McCartney Times

Pete Shotton, a friend of John Lennon’s who knew him from early childhood in Liverpool and stayed connected with him during his career with The Beatles and after, has died after a reported heart attack at age 75, The Liverpool Echo reported Friday (March 24).In his 1983 autobiography In My Life, co-authored with Nicholas Shaffner, Shotton says he couldn’t recall ever not knowing Lennon. “My memories of the two of us go back so far that I barely remember a time when there was no John Lennon in my life,” his book begins. The two grew up together in Woolton, where Lennon lived on Menlove Avenue in a house called “Mendips” and Shotton lived just around the corner on Vale Road. According to Bill Harry’s The John Lennon Encyclopedia, both Shotton’s mother Bess and Lennon’s Aunt Mimi, who raised him, thought each was a bad influence on the other. Lennon called the two of them “Shennon and Lotton.” Michael A. Hill, who knew Lennon as a youngster and is the author of John Lennon: The Boy Who Became a Legend, called Shotton Lennon’s “partner in mischief and mayhem.”

Source: Pete Shotton, Early John Lennon Bandmate & Childhood Friend, Dies at 75 | Billboard