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.