John Lennon's letter to UK singer arrives 34 years late

Agence France-Presse
13:28:00 08/17/2010

LONDON, United Kingdom—A British folk singer who expressed fears that success and wealth could ruin his songwriting revealed Monday how John Lennon sent him a letter of reassurance—but it did not reach him for 34 years.

Steve Tilston was just 21 in 1971 when the megastar read an interview he had done with a magazine called ZigZag.

Lennon penned a hand-written letter to the aspiring singer just months after the Beatles split up in 1970, telling him not to worry about becoming wealthy because it would not change what he felt inside.

The correspondence was signed by Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono.

He sent the letter to Tilston and the reporter who interviewed him at the magazine's offices, but for some reason it never reached the musician.

The first time he saw it was in 2005 when an American collector contacted him to verify whether the letter—estimated to be worth 7,000 pounds (11,000 dollars, 8,500 euros)—was genuine.

It was 25 years after Lennon had been shot dead.

"It was so frustrating because Lennon even included his home phone number on the top of the letter," said the 60-year-old. "I know it's silly but I wanted to ring him up across the ages."

Tilston added he "felt rather angry to start with to think that someone had just sold the letter rather than passing it on to me, but you have to let these things go."

Lennon wrote to Tilston: "Being rich doesn't change your experience in the way you think. "The only difference, basically, is that you don't have to worry about money—food—roof etc.

"But all other experiences—emotions—relationships—are the same as anybodies, I know, I've been rich and poor, so has Yoko (rich—poor—rich) so whadya think of that.

"Love John and Yoko."

Despite not receiving Lennon's reassuring words, Tilston still went on to record more than 20 albums and will mark his 40-year career with a special concert next month.

HOW TO BE ALONE by Tanya Davis

If you are at first lonely, be patient. If you've not been alone much, or if when you were, you weren't okay with it, then just wait. You'll find it's fine to be alone once you're embracing it.

We could start with the acceptable places, the bathroom, the coffee shop, the library. Where you can stall and read the paper, where you can get your caffeine fix and sit and stay there. Where you can browse the stacks and smell the books. You're not supposed to talk much anyway so it's safe there.

There's also the gym. If you're shy you could hang out with yourself in mirrors, you could put headphones in.

And there's public transportation, because we all gotta go places.

And there's prayer and meditation. No one will think less if you're hanging with your breath seeking peace and salvation.

Start simple. Things you may have previously based on your "avoid being alone" principles.

The lunch counter. Where you will be surrounded by chow-downers. Employees who only have an hour and their spouses work across town and so they -- like you -- will be alone.

Resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

When you are comfortable with eat lunch and run, take yourself out for dinner. A restaurant with linen and silverware. You're no less intriguing a person when you're eating solo dessert to cleaning the whipped cream from the dish with your finger. In fact some people at full tables will wish they were where you were.

Go to the movies. Where it is dark and soothing. Alone in your seat amidst a fleeting community.


And then, take yourself out dancing to a club where no one knows you. Stand on the outside of the floor till the lights convince you more and more and the music shows you. Dance like no one's watching...because, they're probably not. And, if they are, assume it is with best of human intentions. The way bodies move genuinely to beats is, after all, gorgeous and affecting. Dance until you're sweating, and beads of perspiration remind you of life's best things, down your back like a brook of blessings.

Go to the woods alone, and the trees and squirrels will watch for you.

Go to an unfamiliar city, roam the streets, there are always statues to talk to and benches made for sitting give strangers a shared existence if only for a minute and these moments can be so uplifting and the conversations you get in by sitting alone on benches might've never happened had you not been there by yourself.

Society is afraid of alonedom, like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like people must have problems if, after a while, nobody is dating them. But lonely is a freedom that breaths easy and weightless and lonely is healing if you make it.

You could stand, swathed by groups and mobs or hold hands with your partner, look both further and farther for the endless quest for company. But no one's in your head and by the time you translate your thoughts, some essence of them may be lost or perhaps it is just kept.

Perhaps in the interest of loving oneself, perhaps all those sappy slogans from preschool over to high school's groaning were tokens for holding the lonely at bay. Because if you're happy in your head then solitude is blessed and alone is okay.

It's okay if no one believes like you. All experience is unique, no one has the same synapses, can't think like you, for this be relieved, keeps things interesting life's magic things in reach.

And it doesn't mean you're not connected, that community's not present, just take the perspective you get from being one person in one head and feel the effects of it. Take silence and respect it. If you have an art that needs practice, stop neglecting it. if your family doesn't get you, or religious sect is not meant for you, don't obsess about it.

You could be in an instant surrounded if you needed it.
If your heart is bleeding, make the best of it.
There is heat in freezing, be a testament.