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Original poster

What were you doing in 1997?

54 replies

NW3Lady · 04/07/2025 10:43

GCSEs for me, plus ploughing my way through the music grades and the Duke of Edinburghs. I can’t even pretend it led anywhere particularly exciting in the end but hey ho.

Friends was still massive. ER was still massive. The Spice Girls were still massive. There was a tamagotchi craze and lime green was suddenly an in colour. I got my first email address which was a CompuServe one consisting just of numbers.

How about you?

OP posts:
Marylou62 · 04/07/2025 13:32

RosesAndHellebores · 04/07/2025 12:11

I was a SAHM with a two and a half year old. It was a very dark time as we lost DS2 at 27 weeks in May. I have blanks about what was happening in the wider world.

I am so very sorry...

CrushingOnRubies · 04/07/2025 13:51

just started primary school and moved house. Went on a camping holiday to France and the day we got back. Princess Diana died.

MedievalNun · 04/07/2025 13:55

Planning a wedding for the summer & changing jobs. Going to lots of weddings (all mid-20s at the time). Enjoying living together, camping holidays, planning for our future.

Original poster
NW3Lady · 04/07/2025 14:27

Can’t believe I managed to forget about Diana dying too.

OP posts:
16wimb · 04/07/2025 18:41

I was working and living in a hotel in a remote area of the uk. All the staff lived in and spent every night drinking and shagging. We catered for old people coach party holidays and earned our wage over in tips most weeks. I left that job with a decent amount of money as it was hard to spend in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t last long though, as soon as I hit civilisation I burnt through it!

LlynTegid · 04/07/2025 18:45

Listening to music that included an album I bought on the day of release called Be Here Now. I wonder what happened to the band that made it?

HornyHornersPinger · 04/07/2025 18:46

Aha, I've been waiting for this! Gcses and left school (1980 baby), ended up leaving home and starting out on my own. Start of 1st serious relationship. Went to my 1st 'normal' rave then a massive outdoor 20,000 people one a few months later. Started driving. Probably my most memorable year!

TheDogsMother · 04/07/2025 18:46

Working very hard and playing very hard in financial markets in the City of London. Thursday was the new Friday. Vodka Red Bull anyone ?

GalaxyWasOnOffer · 04/07/2025 18:57

Graduating with first degree. Election night was epic - we were all politics students. It was so hot in the Midlands, it felt like every window in every house was open & it was such a flat place that I swear the roar when Portillo lost his seat echoed across the entire city 😀

Later that summer I was just back to start my Masters, woke up on 31st August to discover Diana had died.

My DS was born 10 years to the day later. I bought newspapers to mark his birth & they were all full of Diana 10 year anniversary supplements. It was fascinating thinking back, & wondering what 21 year old me would have thought when she was sat there baffled at the TV news if she’d been told she’d be in labour at that moment a decade later.

Gwenhwyfar · 04/07/2025 19:01

Year abroad from university. I had a uni email address, but a bit later I got a compuserve one too.
Friends was on. I think the Cinton-Lewinsky scandal was going on.

IgglesWiggle · 04/07/2025 19:05

Recovering from Glasto, very muddy, just restarted A Levels as messed up the first year. It wasn't a good time tbh. Was taking drugs, my mum was drinking and my brother was missing a lot.

PickledMuffin · 04/07/2025 19:06

Doing my GCSE’s.

TheCurious0range · 04/07/2025 19:07

I was in year 7, nothing much of note that I remember other than our first family holiday abroad and coming down to the lobby in the morning to see Spanish news reporting Diana had been shot.

herbalteabag · 04/07/2025 19:08

Moving to a different city and buying my first house.

Muchtoomuchtodo · 04/07/2025 19:12

Graduating and starting my first job.

filka · 04/07/2025 19:15

Summerhillsquare · 04/07/2025 11:46

Campaigning for labour to win the general election.

Back then I claimed to have politics somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan and that I would leave the country if Labour got in. Completely coincidentally, I applied for a job just after my 1997 summer holiday and was rather surprised to get it...in Azerbaijan.

So I duly arrived on 1 November 1997, met my future wife at the office Christmas party about 6 weeks later, and nearly 28 years later am still there. I watch with complete amusement and bemusement the political shenanigans that have gone on with both Labour, Conservative and Labour again, heartily glad that I am just watching and not living the experience.

MrsBartlet · 04/07/2025 19:16

Celebrated the labour victory and a few days later my dd was born (my first child) and it felt like everything was changing for the better. DH and I ran a bookshop together and after a few months of maternity leave, I went back to work and we job-shared with one another so we each got time at the shop and also at home with our dd. It was a great time!

Itisnotdownonanymap · 04/07/2025 19:17

Oh my god that was an incredible year. I had just graduated , had landed a great job and then Labour ended years of awful Tory rule. Oasis and Blur were in the charts and everything felt so optimistic.

cloudyblueglass · 04/07/2025 19:17

Working in a Pub in Llandudno having had my heart broken by a copper. Thd pubs were packed - it was a cracking night out and a cracking fun job and Boulevards was still open. The music was full of fantastic indie rock, boy bands, Spice girls, Suede, Blur, Radiohead, Nirvana - what a time it was. I earned 3/hour and could afford a decent night out with change. Labour got in - I voted for the first time.

worlds gone to total shit

OddBoots · 04/07/2025 19:22

Doing my A Levels, buying a house and planning a wedding - it was a busy time.

MorningLarkEchoes · 04/07/2025 19:32

I was going through a rough time as a teenager. I was doing my A Levels. I had really good GCSE grades and decided I wanted to be a vet so despite the warnings from my teachers how tough it would be I chose to do Biology, Chemistry and Physics A Levels. Apart from Biology and got abysmal grades on the other two. I gave up and lost my confidence.

Add to that I had a really bad body image and developed anorexia and bulimia. The trend was to be rake thin so most of the models and tv celebs were really skinny and I felt like I had to be the same. I remember feeling so ugly, unattractive and inadequate compared to the other girls at college. I would get up really early and spend ages trying to find something to wear and doing my make up and never felt nice. I have a little girl and it would break my heart if she ever goes through that when she’s older.

Had my heart broken by my first love - my so-called best friend travelled to his uni and slept with him behind my back.

And I had a rotten relationship with my dad. My brother was really trendy, had loads of friends and was a horrid little shit to me all the time. Going in my room and taking my things and making fun of me, hitting me etc.

Writing this all down has brought it all back. I wish someone would have told me back then that everything would be ok.

Britishtrees · 04/07/2025 20:20

DramaAlpaca · 04/07/2025 12:47

I spent most of the year pregnant with my third (and last) child who was born in September, while juggling two toddlers. It was a busy year.

So was I!

Original poster
NW3Lady · 04/07/2025 20:39

TheDogsMother · 04/07/2025 18:46

Working very hard and playing very hard in financial markets in the City of London. Thursday was the new Friday. Vodka Red Bull anyone ?

Red Bull was something I had when I needed to pull an all-nighter before a deadline!

OP posts:
Original poster
NW3Lady · 04/07/2025 20:46

MorningLarkEchoes · 04/07/2025 19:32

I was going through a rough time as a teenager. I was doing my A Levels. I had really good GCSE grades and decided I wanted to be a vet so despite the warnings from my teachers how tough it would be I chose to do Biology, Chemistry and Physics A Levels. Apart from Biology and got abysmal grades on the other two. I gave up and lost my confidence.

Add to that I had a really bad body image and developed anorexia and bulimia. The trend was to be rake thin so most of the models and tv celebs were really skinny and I felt like I had to be the same. I remember feeling so ugly, unattractive and inadequate compared to the other girls at college. I would get up really early and spend ages trying to find something to wear and doing my make up and never felt nice. I have a little girl and it would break my heart if she ever goes through that when she’s older.

Had my heart broken by my first love - my so-called best friend travelled to his uni and slept with him behind my back.

And I had a rotten relationship with my dad. My brother was really trendy, had loads of friends and was a horrid little shit to me all the time. Going in my room and taking my things and making fun of me, hitting me etc.

Writing this all down has brought it all back. I wish someone would have told me back then that everything would be ok.

I hear you. I did science A-levels too, having really enjoyed them at GCSE. Yet I found A-levels so dry, dull and just generally such a hard slog in comparison. Lots of people say they loved the 6th form years but I’m afraid they were worst bit of school for me.

OP posts:
Arran2024 · 04/07/2025 20:51

We got our first dog, a bernese mountain dog puppy. They were pretty unusual back then and it was pre Internet searching - we had to do all the leg work ourselves.