12 Arnold Grove

12 Arnold Grove is a house near Picton Clock Tower in the Liverpool suburb of Wavertree. The house is the birthplace and childhood home of former Beatle George Harrison.

12 Arnold Grove in March 2008

It is a small terraced house in a cul-de-sac, with a small alley to the rear.[1] Harrison's parents, Harold and Louise, moved to the house in 1931 following their marriage.[2] The rent was ten shillings a week.[3] Here their four children were born: Louise (16 August 1931), Harry (1934), Peter (20 July 1940) and George (25 February 1943).

Harrison 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 freezing cold and they had to use the outside toilet.[1] The house had tiny rooms – only ten feet by ten (100 ft2, about 9 m2) – and a small iron cooking stove in the back room, which was used as a kitchen.[1] Describing the back garden, Harrison wrote it had "a one-foot wide flowerbed, a toilet, a dustbin fitted to the back wall (and) a little hen house where we kept cockerels."[1]

Harrison lived in the property for six years, by which time the family had been living there for nearly 20 years. They finally moved out to a new council estate in Speke on 2 January 1950.[4] 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 home life."[5]

Harrison 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 balloons, 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?"[5]

See also

References
  1. Harrison, George (2007). I, Me, Mine. Chronicle Books. pp. 20–21. ISBN 0-8118-5900-2.
  2. Shea, Stuart; Rodriguez, Robert (2007). Fab Four FAQ: Everything Left to Know About the Beatles ... and More!. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 15. ISBN 1-4234-2138-8.
  3. "BBC – Liverpool Local History – Beatles – George Harrison's Houses". bbc.co.uk. Mike Chitty. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  4. Everett, Walter (2001). The Beatles as musicians: the Quarry Men through Rubber soul. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-514105-9.
  5. Giuliano, Geoffrey (1997). Dark horse: the life and art of George Harrison. Da Capo Press. p. 5. ISBN 0-306-80747-5.

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