Gearing down: tales from a colour-conscious rev head

Call me a slow starter, but I acquired my first automatic car in 2008. (I'm not counting my yellow, gearless pedal car with contrasting black wheels and steering wheel.) That's about 45 years after I started driving. I'm sounding like an early boomer, I know, but I got serious about driving grown-up  cars when I was 10. Around and around I'd go — on our circular driveway in my mother's emerald green VW Beetle, before advancing to my father's chartreuse Carmen Ghia.

I can see there's a green theme, because my first car was an olive green Fiat 850 Sports, followed by an altogether murkier green Morris, then a chartreuse Beetle. My last manual car was an emerald green Golf, so I haven't strayed far from my roots.

I can also see there's a gear theme, no doubt fuelled by my playmate who had a blue American pedal car with contrasting white wheels and steering wheel — and gears. Later, I would watch my parents moving smoothly through the gears — the column shift on my father's Vauxhall, the floor shift on my mother's Triumph Herald, the column shift on the Rover, and especially the funky rod on the Citroen DS (Deesse or 'goddess') sedans which shot out from beside the steering wheel and had a white ball on the end.

Only the French would marry the designs of an Italian sculptor and a French aeronautical engineer in an automobile, hence the DS's hydropneumatic suspension. It was semi-automatic with a gear stick but no clutch, and the gears still had to be shifted by hand. Our first DS will always hold a special place in heart because it ferried me through the rite of passage that formally made me a driver — the long-awaited L plates.

Even philosophers took note of the DS. Roland Barthes, in his essay 'The new Citroen 1957', described it as a "new Nautilus", and said it, "looked as though it had fallen from the sky … One is obviously turning from an alchemy of speed to a relish of driving."

And that's what I had — a relish of driving. You've guessed it, in my own quiet and colour-conscious way, I'm a rev head. 

All ears to I spy

Every afternoon when the Mouseketeers sang, 'So, proudly put on your Mouseke-ears,' I did as I was told. I'd sit with crossed legs on the floor in front of the television sporting my big, black ears. I was a member of the 'club that's made for you and me … MIC – KEY – MOUSE.'

That's one of the great things about television, you can sing and only annoy a handful of people. Some years later, on the other side of the Mickey Mouse Club, I tried singing along to South Pacific in a packed theatre and it didn't go down so well.

In the blink of an eye I was trading moth-eaten ears for a Man from U.N.C.L.E. membership card. I didn't play the part as demonstrably as I had under the spell of the mouse, I think I just needed the card to prove I was a member of the Illya Kuryakin club. And, I was an adolescent and a member of a spy ring, so I didn't sing, I smouldered.

A Russian-born American spy who went to the Sorbonne, did a PhD in quantum mechanics at Cambridge and wore turtleneck sweaters was about as exotic as a girl in country NSW could get. I wasn't alone; David McCallum, who played Kuryakin, received more fan mail than any actor in the history of MGM.

Illya's partner, the charming Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughan), wasn't my type. He was too debonair and too conventional. That is, if you call entering your skyscraper headquarters through a tailor shop fitting room and (in the early 1960s) using ballpoint 'communicators' conventional.

Being a true Renaissance man, Kuryakin left U.N.C.L.E. after a disastrous love affair in Yugoslavia and became a fashion designer. It wouldn't have worked out between us anyway – he was a Scorpio.

You can buy The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series on Amazon.

Drive-ins: the marriage of the modern automobile and Cinemascope

It's said that the drive-in grew out of the drive-in restaurant business, extending the in-your-car convenience to include the silver screen. The first was opened in Camden, New Jersey, in 1933 by Richard Hollingshead Jr, who saw it as a way of expanding sales for his auto products business. A kooky entrepreneurial idea maybe, but no more so than Michelin's 'road map' of restaurants.

My first drive-in experience was the Southline in Fairy Meadow, that wonderfully whimsical name for one of Wollongong's northern suburbs. Located on swampland at the corner of Balgownie Road and the Princes Highway, Southline's construction was delayed because the police were concerned about traffic congestion. With 682 cars arriving and leaving for every session, you can understand why.

The Southline finally opened in Ocotber 1957 with an invitation-only screening of the award-winning Picnic starring Kim Novak and William Holden. The screen was 33 x 14.6 metres and the complex had a restaurant, buffet, light refreshment and confectionary bars as well as a children's playground. Admission was 5 shillings per adult and 1 shilling per child.

We were hot on the heels of opening night in our Vauxhall Velox saloon. Not only was I going out at night, I was experiencing the magical marriage of the modern automobile and Cinemascope. We pretty much followed the ritual of queuing endlessly to get in, finding our parking spot, stocking up on food and drinks and attaching our speaker to the car window before settling back for the evening's entertainment. We broke with ritual when my father drove off with the speaker still attached.

Clientele seemed to divide neatly into parents with young kids and older kids wanting to make out. Which leads me to my last drive-in experience in the 1970s in the Canberra suburb of Watson, where both the film and a budding romance were cut short by a pea-soup fog.

Drive-ins were at their peak in 1958 (who wasn't?) and many closed in the 1980s. Since the 1990s there's been a revival, with old ones reopening and new ones being built. You can find out more about drive-ins in Australia at driveinmovie.com

If you're interested in the history of Australian cinemas, drive-ins and theatres look into Cinema and Theatres of Australia (CATHS)

Many thanks to David Kilderry's Drive-ins downunder: a tribute site for info and the pic of the speakers.

Too cool for school

On Friday 19 June 1964 I had what we Australians so charmingly call a 'sickie'. The truth is, I wasn't sick. I was too excited by the prospect of my first pop concert that very night to go to school. I have always been a little partial to excitement but seeing my favourite group at the Sydney Stadium must have been more than I could bear.

I was very fortunate to have a mother who recognised the state I was in and how the Beatles were affecting me. Some months before the concert was even a possibility, she had her dressmaker run up an emerald-green velvet Beatle suit – a cropped jacket with round neck and a straight skirt – which I wore with fetching lace stockings.

My first-ever and most cherished albums were Please, Please Me and It's a Hard Day's Night, which were on high rotation. As was the favourite Beatle debate. Our mother gave my sister and me a weekly 'reading' allowance at the local newsagency and by 1964 I had graduated from an English comic to Fabulous, which had the advantage of at least one Beatles pin-up in every issue for two years. Needless to say, those posters were all over my bedroom walls. I could spend hours in my oasis eating jelly babies.

With a daughter my age, my godparents also understood the significance of a Beatles concert. They took their mentoring role seriously and not only had the foresight to buy the tickets, they took us. We drove from our country town to Kings Cross, where my godfather swung by the Chevron Hotel so we could glimpse where the fab four were staying.

Showing the kind of wisdom that only comes with age, they booked rooms for the night at the Ruschcutters Bay Travelodge, within walking distance of the Stadium. And they sat right there beside us – surrounded by screaming girls two rows from the front.

Paul turned 22 the day before and Ringo had passed out drunk at 3am after all their partying. And in good rock 'n' roll style, they got up and did it all again.

Getting in early, this week the Powerhouse Museum opens an exhibition to celebrate the Beatles' 1964 Australian tour. Be there or be square.

I have a secret too – and it's Liberace

We all know that Liberace had a secret – or ninety-nine. I have a secret too – and it's Liberace. I could claim that there wasn't much to watch on TV in the midlands of the 1950s, but I have to be honest. I was a devotee of The Liberace Show.

I can't remember exactly what was going on inside my head. Maybe I loved the glamour, the exaggerated hand movements and the way he smiled his wide-mile smile and looked me straight in the eye.

But the thing is, I didn't just watch from the safe distance of the sofa. He was so much larger than life that I'd jump up and kiss the TV screen. There, I've said it, and given my friends (and particularly my son) no end of ammunition to tease me from here to kingdom come. Mind you, my sister hasn't forgotten and still complains about having to clean my lip marks off the screen before she wanted to watch something.

On the other hand, kissing the screen was probably a great leap forward for me at the time. At least I was no longer running behind it to find out where the people really were.

I don't think I've kissed the TV screen since Liberace, although I did name one of my dolls after a character in Bonanza. Maybe it's just that I've developed more self-control. And perhaps as an early pop culture superstar, Liberace was simply a cog in my training wheels.

So, as that old showman would have said, I'll be seeing you.

A life with one signpost

Ah, the Open Road to Reading. Look where it's taken me. While not a genre I've consciously embraced, I realise now that it did start me on a path to road books.

First there was that great traveller Noddy, who lucks on a car in the second volume. While not the smartest toy in the box, he was an entrepreneur and soon became a self-employed taxi driver. I think it was his little red and yellow vehicle that got me in – and his loyal companion Bumpy Dog. And haven't we all come across a Mr Plod once or twice in our lives?

Broader horizons soon beckoned and I was sailing away with the Swallows and Amazons. Even though personally landlocked, I was right there beside them on those dinghies and lakes. I lived and loved those details. My memory is that they packed marvellous provisions, but now can't imagine salivating over corned beef, ginger beer and lemonade.

Master of the Swallow John Walker, Susan the mate, (the unfortunate) Able Seaman Titty and ship's boy Roger were no match in my mind for those wonderful Amazon girls, Nancy Blackett and sister Peggy (Ruth really, but after all, the Amazons were ruth-less). And what made it even better was that it was a series and I could travel on and on, adventure after adventure, although I have to admit I didn't get as far as We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, and maybe it's just as well.

And then after many years I took a leap into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Not much made sense in the '70s so it's not surprising you can now download the study guide.

Of course my son is always questioning my credentials and asks me if I have read On the Road by Kerouac; The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Wolfe; and The Odyssey by Homer. They're
still on my 'to read' list but I'll get to them one day, along with Steinbeck's Travels with Charley: In Search of America.

If only life's journey had one signpost like the Open Road to Reading.

The slippery slope of women's shoes

I spent my early childhood wearing what the Americans call 'Mary Janes', with a wide round toe and a strap across the instep fastened by a small silver buckle. Mine were sturdy mid-brown leather and were a good match for my uniform of dark brown corduroy trousers and bottle green and brown checked Vyella shirt. My mother was going the sensible, durable, no-fuss clothing route, or had hoped for a boy and left it too late to return this fetching ensemble to the shop.

While I honed my persuasive powers, I nagged and nagged my mother to let me look like other girls, and finally I scored a pair of black patent court shoes. Sophisticated beyond belief, they had no strap to hold them on and they sported a frivolous black grosgrain bow. My mother wasn't impressed but I was overjoyed – I was now on the slippery slope of women's shoes.

Black patent led to white patent, with cut-outs revealing a daring 6 square centimetres of foot which, now I think of it, probably went unnoticed when teamed with my thigh-high mini dress and matching knickers.

I was going nowhere fast at university wearing purple Swedish clogs and patchwork suede cork platform clogs when dressed to impress. Then I came to a standstill during an encounter with someone else's clog, which broke bones in my foot.

The boys to men I knew were not cool enough for Cuban heels (I'm sure they won't be reading this) and were far too down to earth to wear platform shoes, so I only developed a real appreciation for glam rock garb later in life.

When I pushed Barbie's plastic shoes onto her feet permanently moulded into stiletto mode, I didn't see what was coming. I briefly tried the stance in my '20s until I developed early onset back problems. So, I went back to my roots and it's been sensible shoes ever since – except maybe for the slender sandals that had to be stuck onto my foot with sticky tape.

The early earworm catches the bird

In July 1962 I grew a major earworm. I'm not sure that everyone feels compelled to vocalise their earworms, but this one developed an internal combustion that was so intense I couldn't keep it inside my head. And, it was before the coming of self-consciousness.

I'd belt it out from the back seat of my mother's white Triumph Herald convertible (with mauve upholstery) every day, to and from school, so it was much more painful for her and my sister than it was for me. It wasn't just that my singing voice is what I'd call borderline – not bad enough that it can't be hidden in a full choir but not good enough to stand alone. The problem was that I only remembered the first few lines, so it was on high rotation. And listen to those first few lines and you'll realise that they require a voice better than borderline.

My earworm was 'West of the Wall'. Written by Wayne Shanklin, it was recorded as a single by his wife at that moment in time Miss Toni Fisher, as she liked to be called. They knew how catchy the tune was – they'd previously recorded it using the melody and arrangement (with different lyrics obviously) for 'Toot Toot Amore', the B side of her single 'You Never Told Me'. Funny that the playful 'Toot Toot' didn't take off in the same way as this sad song about lovers separated by the Berlin Wall.

Even though I like to think I was a precocious child I doubt I had any idea that Miss Toni Fisher was singing about the Cold War – the real Cold War, not just what happens in relationships. And I don't know what it says about Australians and Americans that it was #1 here and didn't rise above #37 in the US.

My son reckons Peter Gabriel is a serious earworm contender. I can believe it when I hear him singing 'Don't Give Up' with Kate Bush, but I can't quite believe it when I watch their 1986 video.

What were they doing? Certainly not reaching a high point in audience engagement. 'Hello, we're over here. We're listening but trying not to watch.'

Ah, but Gabriel does try to make up for it riding a bicycle around the stage at the concert caught in the 2006 video of 'Solsbury Hill'. Is that another earworm growing?