Fifty Years of Sgt Peppers

Over the past week the radio and TV have been celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Beetles amazing Sgt Peppers recording. Can it be 50 years?

 

Fifty years ago, I was travelling from Sydney to Hong Kong to meet my husband who had taken a job there. I was travelling with my (then) three children Sarah, Bridget and Suzi. Things were not good in Hong Kong with bombs being deposited randomly throughout the city by the Communist Chinese and this was my first time to leave Australia.

 

Although I was in my twenties, I felt like an old married woman. But I was looking forward to spending five weeks on a small passenger ship called the Aramac. We would get there via Brisbane, Japan, and Taiwan. We only had 100 passengers and a load of wool to unload in Japan.

 

A couple of nights into the trip, some of the officers who had joined the passengers for the evening entertainment, asked me and a couple of other younger women to join them for a drink. The children were tucked in bed being looked after by the cabin steward.

 

When the entertainment finished the officers suggested the guests join them in the Officer’s Mess. Feeling rather pleased to meet some of the passengers and the officers, I went along.

 

The Mess was virtually one room with a small bar and a few chairs and record player. As we got to know one another, one of the officers put on a new record – Sgt Peppers. Although I knew the Beetles songs, this was new and dfferent. It was exciting and made me feel young again

 

Each night, the assortment of passengers joined the officers after dinner and then off to the Officer’s Mess – and Sgt Peppers. There were probably other records played but it was “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, “With a little Help from my Friends”, “When I’m Sixty Four”, and all the other songs that I remember.

 

Listening to I being played today, brings me back to those weeks on the Aramac. It gave me back my youth and the start of a new life.

 

It can’t be fifty year. Sometimes, I still feel young.