Menlove Avenue, and took John to Blackpool for a long holiday, but he was secretly intending to emigrate to New Zealand with him. Julia and Dykins found out and followed them to Blackpool. Alf asked Julia to go with them both to New Zealand, but she refused. After a heated argument, Alf said their five-year-old child had to choose between his mother or him. He chose Alf (twice) so Julia walked away, but in the end her son (crying) followed her, although this story has been disputed. According to author Mark Lewisohn, Alf and Julia agreed that she should take John and give him a home as Alf left again. A witness who was there that day, Billy Hall, said the dramatic scene often portrayed with a young John Lennon having to make a decision between his parents never happened. Alf lost contact with the family until Beatlemania, when he and his son met again. She took John back to her house and enrolled him in a local school, but after a few weeks she handed him back to Smith. Various reasons have been suggested for her decision, such as Dykins' unwillingness to raise the young boy, Julia's inability to cope with the responsibility, or a punishment forced on her by Smith and her father for "living in sin". John blamed himself, saying later, "My mother ... couldn't cope with me." He then lived continuously at Mendips, in the smallest bedroom above the front door, with Mimi determined to give him a "proper upbringing". Julia later bought John his first guitar for after he had pestered her incessantly for weeks, but insisted it had to be delivered to her house, not her sister's. As John had difficulty learning chords, she taught him banjo and ukulele chords, which were simpler, and later taught John how to play the piano accordion. Julia's banjo was the first instrument that John learned to play 'sitting there with endless patience until I managed to work out all the chords.' After Julia's untimely death, the instrument was never seen again and its whereabouts remains a mystery. As Smith refused to have a record player in her house, John learned how to play his favourite songs by going to Julia's house. She played him Elvis Presley records and would dance around her kitchen with him. In 1957, when The Quarrymen played at St. Barnabas Hall, Penny Lane,