16/08/2026
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August 16th 1993 - Ivan Vaughan died.
Ivan Vaughan (June 18th 1942 - August 16th 1993) was a boyhood friend of John Lennon, and later schoolmate of Paul McCartney at the Liverpool Institute, both commencing school there in September 1953. He was born on the same day as McCartney in Liverpool.
He played tea-chest bass part-time in Lennon's first band, The Quarrymen, and was responsible for introducing Lennon to McCartney at a community event (the Woolton village fête) on 6 July 1957, where The Quarrymen were performing. McCartney impressed Lennon, who invited McCartney to join the band, which he did a short while later. This led to the formation of Lennon and McCartney's songwriting partnership, and later of The Beatles.
Vaughan studied Classics at University College, London, married in 1966 and settled down to family life with a son and daughter, and became a teacher.
Lennon and McCartney never forgot the friend who brought them together. For a time they put Vaughan on the payroll of their Apple company, in charge of a plan that never took off to set up a school with a Sixties, hippie-style education ethos. Vaughan's wife Jan, a language teacher, was hired to sit down with Lennon and McCartney and help with the French lyrics to the 1965 song "Michelle".
In 1977 Vaughan was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. His book, Ivan: Living with Parkinson’s Disease was published in 1986 and he also featured in a documentary produced for the BBC in 1984 by Jonathan Miller about his search for a cure. He died of pneumonia in 1993.
Vaughan's death touched Paul McCartney so deeply that he began to write poetry for the first time since he was a child. He wrote the poem "Ivan" about him after his death, which was published in McCartney's book, Blackbird Singing.
Two doors open
on the eighteenth of June
Two babies born
on the same day
in Liverpool
One was Ivan
the other - me
We met in adolescence
and did the deeds
they dared us to do
Jive with Ive
the ace on the bass
he introduced me
at Woolton Fete
a pal or two
and so we did
A classic scholar he
a rocking roller me
as firm as friends could be
Cranlock Naval
Cranlock Pie
A tear is rolling
down my eye
on the sixteenth of August
nineteen ninety-three
One door closes
bye bye Ivy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Vaughan
