"The Beatles are coming!"

I can remember hearing that a very long time ago now. I can remember the excitement of the person who told me. 

"Yes! It's going to be fantastic! Amazing! I've just got to go and see them!" 

We went in the school gates. Even the prefect on duty (checking hat, gloves, stockings) looked excited.

I was bewildered. I had found out who the Beatles were by then but we didn't listen to that sort of music at home. If my parents turned the wireless on - a rare occurrence apart from the news services - it was to listen to something entirely different. In the rural area I had been living in most students knew more about classical music because that was what the farmers played to the cows as they did the milking.

At the all girls high school in the city it seemed each girl had "my Beatle". They discussed them at recess and lunch times. They discussed ways of getting their parents to agree to them going to the concert and whether they would be able to skip school to go and line the streets from the airport when the Beatles arrived.

I don't think anyone in Intermediate A went to the concert. If they did they most certainly did not boast about doing it. The rest of the class would not have appreciated that. In the week before the Beatles landed there was a school assembly. I remember the Deputy Headmistress standing there and telling us that on the big day there would be a roll call for every lesson. Any girl who was not there had to have a medical certificate or a verifiable reason for absence that did not include lining the streets. 

The disappointment was palpable. I was still bewildered. It would never have occurred to me to skip school to go and stand on the side of the road and hope I might see these people. It was clear however that the other girls were very, very disappointed. There were a great many grumbles.

On the great day we were all at school. There was still a buzz of excitement. The girls had all decided they could go and stand outside the hotel these people were staying at. If they were lucky they might catch a brief glimpse of these people. There was a decided lack of concentration in classes.

And then we had a Latin lesson. The teacher was close to retirement age. She came in and put an alarm clock on the desk and set it going. "Now girls, when the alarm rings the plane will land. At that time we will stop work and you can tell me about these Beatles. Before that I expect you to work."

She was as good as her word. The last ten minutes of what should have been a Latin lesson was spent in the other girls telling her how "fabulous" the Beatles were. 

I don't think any other teachers did anything like that. If they did we didn't hear about it. We thought, as one of the girls put it, our Latin teacher was "pretty terrific".

Now we apparently have Paul McCartney coming to give a concert. I wonder how many of the girls I went to school with will remember that - and will they go to the concert?