Detention sheets of a 15-year-old John Lennon revealed he was not the most well-behaved schoolboy at Quarry Bank School. Photo: Peter Byrne/PA WireA pair of detention sheets which reveal the school-day misdemeanours of a 15-year-old John Lennon are to go on sale.
The documents uncover his antics at Quarry Bank High School for Boys in Liverpool where he was renowned as a ‘class clown’. Reasons for punishment given by his teachers include sabotage,fighting in class, nuisance, shoving and just no interest whatsoever.
On two occasions the Beatle even managed to receive three detentions in one day.
The sheets cover the periods when he was in Class 3B between May 19 and June 23, 1955, and in Class 4C from November 25, 1955, to February 13, 1956.
His surname is written by a teacher on the top left corner of each page.
They were from a class detention book that was rescued from a bonfire at the school in the late 1970s, say auctioneers TracksAuction.com.
During a summer break a member of staff at the Allerton grammar school was asked to clear out a storage room to make space for a newly appointed teacher. His instruction was to burn all of the books which were stored in the room.
The detention sheets are estimated to fetch between £2,000 and £3,000
While burning a number of old and redundant books he spotted the name ‘Lennon’ at the top of some of the pages in the book and quickly realised who they related to. He tore the sheet from the book and retained it as a keepsake, said TracksAuction.com.
One of the documents on sale. Photo: TracksAuction.com/PA WireA number of the pages he had taken out of the book and kept were unfortunately destroyed at a later date in an accident involving chemicals. He gave away some sheets but these pages are some of the few that have survived. The sheets have been authenticated by Lennon’s close school friend, Pete Shotton, who wrote a book John Lennon: In My Life.
Peter Beech, Lennon’s general science teacher at the time, said: “The sheet is typical of John Lennon, he was an extremely cheeky boy. He did, however, know his limits. In the classroom, if you settled John down, you generally settled the class down. His chemistry teacher Eric Oldman said that John could actually go far.”
The detention sheets are estimated to fetch between £2,000 and £3,000. Online bidding starts on November 22 and the auction concludes with a live online sale beginning at 5pm (GMT) on December 1.
Other items in the Beatles memorabilia sale are a signed White Album, expected to fetch between £60,000 and £80,000, handwritten lyrics to an unpublished 1960s song by Sir Paul McCartney and an unpublished Lennon sketch.