In My Life

My friend Ruth and I were both born in 1967. Although we were too young to know about the Beatles while they were still together, we both had older brothers and sisters who were Beatles fans, so we grew up listening to all their records (yes I said records, there weren't any CD's when I was a kid!) One of my earliest memories is of my whole family singing Penny Lane in the car. Anyway, I will try to cut a very long story short. When we were 12 years old, a group of us were discussing bands at school, everyone was raving about Duran Duran and Culture Club when Ruth said very sheepishly, "Well, I like the Beatles". I said "So do I!" and our shared obsession began. One day in December 1980, I got home from school and my mum said, "Something terrible's happened... John Lennon has been killed." I remember being so sad. Ruth and I shared our grief together. We started going to each others houses after school to listen to records and collecting newspaper and magazine articles to stick in our scrapbooks (which we still have). We would have birthday parties for the boys and we always kissed our posters goodnight.

Then in 1982 we heard that Ringo was coming to Australia to be a guest on "Parkinson Down Under". We were so excited and determined to meet him. Ruth was 15 and I was 14 and we thought we were the 2 biggest Beatles fans in the whole world! We didn't know when he was arriving in Sydney so we couldn't go to the airport but we did know that the show was being taped at Channel 10 on 1 October 1982. So we hatched our plan to stake out the TV studio to try and meet him. When he arrived at Sydney Airport the papers all made a big deal of the fact that there was only one fan there to meet him, saying he was a has been and didn't have any fans. We were so angry, we would have been there if we knew (and if we weren't at school.)

Our other best friend, Lynne, wasn't a Beatles fan but she used to go along with us anyway. So the 3 of us set out that Friday night by train, bus and foot (it took us about 2 hours to get there). We were armed with a huge sign that we had made that said "We love you Ringo, YEAH YEAH YEAH", a poster of him and a teddy bear wearing a "We Love the Beatles" dress (I still have that too). When we arrived, the security guards were amused but wouldn't let us in without tickets so we camped out at the gate. Gradually a few more fans showed up. There were 2 guys called Phillip and James and a girl who came on her own, I don't remember her name. The 6 of us jumped at every car that arrived at the gates, they were audience members who were all laughing at us. We hated them cause they were going to see Ringo in the flesh when we were the ones who loved him so much. Then someone in one of the cars said "We have a spare ticket, who wants it?" We were all so jealous when he gave it to the other girl, it made sense cause she was there on her own but we hated her anyway!

After a few hours we started to feel despondent and gave up our vigil of checking out every car that pulled up. Lynne, Ruth, Phillip and James were sitting around chatting as I wandered off on my own holding the Ringo poster. Suddenly a black car pulled up in front of me with the occupants looking at me curiously. I looked in the window and found myself face to face with Ringo Starr....well you can imagine my reaction, I screamed "He's here!!" and then just started screaming. The others all ran to the car and we all started banging on the windows and continued screaming. Inside Ringo and Barbara Bach were looking quite bemused. Ruth is proud of herself cause she thinks she had a conversation with him. She was screaming "Come out, come out" and Ringo said "Sorry I can't". Eventually the car pulled away through the gates and he was gone. I cannot describe the feeling, we were so excited still screaming and crying when Ruth's dad arrived to drive us home. I remember crying in the car home, I felt like that was the happiest day of my life.

Anyway the Parkinson show was on the next night and we all went to Ruth's house to watch it. We thought Ringo was wonderful and so funny on the show, little did we know then that he was an alcoholic and was actually blind drunk. Michael Parkinson asked him how he felt about only one fan being at the airport and he said "Well there were 5 of them tonight". We were over the moon, he was talking about us. We often used to wonder if he stills remembers us and we hoped that we boosted his ego a little by reminding him he still had fans.

We weren't ready to give up yet and decided to go to the airport the following day when it was rumoured that he was leaving. We stood there all day but never saw him. The photo is of us at the airport with our autograph books and scrapbooks.

That was 17 years ago now... hard to believe, it still seems like yesterday. We ring each other every 1st October and say Happy Anniversary.

Ruth and I continue to love the Beatles but the obsession did diminish over the years. Eventually in 1994 I travelled to England and went to Abbey Road, and Liverpool and did the Magical Mystery Tour which was great. Also, the Beatles museum there is fantastic.

I have just had my first child. Emily is 4 months old and already a Beatles fan. She particularly likes Yellow Submarine and Help! - she kicks her legs around wildly to Another Girl and I've Just Seen A Face.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my story. I was once a teenage Beatlemaniac in the wrong era so I know exactly what it is like for you. I just wish the internet was around in my day so I could have shared my obsession with others too!

[ b a c k to F a b F i c t i o n ] [ b a c k t o T h e B e a t l e s R e - G e n e r a t i o n ]
[ e m a i l m e ]