WHERE WERE YOU WHEN John and Yoko stayed in bed - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Celebrity WHERE WERE YOU WHEN John and Yoko stayed in bed By You Magazine - May 26, 2019 It was a daft publicity stunt for peace, but it did the trick, remembers Ray Connolly. John and Yoko said they were protesting ‘against war and violence in the world.’ Image: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images. John Lennon did some very clever things in his life, mostly involving songwriting. But he did some daft things, too. For me, the silliest were his Bed-Ins for Peace. As a young reporter for the Evening Standard, I was seeing a lot of The Beatles, and a few days earlier had revealed in a front-page lead that John and Yoko had flown to Gibraltar to get married. However, when they decided to spend their week-long honeymoon sitting in bed in room 902 of Amsterdam’s Hilton, telling journalists it was for world peace, I was unconvinced. I thought it was naive and narcissistic to believe that it would do anything at all to stop the war in Vietnam. I wasn’t opposed to the message – I just couldn’t see how John and Yoko calling themselves Mr and Mrs Peace and inviting the world’s press to come to talk to them for 12 hours a day, during which they insisted that they were on an anti-war advertising campaign, was going to achieve that. I wasn’t alone. While John’s fame drew worldwide coverage – he was gifted at generating self-publicity – the stunt was greeted by the public with little more than fond amusement by fans and head-shaking ridicule by older disparagers. ‘I don’t care if people laugh at us,’ John later told me. ‘Yoko and I are willing to be the world’s clowns if it does some good.’ As he sang on The Beatles’ ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’, ‘the newspapers said, she’s gone to his head, they look just like two gurus in drag.’ They did. A few months later, the pair held another Bed-In in Montreal and John took the opportunity to write and record a new song – ‘Give Peace a Chance’. It may not be a great melody, but it was an inspired peace anthem. This time he got his message across in the best way he knew. It’s still being sung today. Also that month… Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images Ronnie and Reggie Kray were found guilty of murder after a 39-day trial at the Old Bailey. Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman at Marylebone register office. Golda Meir became the first female prime minister of Israel. Martin Luther King Jr’s killer James Earl Ray was jailed for life by a court in Memphis. Concorde made a faultless maiden flight from Toulouse airport. RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR 50 of the best celebrity Halloween costumes of all time Shirley Ballas ‘ Strictly gave me back my hope’ Davina McCall discusses how men can help women going through the menopause Popular in Celebrity TV chef Gino D Acampo on Sardinia Sophia Loren and scary salads May 25, 2017 The Evergreen Goddess Exercise guru Diana Moran on looking fit and July 10, 2017 More more Julianne Moore November 13, 2017 Author Jill Mansell on designer notebooks commissioning art and the family January 16, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES Kelly Hoppen on vodka vintage finds and being a April 4, 2018 ‘ I have no regrets’ Millie Mackintosh on divorce debt and reuniting May 20, 2018 EMOTIONAL TIES TV presenter and tennis player Annabel Croft shares her July 1, 2018 Stella Parton ‘ Dolly and I have always been close’ August 12, 2018 Anna Friel on getting jeered in the street shared parenting with September 23, 2018 Queen of primetime Charlotte Riley on juggling rising stardom with pregnancy October 21, 2018 Popular CategoriesFood2704Life2496Fashion2240Beauty1738Celebrity1261Interiors684 Sign up for YOUMail Thanks for subscribing Please check your email to confirm (If you don't see the email, check the spam box) Fashion Beauty Celebrity Life Food Privacy & Cookies T&C Copyright 2022 - YOU Magazine. All Rights Reserved