Lennon letter goes under the hammer
A letter showing the money worries of a pre-fame John Lennon, written from his Liverpool home is being auctioned for more than £13,000.
The letter, dated October 22, 1962 to the local office of the National Health Service, requests that he is put back on the free healthcare register.
He believed his name had been removed after he failed to pay his insurance "stamp" while the Beatles were living in Hamburg, Germany.
The polite and neatly typed letter reads: "Dear Sir, I have received your letter of the 1st instant to say that you have been informed that I left this country in July 1960.
"In point of fact I left the country only for an engagement (as a musician) in Germany but returned to this country about three months later.
"I would, therefore, be obliged if you would please return my name to the National Health Service List.
"Yours faithfully, John Lennon."
He need not have worried. By the end of the year, the Beatles' debut single
Love Me Do had reached number 17 in the UK charts. The next single, Please Please Me, went to number one and the band was catapulted to fame and riches beyond Lennon's wildest dreams.
The letter is being auctioned by New York-based company momentsintime.com, with a reserve price of 25,000 (£13,275).
Curator Gary Zimet said it came from a private collector, who bought it from somebody in England who had removed it from the NHS files.
