Music

Here are John Lennon's badass high school detention records

by Mark Teo

As a student, it seems like John Lennon was every adjective a stern British schoolmaster could throw at a pupil: He was naughty. Obstinate. Insolent. And surely, he made many a superior very, very cross.

That’s the assumption we’re making, at least, based on his high school detention letters, which leaked via TracksAuction. The detention letters, taken from Liverpool’s Quarry Bank high school, come from 1955 and 1956—when Lennon was between the ages of 15 and 16. (That’s a class photo above.) The records sold in November for just shy of $5,000. According to Paul Fraser Collectibles, a site specializing in expensive pop culture ephemera, were due to be destroyed in the 1970s, before a school staffer noticed that they contained Lennon’s name. And, by all accounts, how much of a shithead he was (but weren’t we all in high school?).

Here are the records.

 

The list of infractions paint Lennon as very insolent, indeed: He’s dinged for “fighting in the classroom,” “silliness,” “impudent answers to questions,” “chewing in class,” making “silly noises in an examination,” and, most interestingly, “sabotage.” Hat tip to Esquire for providing these images.