John Lennon's childhood home opened

LONDON, UK (Beatles Fans Website) - John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, opened his childhood home in Liverpool to the public Thursday, and said the famously peace-loving former Beatle would have opposed the current war with Iraq.
"I'm sure John would have been terribly upset. And he would have expressed his anger and told them (coalition leaders) off for how stupid it is to have to go through this," Ono said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio before the ceremony. "As (Mahatma) Gandhi said, 'An eye for an eye will make us all blind.' We just can't solve problems this way."

Lennon lived at 251 Menlove Avenue in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton from age 5 - when his parents separated and he went to live with his Aunt Mimi - until he was 23. He taught himself to play guitar in the four-bedroom 1930s house, and reportedly wrote "She Loves You" in the front room.

Ono bought the house, called "Mendips," for an unspecified price last year and donated it to the conservation group the National Trust, which has restored it to the way it would have looked when Lennon lived there.
"When John's house came up for sale I wanted to preserve it for the people of Liverpool and John Lennon and Beatles fans all over the world," Ono said. "The house resonates with special atmosphere. It was, after all, where some of John's songs that we now hold so dear were born."
Lennon, whose other hits included the peace anthem "Imagine," was shot dead in New York in 1980.