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| Vicki and George in the foyer of the Hilton |
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| Vicki and Kirsty picking up some guy in the local pub. |
George in Australia 1985
By Vicki Liascos and Kirsty Turner
When I got home that historical day in 1985, my mother
couldn’t believe her ears. I jumped off
the bus and ran home so fast that I nearly lost it. “It” being George Harrison’s autograph! I’d hate to think what the neighbors thought
as I ran past everybody’s front yard screaming, “I’ve met George Harrison!!” I didn’t stop to think what sort of an idiot
I must have looked like. I just wanted
to tell somebody, and that somebody was my mother. “Mum, mum guess what?! I just met George Harrison!” She didn’t know what to think at first or
whether to believe me or not. She would
have done anything, and I mean anything to have met one of the Beatles when
they came here (Adelaide) in 1964. No
doubt she was delighted for me, but I could sense a slight air of
jealousy. And understandably too! I ran around and gave her the biggest hug I’d
ever given anybody and told her all about it.
It all started when my best friend, Kirsty rang me up to
tell me that George was listed as one of the possibilities to appear at the
Adelaide Formula One Grand Prix. “No, I
don’t believe it!” I said as we
carefully cut out the article from the newspaper and preciously stashed it away
with the rest of our clippings we’d collected over the years. That night I went to sleep quite excited
about the whole thing, and as for the morning, well … there was no time for
breakfast! I grabbed my lunch money off
the bench and caught the first bus to school.
By the time my best mate and I got to school, we weren’t in
very high spirits. As the bus drove past
the grand prix and all the early morning activities, we felt like just jumping
out and forgetting about school for that day.
It saddened our hearts to leave it all behind, but we knew what would
happen if he hadn’t gone to school. For
that we would have got a week full of after-school detentions. So George or no George, we decided to go to
school. Besides, we weren’t even sure if
he was going to come or not, and we all know what the papers are like.
School seemed to drag on and on and it got worse when one of
the girls at school claimed that her Mum got George’s autograph at the Grand
Prix Ball the night before. Well, that
confirmed that he definitely was here, and we were very sad sitting thought English
was like being tortured on a stretch bench, and as we made tiresome glances
toward the clock, waiting for that final bell was like a jail sentence. To make it even worse, Kirsty had just
realized that her parents were at the same celebrity ball as George was! Well, we just had to ring and find out, but her
Mum said they were seated miles away from his table. The chances of meeting our first Beatle
seemed to slip away by the second.
Undeterred, we scrambled on the city-bound bus in search of George
Harrison. WE knew that most celebrities,
particularly those of George’s caliber, chose to stay at the Adelaide Hilton International,
so that was the first place we decided to checkout. And boy was the adrenalin really pumping as
we made our way through the outskirts of town.
Everybody else was giving us a hard time of it saying that we’d never
meet him, and that hurt. But like
troopers we carried on regardless. It
certainly was “Good Day Sunshine” as we made our way on foot to the other side
of town where the Hilton was. The sun
definitely was shining, as the characteristic Aussie heat hovered around 35
degrees Celsius (95 degrees F). Anyway,
we made our way to the steps of the Hilton, and surprisingly enough we strolled
right on in unnoticed. We looked very
conspicuous dressed in school uniforms, but nothing could stop us from meeting George.
We started to look around in search of him, but all we got
were the wrong celebrities! And they all
began to stare at us too, and we began to feel a little ridiculous. “Oh…let’s get out of here,” said Kirsty to
Naomi. I couldn’t believe all of the famous
people we were walking past Paul Newman looked straight toward us, and I felt
so stupid just standing there with a blank look on my face, you know? (hmmm.. you probably don’t, but take it from
me, it was strange.) For starters we
were all under age to be drinking alcohol so really we didn’t have any purpose
in being there. And it was obvious that
we weren’t tourists because we like here.
The others were beginning to lose faith, but I kept telling them it was going
to happen. But all this for a
Beatle? It was enough to turn anybody
off!! I’ll let my mate Kirsty take over
now where she’ll explain how we approached his Royal Fabness.
We asked someone if they had seen George, and they told us
that he had arrived only five minutes earlier.
Groan … just our luck. At least
that means that he was in the hotel.
Then we saw our friend, Graham Moyle, sitting in the foyer. We talked to him for a short time and then he
told us to look over in the bar, because he was fairly sure that George was in
there. Very shyly at first, we went over
to the side of the bar to see. The best
person that I have ever seen with my own eyes was sitting near the bar – it was
hard to comprehend that we were actually looking at George Harrison! Vicki and I, our nerves in a state of total disarray,
inched towards him. It was a case of “so
near, and yet so far,” as we were too scared to approach him. We could see him eyeing us cautiously – two schoolgirls
with a pen, paper and camera in hand.
And American couple sitting nearby gave us the final courage to speak to
George.
Once we had broken the ice, we found that George did not
seem to mind much about giving us his autograph. The next five or ten minutes seemed to fly by
as we held a brief conversation with our idol.
He was very friendly, and his English accent was delightful. He asked how old we were, and Vicki said, “14”,
to which he replied, “You must’ve been about minus-10 when I was here last!”
George, wearing a pair of semi-faded blue Levis, and
Adelaide Grand Prix t-shirt, a light blue cotton jacket, and sandshoes, looked
very handsome. I asked him if he would
mind if Graham took a photo of Vicki and me with him. “Yeah, if you can get in here.” Naturally, we managed to find our way around
the chairs and people, and had our photo taken with George. In retrospect, it’s not my favorite photo –
but did we care at that stage? Nothing
could have been further from our minds!
Thankfully we have a number of other great photos of George, minus us,
to admire (and boast about).
Shortly after, George got up to leave. Standing, he wasn’t much taller than we
were! And looked as handsome as we
always thought. By this point we had
started to overcome our initial shock, and were beginning to actually believe
what was happening. However, George was
soon on his way to the lift– with us hot on his heels. Then the doors closed slowly on him, and we
sighed in disappointment. None of us
seemed to know what to say except, “oh my God!”
What else could one really say with such an experience so fresh in one’s
mind?
We left soon after, making Graham promise to develop the
photos soon. I hugged Vicki
goodbye. As my sole friend who truly appreciates
the Beatles as much as I do, it was a great achievement that we had just
shared. As I’m sure all of you out there
agree, it is the ultimate event that Beatle fans everywhere hope and wait for,
for years – we were ecstatic to be one of the few achievers of this great feat.
Reluctantly, I left the Hilton and, with a definite spring
in my step, I walked to the bus that would take me home – only about ten
minutes away from George. I was so
happy, and very easily ignored the people who stared at the strange girl
grinning her head off. When I arrived
home, I put on the music (yes, George’s naturally) and sat and stared at the
autograph and reflected on the events of the afternoon. My reverie was interrupted by the ring of the
telephone. I was more than happy to
discuss the best day of my life with my best mate Vicki – who naturally felt
the same.
Finally, we would both like to say that if ever you have the
chance to meet George, Paul or Ringo, do anything to meet them. You will never forget it!
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