, but it does put words to these fantastic pics.
Huge thanks to Bruno yet again for uncovering and sharing this material.
