Do you want to know a secret – the Beatles

This song changed my life because it introduced me to the thrill of intimacy – there is something about the way the lyrics invite proximity and leave you feeling warm, enveloped and safe. They were my first girlhood stirrings of understanding what love might be like.

I have said it before and I know I’ll say it again many times – nothing is better for the psyche than the human touch, whether literal or metaphorical – for me, I’d rather hear ‘I love you’ than any other words in our language and I LOVE our language with a passion. They’re not words that the very reserved DM says very often (in case you’ve not noticed, he’s a man of few words generally) but it means that I am sure that when he says them, he means them.

So, when the Beatles sang ‘closer, let me whisper in your ear, say the words you long to hear, I am in love with you’, my stomach churned and my heart leaped. Not for the love of the Beatles but for the promise of a future in which I may star in my own little version of the words….‘closer, let me whisper in your ear, say the words you long to hear, I am in love with you’ – today that has happened to me!!! How cool is that?

I’m not sure I regard myself a Beatles fan really – though like every other human being on the planet I will happily sing along to any of their hits that find their way onto my radio station of choice.

I doubt I really remember the song from its original release – my first recollections of it are from my time in Bahrain as a child in around 1968, when my parents were both DJs on Radio Muharraq - well, BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Service) Muharraq actually. My Dad did a classical music show and my Mum did Family Favourites. When we (Jan and I) went to the station with them we were given the run of the music library and two sets of headphones and allowed to listen to anything we wanted. It was great. The Beatles featured heavily in our listening choice. I suspect that even though I don’t really acknowledge it, the experience was what made me forever a ‘three minute hero’ fan – if a band can’t say what they want to say in three minutes then they should forget it as far as I’m concerned – my short attention span makes eight minute or ten minute long tracks absolutely out of the question so that’s partly why I despair at Pink Floyd or their ilk.

As I have grown up, I appreciate the value of secrecy - I have a secret now - I'll tell you later in the week.

Two years ago I was lusting after my sex god....and last year I was confessing to being a diarist for many years!