I was born on 29 September 1940, just days before JWL, at 69 Dovedale Road and lived there until I was 22 when I left Liverpool to live and work overseas. I never went back to live in UK.

My house was at the other end of Dovedale Road from Dovedale Road School and from Penny Lane. I was near the Rose Lane end of Dovedale Road. I first met John when, after moving to live with his Aunt Mimi, he joined Dovedale Road Infants School aged 5. We were in the same class in primary and junior schools, both passed the 11 plus exam together and both went on together to Quarry Bank where I first met Pete Shotton.

John and Pete were inseparable at QB and they with me and my friend Don Beattie made a frequent foursome.

Don, Pete and I went on a Liverpool grammar schools exchange holiday to Amsterdam in April 1956 when we were all aged 15. John didn't come. We had a ball. I returned with Little Richard's record of ‘Long Tall Sally’ with ‘Slippin' an Slidin' on the B side.

At that time we used to regularly break school rules and cycle to my house from QB on school days at lunch time. Just after the Amsterdam trip on one of those lunchtime sessions I played John the record having first got his attention by telling him the singer was better than Elvis Presley. 

Well, it stopped John in his tracks and he was lost for words. This was so unusual we all remembered it and many years later after John's murder when Pete Shotton wrote his book he described this incident in detail as it was in every sense a critical moment in John's life. From that point music was going to be his life and it was.

John himself, in an interview (see Albert Goldman's book ‘The Lives of John Lennon’) cited this as the moment he decided to be a musician. I am very keen to know the source of this interview i.e. where and when it was given. 

So, my claim to fame is: I' m the guy who turned John Lennon onto rock 'n roll.......I was also a close school friend of John's for 12 years from when we were 5 until we were almost 17 and we both left Quarry Bank School in July 1957. I am in school photos with John with him: Pete, Don and I next to each other.

I was also a mate of Jimmy Tarbuck’s whilst at Dovedale Road School. I'm the tall boy with the big grin standing behind John and Jimmy in the boys in their bathers’ photo taken on school camp in the IOM in 1951 when John and I were 10 and Jimmy was 11.This is the photo that was published in the Daily Mirror and later in Daily Mail.

Editor’s note: In Pete Shotton’s book ‘In My Life’, Pete recalled, “It was through Mike that we were first introduced to the great black rock and roll singers, notably, Little Richard. Because Mike lived just down the road from Quarry Bank…John and I got in the habit of spending our lunch hours at Mike’s house, listening intently to Little Richard as we devoured our fish and chips.”

Incidentally, Mike comments on ‘In My Life’: “Pete’s book is a ‘warts and all’ story of his growing up with John. I can vouch for the school parts being totally accurate. I was there and close to both of them His recollection of the day I turned John onto rock ‘n’ roll (there was nothing else for him after that) was vividly and accurately recalled by Pete.

“It was a pivotal point in John’s life as he himself affirmed in an interview quoted by Goldman – even accurate down to the colour of the record labels! How’s that for recall?

“Pete wrote his book in 1983. This was 27 years after 1956 when we were all aged 15 and regularly sagged off school at lunch times to relax at my house. I had no contact with Pete since about 1960 so I had no influence on what he wrote in 1983 about me and my impact on John’s life.

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