The Beatles and Me
My original 'Revolver' LP
1964 was the year I fell in love for the first time. I was in primary school and the object of my affections was a certain Beatle called Paul McCartney.
As this is the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ tour of Australia, I’ve been thinking about my relationship with the Beatles, and Paul in particular. It’s always been a long-distance affair except for the time in March, 1993 when I sat in the tenth row of Parramatta Stadium during Paul’s Sydney concert. I still have the ticket.
But back to 1964. The evening newspaper – I can’t remember if it was ‘The Mirror’ or ‘The Sun’ – ran a competition to win a place at Paul’s twenty-second birthday party. All you had to do was write in fifty words or less why you wanted to attend. I penned multiple drafts in my childish printing, trying to express my feelings for Paul within the word limit. It wasn’t easy. Finally I filled in the coupon and gave it to my dad to post. Whether he actually sent it or not is another matter. Probably not - my dad didn't approve of the mop-topped quartet and besides, I was way under the minimum age for the competition.
A week or so later I was devastated when the winners were announced and I wasn’t among them. I recall one of the winning entries saying something to the effect of: ‘My parents think I have Buckleys of winning this so I’m going to prove them wrong.’ What kind of entry was that? I asked myself. And who or what was ‘Buckleys’?
A few weeks later, when the Beatles flew out of Sydney, my friends and I - all devoted little Beatles fans - stood in the school playground, waving at a plane that we imagined was theirs. There were tears and hysteria. That afternoon our teacher couldn’t manage us at all.
From then on, I started to keep a Beatles scrapbook. If I still had it, that book of memorabilia would be worth a lot of money. A few years later, I came home from school to find my dad burning some rubbish in the incinerator. ‘I thought I’d clear out all that junk in the cupboard’, he said. The cupboard! That was where I kept my precious scrapbook. I threw open the doors and the shelves were empty. I cried for days. I’ve never really gotten over losing that scrapbook.
Was it the end of my relationship with the Beatles? Of course not. You never let go of your first love. It stays with you forever.
My Beatles jewellery
Deborah O’Brien
June 11, 2014