[citation needed] Julia was forced to give up the child for adoption after intense pressure from her father and her sisters.

[5][6] Although they had known each other previously, Julia started dating Bobby Dykins while working in a café near Mosspits, which was Lennon's primary school.

[7] Dykins was said to be a good-looking, well-dressed man who was several years older than Julia and worked at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool as a wine steward.

[8] Julia later moved into a small flat in Gateacre with Dykins, who had access to rationed goods like alcohol, chocolate, silks and cigarettes.

[citation needed] When Jackie was born prematurely on 26 October 1949, Julia went back to the hospital every day to see her, although she was often not allowed (by Mimi) to visit Lennon.

[citation needed] Baird remembered that after Lennon had visited them, her mother would often play a record called, My Son John, To Me You Are So Wonderful, "by some old crooner, and sit and listen to it".

[citation needed] Julia took Baird and Jackie to Rosebury Street, Liverpool, to watch Lennon play with The Quarrymen on the back of a flatbed coal truck on 22 June 1957.

The Quarrymen played twice that day as part of a celebration to mark the 750th anniversary of the granting of Liverpool's charter by King John.

[17] Baird's mother was struck and killed on 15 July 1958, just outside Mimi's home, by a Standard Vanguard car driven by an off-duty constable, PC Eric Clague, who was a learner-driver.

"[19] Baird and Jackie (aged eleven and eight respectively) were sent straightway to stay in Edinburgh at their Aunt Mater's, and were not allowed to attend the funeral.

Baird and Jackie were taken to live with the Birches and their son at The Dairy Cottage, which was owned by Mimi's husband, George Smith.

[26] During the same visit, The Beatles played at the Finsbury Park Astoria, and the sisters asked to be allowed to stand near the front, but had to be pulled out of the audience by security guards because of the crush.

[27] The Dykinses heard nothing from Lennon for years, until he phoned Baird in 1975, and asked for mementos of his childhood life, such as his school tie and photographs.

Baird went to university and gained an MA in philosophy of education, and during the course of her degree she spent a year off in France, hitch-hiked around Europe, and protested against the war in Vietnam in Paris alongside Simone de Beauvoir.

[25] Baird later taught French and English before working as a special needs teacher with teenagers in deprived areas of Chester, until she retired to write books and become a director of Cavern City Tours.

Baird and Jackie met their half-sister Ingrid Pedersen for the first time on 7 December 2000 when they were present at the ceremony to place a Blue Heritage plaque on Mimi's house, commemorating the fact that Lennon had lived there.

[30][31] Baird retired in 2004, and published a book called Imagine This – Growing up with my brother John Lennon, in February 2007.

[29][35] Baird claims she was never told that her mother was buried in the Allerton Cemetery, in Liverpool,[22] although the graveyard's location is approximately 1.19 miles east of 1 Blomfield Road.