loved to dance and going to Cloudland ballroom on Saturday afternoons and to the Railway Institute on Friday nights was the most important thing in my life from the time I left school. I can’t remember what year it was when Johnny O’Keefe arrived to play at Cloudland. He made a big Cecril B de Mille production of an entrance, pushing his way through the kids on the dance floor, wearing a lime green and lemon suit. I took one look at him and said with my usual panache, ‘Oh shit.’ He heard my exclamation and with a swish of his arms he replied, ‘The fans rushed me, I didn’t have time to change’. Without batting an eye, I retorted, ‘I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire’. I know that some people may be offended by that comment, because O’Keefe is a rock and roll icon in Australia. But the truth of the matter is he was also an egotist. And as far as I’m concerned, he couldn’t sing to save himself, he was a screamer and a showman. It was around the same time that I went to a big rock concert at Milton Tennis Courts where I saw Johnny Cash, Gene Vincent and Col Joye on the same programme. I went down to the back of the stage along with hundreds of other screaming fans and we all stood in hope of meeting some of the stars. I couldn’t believe my luck when both Gene Vincent and Col Joye came down and signed autographs. I stood at the wire fence separating them from the fans, and instead of leaving as soon I got their autographs I stayed and talked to them for what seemed like an eternity. I was thrilled out of my brain when they asked me if I’d like to go to a party at Oxley. They gave me the address and told me it was Johnny O’Keefe’s home for when he stayed in Brisbane. I would have given my right arm to go, but I figured that they might have wanted more than my charm and personality to entertain them that night. I declined the offer.
I walked into the Railway Institute one night sporting my first perm which I had paid an absolute fortune for. It had cost me an extra two pound to have a secret formula poured on my head to prevent the perming lotion frizzing my hair. I had arranged to meet Diana, and on seeing her, I walked up to where she was sitting and stood in front of her. She looked up at me and when she showed no signs of recognition, I smiled and said, ‘It’s me’. She looked at me and said, ‘I’m sorry I don’t know you’. Thinking she was joking I said, ‘Ya silly bugger’.
She looked at me again and absolutely roared with laughter and screamed out at top note, ‘What went wrong, did you put your hand in the light socket.?’
‘It’s not that bad is it?’ She wiped tears from her eyes and said, ‘Not unless you plan on joining the Fuzzy Wuzzys.’ It was many years before I dared to have another perm.
I met Robin and her sister, Ellen, through a girl whom I had met at Stott’s Business College. I had known them awhile and I would occasionally bump into them at dances. Robin was the same age as me and had a bit more get up and go than Ellen who was about a year older. Ellen always seemed to me to be a bit on the shy side, she was certainly a lot quieter. Anyhow, Robin had made arrangements with me to go to the Gold Coast on this particular Sunday. After much pleading with Edith she finally consented to my staying at Robin’s home on the Saturday night so that we could get a good start the following morning. I had been to the Gold Coast with Leone on the train a few months earlier and it had been the longest, most boring trip of my life. We had spent most of the journey pretending we were cowboys shooting out of the windows at Indians, just as we had seen on Wagon Train every week on TV. So rather than be bored senseless again, Robin and I decided to travel by bus. We got to the highway in plenty of time and waited for over an hour. When we finally realised that the bus wasn’t going to show up, we were just about ready to go back to Robin’s home when she said, ‘Let’s hitchhike to the Coast’. I was not keen on the idea at all. It had always been drummed into me from an early age never to get into a car unless they were family or close friends of the family. ( Even though I had taken the risk by getting into a stranger’s car in the dead of night, a year or so earlier.) When I said this to Robin, she said, ‘That’s for kids, come on don’t be chicken. There’s two of us, they’d have to be pretty good to beat the two of us together’.
Reluctantly I agreed. It wasn’t too long before an old guy in an old utility pulled up alongside of us. I didn’t like the look of him, but Robin had accepted the lift before I could protest. She opened the door and said to me, ‘Do you want to sit in the middle?’
‘No, I better sit near the window because I suffer from car sickness.’ I sighed a quiet sigh of relief as she scrambled in first. It was true that I suffered car sickness, but that wasn’t the reason I chose the window seat. I may not have been the brightest kid in the world, but I had already figured that if this old coot was going to try any funny business, I had access to the door and I would have been out and up the road faster than John Landy. We got about halfway to the Gold Coast then he announced that he had to make a delivery of a parcel to a house at the end of an old dirt track. My hand went slowly over near the door handle and I never missed a stone on that dirt track. Robin seemed to be totally oblivious of us being in any imminent danger. Fortunately, he was true to his word and he took a parcel into an old farmhouse and got back into the ute and drove us directly to Southport. We got out and we thanked him profusely. I was shaking like a leaf in a westerly wind, both with fear of what could have happened and with excitement that we’d arrived safely.
I made a secret promise to myself that I would definitely not be hitchhiking back to Brisbane or anywhere else for that matter. I told myself, if the worse comes to the worse, Amelia, you’ll catch the train back and shoot the bloody Indians as you go.
We headed to Surfers Paradise and ended up at one of the beer gardens. I’d learnt my lesson from drinking that bottle of Brandivino twelve months or so earlier, not to drink alcohol again. Besides I hated the taste of all alcohol so I stuck to drinking lemonade. Not so Robin, she was sinking them back like a wharfie at the six o’clock swill. We met up with some fellows who lived in Brisbane and they promised us that they’d drive us back to Brisbane after the session closed at six o’clock. I didn’t want to appear to be a worrywart, so I figured I’d take them at their word. But I had a bit of a panic attack when I remembered that the last train to Brisbane left at five o’clock.
I thought to myself, what the hell am I going to do if they change their minds. Sitting in the beer garden was giving me the shits, and I reminded Robin that we’d come down to the coast for some fun and I sure as hell didn’t think sitting there all day was my idea of fun. The lunchtime session finished and we went for a drive in their car, but that was about as much fun as we had because we all ended up back at the beer garden for the afternoon session.
Finally, closing time rolled around and we all piled into the car. I said a few silent Hail Mary’s as thanks and a few Jesus, Mary and Joseph’s to protect us from harm. Someone suggested that they were hungry and wanted to get a hamburger. We drove around looking for a good hamburger joint.
My navigational skills in those days were very limited, however, I think we were at Burleigh Heads and by the time we found a suitable place waited for the burgers to be cooked and actually ate them, it was seven-thirty. By this time, I was really packing death with worry about what time we’d get home. Trying to sound very casual, I said
‘When are we leaving?’
Robin ‘Not until tomorrow morning’.
Totally flabbergasted, I yelled, ‘What?’
She replied very casually, ‘We’ve decided to sleep on the beach’.
I could feel the tears stinging the backs of my eyeballs as I fought as hard as I could to stop them spilling down my cheeks.
Amelia ‘W … when d … did you decide this?’
Robin ‘When we were in the pub and you were in the loo’.
I could feel my heart pound as hard as the surf and as I looked out the car window wondering
