Millions of fans around the world will remember former Beatle John Lennon on the 30th anniversary of his death today.

The focus of the memorials in the UK will be in his home city of Liverpool, where hundreds of people are expected to attend a vigil.

They will gather around a monument dedicated to the singer in the evening to light candles and sing songs.

Peace and Harmony was unveiled earlier this year by John Lennon’s former wife Cynthia and their son Julian in Chavasse Park.

Local musicians will lead the well-wishers and Beatles fans as they celebrate the life of one of Liverpool’s best-loved sons.

Jerry Goldman from The Beatles Story, a museum dedicated to the band, was behind the European Peace Monument coming to Liverpool.

He said: “Although the European Peace Monument has only been on public display for just over a month it’s already taken on a global significance of its own. “People from all over the world are coming to the city to pay their respects and consider Lennon’s message of peace through his music.

“The city is very excited that we finally have a focal point at which to remember Lennon and look forward to a vigil that will reach out to people the world over.”

The vigil of remembrance will last from 8 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.

John Lennon was shot dead in front of his wife outside the Dakota building where they lived in Manhattan, New York, on December 8, 1980, two months after his 40th birthday.

Fans on the other side of the Atlantic are expected to pay their respects at the Strawberry Fields memorial garden in Central Park, directly opposite the spot where he was gunned down by crazed fan Mark Chapman.

More events will be taking place across Liverpool to remember the Imagine singer this week.

A charity concert at the Echo Arena, called Lennon Remembered – The 9 Faces of John, will feature the Liverpudlian’s friends and former bandmates performing his most famous songs.

The acts will include his first band The Quarrymen, and friends Tony Sheridan and Tony Bramwell.

All profits from the concert are being donated to regional charities the Alder Hey Imagine Appeal, Radio City’s Cash For Kids and the Mathew Street Festival.

John Lennon’s half sister Julia Baird said: “This will be a very emotional evening, not only for our family, but I’m sure it will be a very special night for the other performers on stage and for the audience, as we all unite in our love for John and his wonderful, immortal music.”

Thursday will be the last day of the recreation of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous Bed-In at Liverpool’s Bluecoat museum.

People have been getting into the bed for the last two months to pay tribute to the singer from the date of what would have been his 70th birthday – October 9.

The life of a legend

The former Beatle was born in Liverpool on October 9, 1940.

He went on to become one of history’s most worshipped musicians and he sits high up in the pantheon of rock and roll gods.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, The Beatles were the greatest of the top 100 artistes of all time.

John Lennon, who formed the fab four from his skiffle band The Quarrymen, was listed as the fifth greatest singer of all time.

Writing in the magazine, American singer-songwriter Jackson Browne said of him: “He had a confidence, a certainty about what he was feeling that carried over into everything he sang.

“One of the things about John Lennon and The Beatles that went by a lot of people was how unusual it was for people in their class, from Liverpool, to be catapulted into the higher reaches of entertainment and society, without disguising their working-class roots and voices.

“It was such an audacious thing to do, not to change who they were.

“That was the heart of John Lennon’s singing – to say who he was and where he was from.”

That was typical John Lennon.

He was blessed with a frankness that allowed him to say what he thought and not care about the consequences.

From cheeky jokes about posh people rattling their jewellery at the 1963 Royal Variety Performance to his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam war, John Lennon brought about a frenzy in his fans.

After serving their musical apprenticeship in Liverpool and Hamburg covering other people’s songs, the foursome appointed manager Brian Epstein in 1962 and Beatlemania swept the globe.

Adored for their songs, fashion and Liverpudlian charm and wit, the mop tops conquered the world touring hard in the mid-1960s and racking up hit after hit.

John Lennon had married first wife Cynthia Powell, whom he met at Liverpool Art College, in August 1962. They were forced to keep the relationship from the world because it was not deemed good PR for the Beatle to have a wife. They had their son Julian the following April. The couple divorced in November 1968.

John Lennon’s personal relationships had never been easy.

He was brought up in Woolton, Liverpool, by his aunt Mimi, the sister of his mother Julia, and her husband George.

John Lennon had little contact with his father Alfred, a merchant seaman.

The budding musician’s mother was in his life daily despite young John living with his aunt. She bought him his first guitar.

But she was knocked down and killed by a car when the teenage rebel was just 17.

John Lennon met second wife Yoko Ono in either 1965 – when she was compiling musical scores for a book – or a year later at one of her art exhibitions. The pair married in March 1969 spending their honeymoon staging their renowned bed-in at the Amsterdam Hilton.

The following month he changed his name by deed poll adding “Ono” as a middle name in a ceremony on the roof of the Apple Corps building – made famous by The Beatles’ rooftop Let It Be performance months earlier.

John Lennon left the band several months later, with the fab four announcing their split in 1970. A year later he and Ono moved to New York and he released Imagine – possibly his most famous solo record and an anthem for the peace movement.

During the next four years John Lennon still recorded a series of hits but his albums were received with less acclaim.

In 1975 he retired from the business to spend time with his family after second son Sean’s birth that year.

In 1980 he re-emerged and released Double Fantasy, the album included the song (Just Like) Starting Over. There was enough material from the recording sessions for a posthumously released album, Milk and Honey, in 1984.

On December 8, 1980, two months after his 40th birthday, Lennon was murdered in front of his wife outside the Dakota building where they lived in Manhattan.

He was shot five times by Mark Chapman, who said he thought he would absorb the songwriter’s fame. In September the killer was denied parole for a sixth time and told he would serve at least another two years behind bars.

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