John 'Bobby' Dykins
Julia started seeing Dykins a year after Victoria's birth (although they had known each other before) when she was working in the café near Lennon's primary school; Mosspits. Dykins was a good-looking, well-dressed man who worked at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool as a wine steward. She later moved into a small flat in Gateacre with Dykins. He enjoyed luxuries, and had access to rationed goods like alcohol, chocolate, silk stockings and cigarettes, which was what initially attracted her. The Stanley sisters called him "Spiv", because of his pencil-thin moustache, margarine-coated hair, and pork-pie hat, and the young Lennon called him "Twitchy" because of a physical tic/nervous cough. Julia's family and friends remembered that he also had a fiery temperament, which could result in his being violent when drunk. Lennon remembered seeing his mother during a visit to Mimi's, when her face was bleeding after being hit by Dykins.
Paul McCartney later admitted to being sarcastic to Lennon about Julia living in sin with Dykins while she was still married. Although Julia never divorced Alf, she was considered to be the common-law wife of Dykins. She wanted Lennon to live with them both, but he was passed between the Stanley sisters and often ran away to Mimi's where she would open the door to find Lennon standing there, "his face covered in tears". Julia was accused by the family of being frivolous and unreliable— she never enjoyed household chores— and was once seen sweeping the kitchen floor with a pair of knickers on her head. Her cooking methods were also haphazard, as she would mix things "like a mad scientist", and even put tea "or anything else that came to hand" in a stew. A favourite joke would be to wear a pair of spectacles that had no glass in them, and then to scratch her eye through the empty frame.
Dykins later managed several bars in Liverpool, which allowed Julia to stay at home and look after their two daughters (Julia and Jackie) and Lennon, who often visited and stayed overnight, at 1 Blomfield Road, Liverpool. Lennon and McCartney would rehearse in the bathroom of the house where the acoustics "sounded like a recording studio". Dykins used to give Lennon weekly pocket money (one shilling) for doing odd jobs, on top of the five shillings that Mimi gave him. In December 1965, Dykins was killed in a car crash at the bottom of Penny Lane, but Lennon was not told about his death for months afterwards, as it was "not family business".
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