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London in the 90s

239 replies

Mondayforthebin · 10/02/2023 09:41

Just having a nostalgic 10 minutes and thinking about when I first moved to London in my early 20s from my small town in middle of nowhere, fresh out of University. Moved to leafy North London with 4 other friends for a really cheap rent (wow, how times have changed!) No proper job so just temped and did some bar work and was out all the time on seemingly very little money as I earned very little! Went to see loads of bands, drank lots, wore v little and made some amazing friends and generally had lots of fun.

I know I definitely have my rose tinted specs on but miss those days and feel quite sad for DS that he'll probably not be able to afford to have same experiences as London is so expensive now.

OP posts:
helloelsie · 10/02/2023 20:35

Mondayforthebin · 10/02/2023 10:25

I remember the thrill of being able to go to Soho after work on a random Tuesday and get the tube or bus home afterwards... also the thrill (now) of being up all hours, going to work and doing it all again the next night! I can barely manage 1 night out every 6 months these days :)

These memories are the Same I have

But they no longer exist as they were

They are long gone

You are romanticising your past

Inkpotlover · 10/02/2023 20:38

helloelsie · 10/02/2023 20:35

These memories are the Same I have

But they no longer exist as they were

They are long gone

You are romanticising your past

Show quote history

Why does it matter that they no longer exist?

Yourownpersonaljesus · 10/02/2023 20:39

@SydneyCarton and @Whycanineverever I also lived a stone's throw from the Venue in the 90s. Loved it there. Moved to London (I was born there but my family moved away when I was 5) when I was 18 in 1987 and lived in lots of very dodgy flats/ house shares with my best friend. We had the best time ever! Went to at least one gig a week and went to clubs on Friday and Saturday nights. Does anyone remember Paramount City in Great Windmill Street? Often saw members of indie bands there - Miles Hunt stood on my foot on the dance floor one time! You should've gone there @Mondayforthebin Grin. Also went to Feet First at Camden Palace with Jonathon and Eko.

EmmaEmerald · 10/02/2023 20:39

Zosime · 10/02/2023 19:43

My dad worked at the Natural History Museum in the 90's and I could get in for free (but never went of course!) It only became free in the early 2000's

The big museums always were free, it was only for a relatively short period of time that there was a charge for admission.

Of course, the Swinging Sixties was when Swinging London really was the place to be!

The NHM always charged before the Blair era didn't they? Well, from my childhood.

some days I'd tell my folks I wanted to go and they didn't want to say
i needed to choose something free, so they'd talk me into it another way.

I'd say London continued being fab till 2010, maybe. I'm glad others enjoyed driving. A night drive along the river was great. I would do that now if I still drove. I really liked it when the wheel went up - I know a lot of people didn't though.

I think as late teens there was an autonomy that most people don't allow their late teen kids now. There were lots of crackdowns on underage clubbing after I got mine done. Then I got ID'd on my 24th birthday and had to go back to my mate's flat to get it - she lived just off Oxford Street in a place that I think is sqillion pound flats now.

AFingerofFudge · 10/02/2023 20:40

Me and DH moved to Earlsfield in 1991 and stayed there for 13 years. We had an amazing time, made so many friends through our work and our street was really friendly, we were very lucky. We had shit times too, got burgled twice, but we also had the best of times and I miss it so much.

We used to go up to Wimbledon village on a Sunday afternoon and have tea and cake in one of the posh cafes. The rest of the time we ate cheaply and often had friends round to watch a video if we weren't in a pub or club.

EmmaEmerald · 10/02/2023 20:45

helloelsie · 10/02/2023 20:35

These memories are the Same I have

But they no longer exist as they were

They are long gone

You are romanticising your past

Show quote history

This is something I wanted to address in my book

maybe it's just MN

There's often comments like "romanticising the past" or "it's because you were younger" and it isn't that at all.

I think many of us have experiences that, even in the middle of them, we know they will always be golden moments.

but...I will save this for my book! I'm inspired. Maybe there is an interest in this book after all.

RudsyFarmer · 10/02/2023 20:47

We lived a short train journey from London. Fares were cheap. I think it was a fiver for a travel card. We used to go up to Camden palace in the week to watch Nine Inch Nails and loads of other Indie bands. We’d go to New Cross at the weekends. It was so much fun.

EmmaEmerald · 10/02/2023 20:50

AFingerofFudge · 10/02/2023 20:40

Me and DH moved to Earlsfield in 1991 and stayed there for 13 years. We had an amazing time, made so many friends through our work and our street was really friendly, we were very lucky. We had shit times too, got burgled twice, but we also had the best of times and I miss it so much.

We used to go up to Wimbledon village on a Sunday afternoon and have tea and cake in one of the posh cafes. The rest of the time we ate cheaply and often had friends round to watch a video if we weren't in a pub or club.

there was a branch of The Frog and Forget me Not on Garratt Lane in 2001 ish I think? I used to like that.

Greenfairydust · 10/02/2023 20:50

Yes I remember it being a really optimistic time: Britpop, New Labour, Cool Britannia :), raves/clubs, great contemporary art (YBAs)...

It was a great time to be young and the city was definitely more affordable then and it was a cool, edgy city.

I recently left London because I was done with the noise, anti social behaviour, ridiculous costs of everything and because I think the city has lost its soul.

Everything has been turned into a playground for rich people. Every high street is now the same with a Starbucks and Pret on every corner.

I remember Camden market, Spitalfields, Brixton market before they were turned into something boring and bland by developers.

I think the ''vibe'' is so different in the city now, people are angrier and sadder.

I still work remotely for a London based company but the city has it is now is not somewhere where I want to live anymore.

Greenfairydust · 10/02/2023 20:55

helloelsie · Today 20:35
''You are romanticising your past''

I don't think so.

There are some tangible reasons why things were better then: everything, especially housing, was more affordable which always has a huge impact on people's quality of life and there was a Labour government.

Anon20232023 · 10/02/2023 20:56

The memories...feeling a little sad reading these posts.

It was the Mean Fiddler for me...gutted when it closed down.

thetrees · 10/02/2023 20:59

@Greenfairydust I used to think I would never move out of London, I still live just a few miles from where I was born, but it feels so different now. I don't think it's just my age, every corner has been made shiny and monetised. The shops in Covent Garden are the same as in a swanky airport.

London in the 70s and 80s had been quite grim. In the 90s suddenly tables started appearing on pavements and we were amazed because it felt European. Tate Modern didn't exist, the south bank was pretty empty. I bought my first flat in Brixton and it wouldn't have occurred to me to want to live around Borough, there was nothing there. It's really hard to convey how different things feel now.

illiterato · 10/02/2023 21:04

I think it’s changed but I also think there’s a tendency to see the London of your youth as the best time because it’s such a fun time in your life. So I’m sure in 20 years time there will be people saying “ oh the 2020s- those were the days”.

Forestfever · 10/02/2023 21:05

Iwantabloodypizza · 10/02/2023 10:32

What was the club off tottenham court road?

I think it was the St. Moritz? Used to host an indie club night on a Thursday called Cigarettes and Alcohol.

Then there was the indie nights at the Camden palace before it became KOKO - £1 a bottle of lager.

I'm sure this club might went on still 10 years ago but in a pub just off of Tottenham Court Road. I think it possibly for knocked down to make way for Crossrail.

TheYearOfSmallThings · 10/02/2023 21:07

the south bank was pretty empty

No there was loads down there by the 90s. I spent too much time there as my friend was stalking one of those skater guys in the undercroft.

NOTANUM · 10/02/2023 21:11

Oh London was so cool in the mid/late 90s as it recovered from the recession and Labour took over. Rightly or wrongly there was a sense things were getting better. The buzz, the fun, the HOPE - so much fun.
Manchester was also great though - wonderful dance and club scene.

The country is a sad place these days in comparison.

thetrees · 10/02/2023 21:16

@TheYearOfSmallThings but it wasn't the tourist trail attraction that it is now, and there wasn't much beyond the Hayward.

puppacup · 10/02/2023 21:17

I'm still here but the pollution & crowds do annoy me. Plus my area is far less diverse particularly socioeconomically.

LexMitior · 10/02/2023 21:17

It was excellent. Such a great place and time, creative, cheapish, good music, fewer people, better independent shops, less finance twats

EmmaEmerald · 10/02/2023 21:19

illiterato · 10/02/2023 21:04

I think it’s changed but I also think there’s a tendency to see the London of your youth as the best time because it’s such a fun time in your life. So I’m sure in 20 years time there will be people saying “ oh the 2020s- those were the days”.

It depends what you like though

my sister wasn't attached to it at all in her 20s. She's 50 now and there every weekend. She wouldn't have gone near the rave scene either.

She likes the food options, the pedestrian spaces, she never drove. Not like me at all. The place I loved is long gone. And I find the endless food stall thing weird and depressing. She's all "I bought you some hand spun by vegans artisan knitted yogurt from Borough market". I'm all "why can't we smoke anywhere?" Also it's way too crowded for me. She thinks it's "buzzier".

Horses for courses. Ironically, crossing over into another thread, I think the age thing has much less relevance if you're single and childfree.

EmmaEmerald · 10/02/2023 21:20

Forestfever · 10/02/2023 21:05

I'm sure this club might went on still 10 years ago but in a pub just off of Tottenham Court Road. I think it possibly for knocked down to make way for Crossrail.

Show quote history

Isn't that G-A-Y that was demolished for Crossrail?

EmmaEmerald · 10/02/2023 21:22

Oh hang on, do I mean The Astoria, G-A-Y had residency?

LexMitior · 10/02/2023 21:22

Yea it is very organic yoghurt is the new clubbing.

No. It's quite nice, but overpriced yoghurt. It's like central Paris. For middle aged bourgeois

Forestfever · 10/02/2023 21:22

PrincessOfWaiIs · 10/02/2023 15:31

I have found my people!

I moved to London in 1989 aged 18 and stayed for 12 years. Initially I lived just off Portobello Road and worked at the Earl of Lonsdale pub and later the Coronet cinema in Notting Hill. I also ran a few club nights in Camden and the west end.

In 1994 I moved to Camden and was working in the music industry and occasionally writing for the music press. I probably know some of you, particularly if you drank at the Good Mixer, Spread Eagle or Dublin Castle in the mid 90s. Everyone knew everyone, it was quite incestuous! There were faces everyone knew, not just the famous ones either. Some real characters. And some great nights - did any of you go to clubs Skinny/Arcadia/Smashing? Also afterparties with bands at the Columbia Hotel and Kensal Working Men's Club. I used to go straight to work from them, still pissed usually.

Sadly there was a darker side to it all too. I knew lots of young girls - early teens - who were in 'relationships' with band members. They were treated appallingly and I wouldn't be at all surprised if one day it all became public - some of the bands went on to become household names. There was definitely a dark underbelly. Entitled, wealthy young men in the first flush of fame who seemed to think they could take whatever they wanted even if the answer was no, as did a lot of their hangers-on.

But, yeah. I'm guessing I've met quite a few of you!

I agree with you about the bands. I was a teen in the late 90s/early 00s and it was a thing then. Equally I used to be around a very famous band from that time when I was about 14 and there were tonnes of girls around them from their mid to late teens. They could have had any number of those girls but didn't. Looking back on it they completely ignored the teenagers throwing themselves at them which is how it should be, but plenty of other bands didn't.

MercyChant66 · 10/02/2023 21:23

TheVanguardSix · 10/02/2023 14:33

Yes! I was trying to remember the name! Pollo Bar! The massive plates of good, nourishing, cheap pasta. I did love the Stockpot too. I used to go to the one on the Kings Road back when Peter Jones was a little bit on the turn.
I miss bringing your own bottle because any of the affordable eateries had no booze license. Well… I don’t really miss it but my nostalgia is telling me to miss it. 😆

We probably shared a table at some point over the years - we were always at Pollo's or Stockpot too! If we were feeling flush we'd go somewhere smart for a drink then eat cheaply afterwards. A memorable evening saw us having a glass of Chardonnay in the 5th Floor Bar at Harvey Nicks (where David Seaman passed us his Bombay Mix) then onto the Knightsbridge Stock Pot. I was in that area at Christmas and I think it's sadly long gone...