As the name of the blog might suggest, Tittenhurst isn't really my "thang". However, I've recently received some related material that is of interest. First the above; a great shot of John and Yoko in the room that, I think, went on to become one half of the "Imagine" room, following renovation in 1970. (A partition wall was knocked down to make one larger space).
Plenty of Kenwood detritus is spottable, not to mention endearing evidence of the pair's "Let It All Hang Oot" policy (are those lithographs of an erotic nature hanging there?).
Speaking of which: Who was the Third Virgin?; the identity of the figure seen standing beside John and Yoko above the fireplace has been posited as Peter Brown, and even Macca. In fact, Yoko herself cleared this one up in an interview (not with me, I hasten to add)...
YO: "(Regarding) the 'Two Virgins' photo with another person standing beside us. The only one I know is the one that a professor sent to us at the time, saying he liked the Two Virgins photo idea so much that he joined in. He was standing naked in the picture next to us! John thought it was funny, I didn't like it that much. The professor looked just as 'au naturel' as us, meaning, you knew he came from the preGym generation! Other people probably must have done it, too. This one the professor sent us was a huge photo -the size of a large poster- with a decent frame around it. I don't know where it went. We lost it."
I also have another pic of the same room as above, this one taken, I think, before John and Yoko bought Tittenhurst; it is interesting to compare. (There is a marked lack of full frontals, for one, or possibly several, thing(s)).
Many thanks to Ron de Bruijn for the first photo, and the Yoko quote.
digging the Mr Kite poster on the mantle piece.
ReplyDeleteFirst, amazing blog. It's incredible how much detail is put into Kenwood photos and comparisons, etc. Really, great job.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I was wondering if you had any more rare 7 Cavendish Avenue photos. I noticed you had a few good ones, but I was wondering if you had any more rarer shots of Cavendish. I've seen a few like Paul with Martha on the front steps and in the front yard, and the one with John and Yoko writing in the backroom/den by the backyard, but I was wondering if you had any rarer photos in your Cavendish collection (assuming you have a Cavendish collection).
I know Paul's house wasn't as documented as the others, but I figured I'd ask.
Cheers.
Hello. Thanks for the kind words. I'm afraid the short answer is "No". There are lots of shots of the front gate, obviously, but not that many of the interior. I think there are some great photos of the ground floor room from August 69 with John and Yoko, taken by Linda. Are those the ones you mean? I don't even have a copy of those - though I'd like to, if anyone out there has them. Paul has always been quite cautious about being pictured inside his homes - unlike John.
ReplyDeleteHello Kenwoodlennon,
ReplyDeletetake a look at the BBC article on Tom Hanley's photos of the last days at Tittenhurst Park:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7132926.stm
This webpage contains another photo that includes the strange '3 Virgins' photo portrait. Just wanted to pass on that none other than insider (and author) Tony Bramwell of 'Magical Mystery Tours: my life with the Beatles' has confirmed that the original 2 Virgins photos only had John and Yoko as he showed John how to set the auto-timer on his camera and then came back the next day to pick up and deliver the roll of film for processing and picked up the photos to the development lab per his book and he could see there was nobody else in the original photos.
What happened is that after the 2 Virgins album came out, some "professor" (per Yoko's comment) added a naked photo of himself to a picture of the 2 Virgins front album cover, then had that photo enlarged and sent as a poster size photo portrait. The upshot was that John and Yoko thought it was funny and they had it framed and hung on the mantel over the fireplace as shown in the above photo. Apparently this was fairly easy for a photo lab to do back in 1969.
It was a joke to John and John enjoyed shocking visitors who came to visit.
Check out the other Tom Hanley photos of Tittenhurst Park at:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7132926.stm
Plus you'll see in this photo the '3 Virgins' which apparently was a 'joke' to John after a fan took a photo of the 2 Virgins album, then took a nude photo of himself and added it to the original 2 Virgins front cover and sent a giant poster size photo portrait to the Lennons who had it framed.
None other than Beatles insider and author Tony Bramwell confirmed there was no one else present in the original 2 Virgins photo shoot as he had showed John how to set the auto-timer and then later had collected the roll of film and dropped off the roll of film and picked up the 'muff shots' as he called them in his book, 'Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles'.
just adding a second source from an insider plus check out the additional photos in the BBC news story link.