CYNTHIA Lennon was one of the great rock chicks of the 60s. Dumped by her husband, John, who went off with exotic oriental Yoko Ono, she was left broken-hearted to raise their son, Julian. She, along with the rest of John Lennon's family in Liverpool, became anonymous, non-existent - or as she has put it on many occasions, "airbrushed out" of his life.. On December 9,1980, John's assassination in New York by crazed fan Mark Chapman shocked the world. His family, including Julian, then 17, who were living in Ruthin at the time, were devastated. There was no funeral or memorial service. Yoko organised an early cremation. "We've never been able to say goodbye to John, which has always grieved me," says Cynthia, who ran a restaurant in Well Street in Ruthin and also lived for some time in Bontuchel. As the 25th anniversary of his death approaches - 37 years after their divorce - 65-year-old Cynthia has penned John, a memoir of her life with the Beatles star. It charts their early romance, John's descent into drugs, the breakdown of their marriage and his relationship with Yoko - as well as the effect his actions had on Julian. At college, John and Cynthia had fallen in love almost immediately. They married soon after she accidentally became pregnant. "Accounts of our wedding have often portrayed it as a miserable, last-minute shotgun affair," she says.. "It's a long, long way from the truth. "We were very happy and John was the most determined that it would go ahead." Cracks started to appear when Cynthia was left at home holding the baby while the Beatles started enjoying the excesses of rock-star life - including girls who were more than willing to jump into bed with them. Cynthia learned later of John's infidelities, but it wasn't until he went to an exhibition by Japanese artist Yoko Ono that her world would be threatened. "I didn't know then that Yoko was beginning a determined pursuit of John," she says.. "She wrote him many letters and cards over the next few months, but I knew nothing about them at the time." "He was probably at his most vulnerable because (the Beatles) had stopped working together on the full-time basis. He felt in a void, fuelled by LSD and marijuana." John had started taking an interest in meditation and surrealism - and eventually left Cynthia for Yoko Ono. She says she has written the book to remove some of the demons that have haunted her son Julian, a former pupil of Ruthin School, over the father who deserted them when he was just five. "I don't think Julian was wilfully rejected by John," says Cynthia. "I think John lost his identity at many levels. Other things took over his thoughts and feelings." Cynthia went on to marry three more times - and is still married to her fourth husband, Noel Charles, who she lives with in Majorca - but the name Lennon is still in her passport. Why has she remarried so many times? "I don't say 'Why?', I say 'Why not?'. I've tried to work hard at every relationship and I never thought in a million years that I'd have been married four times. But John was my first big love and has been a big shadow over my life. "I don't miss him, but I miss the fact that we couldn't come to terms, grow old and been mates," she says.. "I miss not finishing that unfinished business." | 
