If you were born between 1970 and 1975, and grew up in Australia – more specifically, Melbourne – Myf Warhurst’s memoir, Time of My Life, is for you (obviously I meet the readership criteria).

Warhurst is known for her career in radio and television – predominantly on Triple J and as a team captain for the much-loved Spicks & Specks music trivia show. More recently, she became SBS’s Eurovision commentator, alongside comedian Joel Creasey.

Not surprisingly, her memoir is focused on the importance of music in her life, and is organised around particular songs that had an impact. For example, her earliest memory of being transfixed by a song came via Sherbet’s Howzat; she remembers stealing into the ‘good room’ to play ABBA’s Dancing Queen, despite being forbidden to touch the record player (this is identical to my own experience); and she describes how Leonard Bernstein’s Somewhere, in combination with a teacher at her school, inspired her to pursue tertiary studies in music.

Essentially chronological, Warhurst moves from her childhood in regional Victoria (Donald and then Red Cliffs), to describing young adulthood in a string of share houses in Parkville, West Melbourne and Fitzroy. There are so many references to things I did in my own childhood and to places I hung out during my uni days that the book was a joyful walk down memory lane (testament to this is the number of passages I sent an old friend).

Clark Rubber above ground pools (a ‘signifier of affluence’) feature heavily, and how ‘…everyone (including me) thought it hilarious when Uncle Brent would put the powder chlorine into the pool and get me to swim around in it to mix it into the pool by calling it ‘grow’, promising that these chemicals would give me a growth spurt…’. My uncle also had a Clark Rubber pool (which we loved) and we’d spend hours making whirlpools. Family friends had the pool with a deck built around it – fancy!

It’s the small details that were the most fun. Describing a school friend’s house, she notes –

It was all very ’70s, and hip. I was particularly in love with their toilet wallpaper: black, with some sort of Art Nouveau-style design in gold. Très fricken chic. People weren’t afraid to make a room to poo into a fantasy land back then. I like that sense of adventure.

Fairly sure that my primary school friend Emily’s loo had exactly the same wallpaper. I also thought it was marvelous.

There were some bits that I read and I was taken straight back to the eighties – ‘…the diamond-set memento from Bruce and Walsh…’; the jingle about TAB cola being the drink for beautiful people (you’re singing it now, right?); CFM boots; Clockwork Orange at Chevron and Hard’n’Fast at Chasers; waiting for the latest edition of InPress; and gigs at The Tote, Punters Club and comedy night at the Prince Patrick. I could go on and on…

While Warhurst’s taste in music went down a grungier path than mine (I was more frequently at Warehouse’s retro night, Marmalade, than Clockwork Orange), our interests converge again when it comes to Eurovision – she describes it (accurately) as ‘…kitsch, bonkers, greatness…’. Her love of Eurovision began when SBS came to the Sunraysia district in the late ’80s. The district was home to many migrants from Italy, Greece and Turkey –

For these families, pre-internet, watching the Eurovision contest provided a link to friends and families they missed in their home countries. Eurovision was a beautiful global connector.

I don’t think my reasons were as pure back then. I just loved the madness of it all.

Thanks for the memories, Myf!

3.5/5

They were eating a spread of ’70s delicacies – square cut cheese and cabana speared together on toothpicks, celery sticks filled with cream cheese, and Mum’s favourite party favour: white bread (crusts cut off), containing mayonnaise and soggy tinned asparagus, rolled up and held like a little piggy in a blanket… (Side note: I have to admit I have craved this asparagus treat ever since I wrote this line. Once you get over the fact that asparagus from a tin has a rather slimy mouth-feel, it’s quite the culinary revelation…).

As part of the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge, I’m comparing the Belfast summer and Melburnian winter. The results for the day I finished this book (August 18): Belfast 11°-17° and Melbourne 8°-15°.