The years merge as you climb into middle age, but some moments will always carry the clarity of a first love.

My first interview, as a paid journalist, was with Rolf Harris. Just 20, and more innocent than I can now believe, I trotted down to meet him, on the direction of my Arts editor.

It was a coveted gig, and while he was a big deal for many, for me he was huge.

My mother was even more excited. “The Rolf Harris”, she asked? Yes. The number one Australian chart-topper The Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport, Rolf Harris. The Face of British Paints, Rolf Harris. Wobble Board Rolf Harris.

This was 30 odd years or so before a tip-off from a tradie led to Harris being convicted and jailed over 12 offences in 2014.

It was well before he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia and given a haul of other awards, and before he was asked to paint a portrait of Queen Elizabeth 11.

But it was during the decade where he waged his sick warfare against a teen, who was a childhood friend of his daughter.

He didn’t try to kiss me, or grope or maul me as he did others. But he remains today the rudest, most patronising interview subject I have ever met.

(That’s a significant feat, given years in the Canberra press gallery, and covering some of those who became infamous in the wake of Queensland’s Fitzgerald Inquiry).

At first, he refused to be interviewed, in this words, “by a child’’ and demanded I call the newspaper so that they could send down a “real’’ journalist. And then, with every answer he spat out, he had me closer to tears.

Nasty. Mean. Churlish. Malicious.

Not a soul believed me. No-one. Not at the office, where I returned with a story that was deemed unpublishable. Not at home, where my mother was convinced I must be confused. This was Rolf Harris.

As the years crept by, I would always remember the lesson Harris delivered me that day. Only fools judged a book by its over, and some people would always turn out to be the absolute opposite of what they claimed to be.

When the prosecution, at Harris’ trial, described the “demon lurking beneath his charming character’’, I understood immediately.

His lack of remorse was not surprising, but his inability to accept responsibility as his reputation lay in tatters and he was stripped of his honours, continues to nag at me.

Rolf Harris is, as the headlines this week have described him. A disgraced former entertainer. A convicted pedophile. A horrible human being who indecently assaulted girls and young women for almost 20 years, between 1968 and 1986.

Ten years ago, his death would have been mourned internationally. State funeral offers would have poured in, and we’d be telling our children how innovation and creativity and music, driven by the right person, could produce magic.

Instead, we are celebrating the voice of children, who speak up against sex crimes. We are celebrating young women like Chanel Contos, who will be the impetus for children across our country understanding consent.

We are changing laws and penalties, filling books and minds, with warnings about too many men who have hidden their depravity behind the celebrity they’ve craved.

Harvey Weinstein and Prince Andrew head a string of actors and entrepreneurs, moguls and millionaires who have shown one face to the camera, and another behind.

Rolf Harris doesn’t deserve anything more than our contempt.