Did Ivan Vaughan ever share his version of the feteful day? @mcbeardymullet has done a great series of historiography posts on The Day John Met Paul, which reminds me that Ivan Vaughan is one person who didn’t spill the beans. Imagine introducing Lennon to McCartney, and choosing not to boast about it!
Among Quarrymen memoirs, Vaughan’s book Ivan: Living with Parkinson’s is unusual because it’s about his experience with the illness, mentioning the Beatles only in passing.
And when I say Beatles, I really mean John. (Nothing at all about George or Ringo.) There’s a whole chapter about John, mostly sweet memories from primary school days, with a glimpse of Apple-era madness, and John’s caring reaction to the news of Ivan’s diagnosis. Many of the books published after John’s death play up the author’s intimacy with John. Ivan goes the other way, writing “John had lived in New York for years, and contact between us had been sparse.”
He downplays his friendship with Paul even further, though they were close through the Beatle years and beyond. Paul provided a blurb for this book, and Ivan thanks “Paul and Linda” - without surnames - in his acknowledgements. But there are no cute stories, no “how I met Paul”. Ivan does nod to their friendship (including an amazing line not-quite-admitting that his wife didn’t like John):
“My attachment to both John and Paul ran deep and occasionally I would go to great lengths in order to see them at a moment’s notice. Maybe Paul saw our continuing friendship as a way of maintaining simple values he held dear. Jan liked Paul, though she did not see much of John. She was not the least bit mesmerised by their fame. She enjoyed eating at expensive restaurants and sampling London’s nightlife, into which Paul took us from time to time. But, should the effort become too great, she was willing to let the relationship fade.”
Ivan and Paul’s friendship didn’t fade, as Jan’s own account makes clear. Ivan is choosing not to talk about it.
It underlines how differently people write about the living and the dead. In 1988, when Ivan wrote this book, being a friend to John meant sharing memories, celebrating little details that would otherwise be forgotten. Being a friend to Paul meant protecting his privacy, helping him keep a slice of his life out of the public gaze. Even if that meant leaving out the Woolton fete.
