12 Arnold Grove - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

12 Arnold Grove, the birthplace of former Beatle

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

, is a house in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, situated in the Wavertree

Wavertree

Wavertree is an area of Liverpool, in Merseyside, England, and is a Liverpool City Council ward. It is bordered by a number of districts to the south and east of Liverpool city centre from Toxteth, Edge Hill, Fairfield, Old Swan, Childwall and Mossley Hill....

area. It is a small terraced house

Terraced house

In architecture and city planning, a terrace house, terrace, row house, linked house or townhouse is a style of medium-density housing that originated in Great Britain in the late 17th century, where a row of identical or mirror-image houses share side walls...

in a cul-de-sac

Cul-de-sac

A cul-de-sac is a word of French origin referring to a dead end, close, no through road or court meaning dead-end street with only one inlet/outlet...

, with a small alley to the rear. George's parents, Harold and Louise, moved to the house in 1930 following their marriage. The rent was ten shillings a week. Here their four children were born—Louise (16 August 1931), Harry (1934), Peter (20 July 1940) and George (25 February 1943).

George recalled the only heating was a single coal fire, and the house was so cold in winter that he and his brothers dreaded getting up in the morning because it was literally freezing cold and they had to use the outside toilet. The house had tiny rooms—only ten feet squared—and a small iron cooking stove in the back room, which was used as a kitchen. Describing the back garden, George wrote it had "a one-foot wide flower bed, a toilet, a dustbin fitted to the back wall (and) a little hen house where we kept cockerel

Rooster

A rooster, also known as a cockerel, cock or chanticleer, is a male chicken with the female being called a hen. Immature male chickens of less than a year's age are called cockerels...

s."

During the six years George lived in the property, the rent rose. The family had, by this point, been living there for 18 years and finally moved out to a new council estate

Council house

A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at...

in Speke

Speke

Speke is an area of Liverpool, Merseyside, England, close to the boundaries of the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley. It is south east of the city centre and to the west of the town of Widnes....

on 2 January 1950. Harry recalled: "Our little house was just two rooms up and two rooms down, but, except for a short period when our father was away at sea, we always knew the comfort and security of a very close-knit family home."

George once said of the house, "Try and imagine the soul entering the womb of a woman living at 12 Arnold Grove, Wavertree, Liverpool 15. There were all the barrage balloon

Barrage balloon

A barrage balloon is a large balloon tethered with metal cables, used to defend against low-level aircraft attack by damaging the aircraft on collision with the cables, or at least making the attacker's approach more difficult. Some versions carried small explosive charges that would be pulled up...

s, and the Germans bombing Liverpool. All that was going on. I sat outside the house a couple of years ago, imagining 1943, nipping through the spiritual world, the astral level, getting back into a body in that house. That really is strange when you consider the whole planet, all the planets there may be on a spiritual level. How do I come into that family, in that house at that time, and who am I anyway?"

See also