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We had Sunday as a day of rest and on Monday 16th August, 2004 we drove from the New South
Wales Central Coast to Sydney Airport for our flight to Melbourne for
the Crown Casino Concert to be held on Wednesday night 18th August.
Melbourne is my favourite Australian capital city, (to be fair, I
haven't seen all of them), and it would be great to have a couple of
extra days there. I wore my PJP cap that I'd purchased from the official
Proby website and the girls wore two of the P.J. Proby caps that I'd had
made at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast.
On arrival at the
airport we had lunch at McDonalds
Restaurant before making our way to Gate 32 to await boarding
announcements for our plane. The girls went for a nervous one while I
waited with the hand luggage and I then noticed this person making his
way amidst the crowd in my general direction......Could this really be
happening??????... No!... Couldn't be!...Wow!... I think it
is...and he's veering off to Gate 32 also......My goodness!!!
It's...
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couldn't believe it! I noticed Billie Davis was about to walk
straight past me so I said "Hello Billie" and she
stopped, and I introduced myself and she then called Jim back
and introduced me to him. He gave that beautiful smile
of his and we shook hands and he said "Very nice to meet you, Tony. " I
told him that I'd been a fan of his for 40 years and that I was so
pleased to see him back here performing in Australia. He said that he
was really happy to be here and had been hoping to get back here for a
long time. He said he was loving it here as it was such a beautiful place and both he and Billie spoke glowingly of the places they had been
to in Queensland and Jim reckoned it was paradise. I couldn't get over how great he looked. He was a picture of good health for a man whose exploits were legendary as one of the really wild men of the Sixties and beyond. He was chewing on mints and said the stuff he'd got from the chemist for his throat didn't seem to be doing much good. But he looked like a million dollars! By this stage Jacquie and Gaye had returned and were gobsmacked when they saw who I was with. Both Billie & Jim were amused by our hats but I think they thought they were pretty good. Jim told us that he lived on a farm in the U.K. with an orchard, growing plums and other stone fruit and really loved it. I mentioned that I had discovered the P.J. Proby websites run by U.P, Bjorn Lund and the late Auke Middel when I had purchased a computer some years ago and had become friends with them and that I was contemplating building an Australian P.J. Proby website. He wished me well with it and both he and Billie were very obliging and were only too happy to pose with us while we took some photos for the website. They were really nice to us and we were most impressed with them.
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Gerry Marsden and The Pacemakers
were there as well and everyone was in good spirits. We couldn't believe
our luck to travel on the same flight to Melbourne with all of the stars
of the show, particularly as we had booked our tickets some weeks
before on the internet. |
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We arrived in Melbourne at 3.45pm after a one and a half
hour flight and upon leaving the aircraft we were pleased to see P.J.
Proby pursued by other fans carrying his LP records and seeking his
autograph. You will never be forgotten in Australia, Jim. |
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