JOHN Lennon would have been 70 on Saturday and to mark the event Beatles tribute Sgt Pepper’s Only Darts Board Band are hosting a “birthday party” at Mr Kyps, Poole, on Sunday with reformed ’90s indie band Dodgy.

To publicise the show last weekend, the Dart Board Band “remade” John and Yoko’s famous Bed-in for Peace, changing the venue from the Amsterdam Hilton to the Bournemouth Premier Inn – where The Beatles stayed in 1963 when it was the Palace Court Hotel.

The original bed-in was John and Yoko’s honeymoon following their wedding in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969 – as chronicled in The Beatles’ song, The Ballad of John and Yoko, which became the 17th and final number one of their career following its release in May, 1969.

The song is unique in Beatles history in that it is completely autobiographical and was recorded in one day with only John and Paul playing.

John and Yoko decided to marry on March 14, 1969, and hatched a plan while en route to Dorset, where John had arranged to introduce Yoko to his Aunt Mimi at Harbour View, the bungalow he had bought for her in 1965 at 126 Panorama Road, Sandbanks.

Mimi, of course, had effectively brought up the teenage Lennon after the death of his mother.

The original idea was for John and Yoko to get married at sea, but this could not be arranged so the couple left Mimi’s for Southampton to sail to France before getting married in Paris.

They were turned away and returned to Sandbanks from where John’s personal assistant Peter Brown was dispatched to find another location. He came up with Gibraltar.

It’s not known if they visited Sandbanks after that and John and Yoko moved to New York in 1971.

However, John said several times that he called Mimi every week. On December 5, 1980, just three days before he was murdered, John reportedly called Mimi to say he was homesick and was planning a trip back to England.

After Lennon’s death, Mimi was apparently upset that John had never transferred ownership of Harbour View over to her.

Lennon’s half-sister Jacqui lived there with her for a time and often visited on weekends during her aunt’s last years.

Mimi died in 1991 and was cremated at Poole Crematorium.

Yoko attended the funeral with her and John’s son Sean and John’s first wife Cynthia.

Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr all sent floral arrangements.

Harbour View was subsequently sold and demolished to make way for a new building.