Paul describing John: A compilation
"I knew nothing about him except that he looked pretty cool. He had long sideboards and greased back hair and everything."
"I’d seen him around a couple of times, because I realised later what it was, my bus route, he would take that bus, but he would be going to see his mum who lived kind of in my area. And then he’d take the bus back up to his Auntie Mimi’s. So I’d seen him a couple of times and thought, ‘Wow, you know, he’s an interesting looking guy.’ And then I once also saw him in a queue for fish and chips and I said, ‘Oh, that’s that guy off the bus’. I’m talking to myself, in my mind I thought, ‘I saw that guy off the bus, oh he’s pretty cool looking. Yeah, you know, he’s a cool guy.’
"John was extremely attractive...not physically I mean...though he was very cool looking."
"I remember John looking... we used to think that John looked pretty cool. He was a bit older than us and he would do a little more greased back hair than we were allowed… so John was quite groovy. He looked like a Ted then - he had a drape. He had nice big sideburns."
"There was a guy up on the platform with curly, blondish hair, wearing a chequered shirt-looking pretty good and quite fashionable - singing a song that I loved: the Del-Vikings ‘Come Go With Me’."
"I know how I saw John. He was just a ted, on the bus – greasy hair, long sideburns, shuffling around like he was Mr Hard. And I saw him on the top deck of the bus often, before I met him. Saw him in the queue at a chip shop once. And I thought, “He looks cool.” Turned out my best friend from school knew him. We went and met. I happened to know this song, ‘Twenty Flight Rock’. John admired that."
"Up on the stage there were a few lads around, and there was one particular guy at the front with a checked shirt, sort of blondish kind of hair... a little bit curly, sideboards, looking pretty cool. [...] He was playing Come Go With Me."
"This Ted would get on the bus. I wouldn't stare at him too hard in case he hit me."
“I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me.’ Of course he had his glasses off, so he looked really suave…He was really the only outstanding member, all the rest kind of slipped away.”
"My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear. … I can still see John now - checked shirt, slightly curly hair [...] I remember thinking, ‘He looks good - I wouldn’t mind being in a group with him.’ … Then, as you all know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together. And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be that little magic spark. I still remember his beery old breath when I first met him that day. But I soon came to love that beery old breath. And I loved John."
"Would John and I have met some other way, if Ivan and I hadn't gone to that fête? I'd actually gone along to try and pick up a girl. I'd seen John around - in the chip shop, on the bus, that sort of thing - and thought he looked quite cool, but would we have ever talked? I don't know."
"The first time I ever saw John Lennon was on the bus. I didn’t know him then, so he was just this slightly older guy with a sort of rocker hairdo, lots of grease, black jacket, sideburns (‘sideboards’ as we called them; ‘sideburns’ was American). And I just remember thinking, ‘Well, he’s a cool guy.’ When we did meet, I recognised him as that strange Teddy Boy from the bus. John always managed to be a little bit older than me; I never caught up. I had no idea who he was at the time, but I’ll always remember that very first image."
"When I look back and think, I have to say, “Wow” – we did all that, and we were just kids from Liverpool. And here it is in the photographs. Boy, how great does John look?"