John Lennon’s old school opens for tours for the first time 

Calderstones School is opening its doors to Beatles fans for the first time since John Lennon left almost 75 years ago.

The school, formerly Quarry Bank High School where the legendary Beatle went between 1952 and 1957, is running tours around the building from this weekend.

Highlights will include the chance to stand on the original stage where John performed for the first time ever with The Quarry Men and climb the tower to the place where they were formed in 1956 before changing their name to The Beatles – and even sit at the musician’s old desk!

For fans it’s the opportunity they have been wanting for decades and, for the school, and in particular Tom Barry, the technology teacher who’s been inspirational in developing the new visitor attraction, it’s a chance to set the record straight.

Tom, a teacher at the school for the last three years said:

“I don’t so much has want to rewrite history, but correct it,”

“Our school hall, built in the 1930s, was the site of the first performance by John with The Quarry Men at a school dance in 1956 – not on the back of a wagon Rosebery Street where people make pilgrimages.

“And John had poems published in the Merseybeat magazine and people say that’s the first place they’re in – but we have copies of John’s literature about 10 years before 1964 when that was published.”

“One of the biggest messages I want to get across is that John didn’t hate his time here, as is written, but hated the way it was run.

“It was a Victorian school, he was here only a few years after the war, and it was strict and stern. For someone with John’s humour, it probably wasn’t the best environment.

“But from stories we’ve found, he probably had the happiest five years of his life here, because all he did every day was mess around with his mates, and laugh, and play practical jokes on people and entertain them.

“And, in his last year when Mr Pobjoy took over as headmaster, the school became more nurturing and he was encouraged to write poems for the school magazine, create artwork for the school magazine and events, and perform his music at the school dance.

“All the things he’d go on to be so famous for.”

Beatles fan Tom, 29, from West Derby, had the idea for the John Lennon School Tour when he first joined Calderstones:

“I said to the head that we weren’t capitalising on the huge interest the school held for Beatles fans, and at that time I wasn’t thinking of anything monetary, just in terms of allowing fans to come into the school every now and then.

“But when I started uncovering all sorts of different stories and found artefacts which are currently on loan to The Beatles Museum in Mathew Street, we realised it could be a lot bigger than we’d originally thought.

“It stems from the fact that there are pieces of history hidden purely because some people at the school over the years didn’t really want the publicity of ‘this is where John Lennon went’. But there are a lot of firsts that happened here that have been credited to other places like I say, so part of it is correcting what a lot of the history books say.”

As well as midweek private tours at the end of the school day, The John Lennon School Tours will be held ‘quietly’ every other two weeks until the six-week summer holidays when an exhibition in the detention room – ‘where John spent a lot of his time’ – will become part of the tour and feature the memorabilia currently on loan.

“I’ve done a lot of research, I’ve tracked down John’s classmates and got their stories and verified them, and we found John’s school desk locked away in the attic of one of the manor houses which had become bit of a dumping ground.

“We have school magazines with his artwork, the school ledger where he’s inducted into the school, and all that is coming back to us ready for Beatle Weekend. Until then you can have a general tour and see some of the sites that were a formative part of his life and the start of The Beatles.”

Tom says it’s been ‘cool’ to make so many discoveries:

“It’s nice to be on the other side of Beatles events and to be the expert and have people asking me. It’s fascinating and it’s a privilege.

“The fact that John left just shy of 75 years ago and no-one has done anything with this stuff – maybe because they didn’t know it was there … but yeah, it’s a privilege that it’s been left and someone who really cares about the school and the story and The Beatles can pick it up.”

Tom, whose love of The Fab Four began when he inherited records from his late grandfather, Alan, goes on: “The fundraising element of the tours will benefit the school with the money going into a John Lennon pot so we can do related projects with the kids to keep the legacy going, and it encourages them to look at what they can achieve.

“Quite a lot of prominent figures have come through the school including politicians and government officials and other musicians like John Power from the Cast and the La’s. The kids are proud of where they come from and who’s been before, and it gives them something to aim for.

“There’s been so much mystery over the years and it’s super exciting to be the person who can showcase the school and make fans happy by giving them something they’ve wanted to see, and to complete the story of John Lennon and The Quarry men, because it’s their story as well.”

Find out more about the tours here.

Find out more about The Beatles here.

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