Living History

I was going to see the Beatles!

It just wasn’t fair! my friend (who quickly became my very BEST friend!) had won tickets to see the Beatles and none of our parents would help us to get the three hours from country Victoria to Festival Hall. Sure it was the mid-year exams and sure we all wanted to pass our Leaving Certificate but!! It was the Beatles- didn’t they know anything!

My group of friends were the most dedicated Beatles fans in Morwell- we each had a favourite Beatle- mine was Paul and we all had our rooms covered in posters and photos from magazines. We had followed them from the start as one of our friends Irene was from England and knew all about them in their early days. We spent many an evening listening to the Hit Parade on the transistor radio, under the bedcovers when we were meant to be sleeping or under the desk when we should have been studying.

Why did we live so far from Melbourne ! It wasn’t fair And then a miracle happened: MY mother said YES! She would drive us. I WAS GOING TO SEE THE BEATLES! Of course there were conditions. We had to drive back that same night- no problems (Mum was doing the driving anyway I thought) and we both had to promise we would study in the week before and especially British History which was on the day after we went to the Beatles. We promised and it was agreed WE WERE GOING TO SEE THE BEATLES.

My friend and I spent every minute of the next two weeks studying together, well actually sitting together with history books open dreaming about what THEY would be like and what we would wear and what they might sing and we hardly stopped for a breath.

On the great day we left after lunch to drive the three hours to Melbourne. The TV had been full of the crowds in Melbourne, outside the Southern Cross and at the Town Hall, and now at last it was our turn. We joined the excited crowd outside and filed into Festival Hall hoping that the competition seats my friend had won were not in the last row. Joy of joys, our seats were along one-side just on the aisle and raised a bit too perfect.

Well you all know what happened next- well I hope you do because I hardly remembered a thing from that point on. Even the next day I could only remember single snapshots of the experience: a girl fainting near me and being carried away; constant screaming around me; the opening phrase of "Till there was you" (I still get a breathless feeling when I hear that) Paul looking at me when he sang those first words (he did!); the Fab Four smiling at each other during choruses- and then it was over.

We talked non-stop for the first hour of the drive home and then bombed out from exhaustion. Poor mum, I hope I said thanks. And the next day at school we were the centre of attention and what I didn’t remember I made up, who could admit that they were so overwhelmed by the Beatles they went blank! Our stories grew bigger and bigger, my friend and I were heroes.

And that exam- well, I got the highest mark I had ever got in my five years of high school. So you see Beatles taught me a life lesson; don’t try to cram the night before an exam; study hard up to the night before and then close your books and do something you love. Thanks Paul, I went on to be a historian and it is all due to you.

Barbara, Duffy, Australian Capital Territory

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