It’s Friday night-1994

[Cositseleventhirtyandtheclubisjumpinjumpin]

How old are you, what are you doing?

I’m 16, almost due to do GCSE’s and have an amazing summer, only bettered by summer of 1995, the following year.
I’m out, either at a house party or drinking in the park or around the village. I spent ages getting ready in crop top or maybe a body, oversized denim or check shirt, usually tied around my waist, kickers & jeans. Hair long and wavy, coffee shimmer lipstick, bronzer and heavy eyeliner. Met up with the other four friends in our group to drink vodka or cider, smoke Embassy number one and probably some weed later on. Excitement’s in the air as it is every Friday night, we’ll probably meet up with the boys two years above us, maybe drive around in cars, possibly go with one of them (snog/kiss) but the most fun part is when all five of us girls get drunk together and howl with laughter, rarely has there been friendships as precious as those early ones.

This Friday night-I’m 48, lay in bed next to my sleeping 7 year old, live abroad and am a sensible adult.

10, nearly 11. Just moved down from a semi rural North Wales to the outskirts of London. Did not fit in at the primary school I went to for the last few months of the school year. Found a good group of friends when I started secondary school. We used to swap the latest cassette tapes, hop on the tube and see how far we could go on until we wimped out and went back home, shopping trips that included going to pizza hut, just to have an "all you can eat" ice cream lunch and sleepovers that saw us climbing out of the front room window and walked around the block in the early hours. Believe it or not, we were usually well behaved and none of what we did was actually as rebellious as we thought at the time!

I was 14 in 1994 and would have been at school swim training on a Friday evening at 8pm. Fridays and Saturdays were lates, Mondays & Wednesdays were early 5am swims. Tonight I’be been playing cricket with my two boys in the garden and we’ve just come in to watch a film before bed.

I was 17 and very pregnant with my now almost 32 year old DD! I was terrified but brazening it out and was probably with my friends drinking Appletize (me) while they got smashed! Now I’m a degree educated mum of 3 adult DD, I went to uni a year late but have probably done as well as my peers but it was a tough few years in the late 90s!

Friday night 1994 I was in my goth phase so probably I would have been crimping my hair, putting on my black eyeliner and heading into central London to meet my friends, where we would be planning a weekend to Whitbynor a holiday to Romania 🦇
Now I am sitting on the sofa next to my husband, thinking abour getting myself a glass of wine to drink while I read my book.
How life changes

I was 12 and in year 7. Watching Byker Grove on the tv and ignoring my mum telling me if I did my homework on Friday night I'd have the weekend free.

I was in Florence studying Italian as part of my uni course with some of my closest friends - three of whom I still see. Happy days!

What a great thread. I was either in private nursery playing in the day and then chilling at home with my mum, dad and brother, maybe playing with teddies before bed. Or at school nursery (if it was september onwards), having got back from watching Come Outside and playing with cubes and counting/playing with tiny see-through animals, and at home with my family.

I was 2! I imagine I wasn’t doing very much exciting… probably getting out of bed constantly and winding my mum up

Ah coffee shimmer. I was more of a heather shimmer girl!

I was in Year 7 in 1994. Friday nights were ballet and jazz. Then if we were lucky a trip to blockbusters for a video.

I look at the kids I teach now (and mine) and feel so sorry for them. Obviously it was a few years later I was out drinking but at least there's no evidence of everything we did

12. Probably just come back from cricket... weather depending. At my grandmothers settled down after egg and chips ready to watch a scary film. We loved a scary film.

Getting ready for my second night out on the trot having not been to bed since Wednesday night.

I would have been 15 years old, babysitting my 3 year old sister while my Mum went out line dancing and drinking with her her newest DH.

Once I had bathed my Sister, and got her settled into bed and had tided up, I would have been busy doing my homework, but making sure I was in my room out of the way before they got home.

(They were even more vile than usual after drinking and would chain smoke when drunk until the downstairs was a fog of smoke that hurt your eyes).

Goodness me… I am glad survived and grew up to be nothing like her! My greatest joy was knowing that my happiness as an adult made her miserable, the smoking and drinking though… it took its toll and she died of cancer at just 62 years old.

Ah were the same age

I turned 17 in the September of that year

I was already going to clubs underage, because back then you only had to ‘look’ old enough.

Now at 48, Friday nights consist of a few glasses of wine, whilst sitting in my tracksuit bottoms (they are quite nice ones, Pineapple Studio, Cargo style darling 😂) and watching re-runs of GOT, Criminal Minds or some crime doc/drama.

Then going to bed and having the worst night sweats ever, because that’s what wine does when you’re in perimenopause 🤣

I was 25 and on a Friday night in December 1994 I was in labour , my gorgeous baby boy was born the next morning at 8 30 ( he s still gorgeous ) !

I was 19, out most Fridays with a large group of friends - into town, last bus home (or taxi if going to a club), drinking Malibu and Coke or Castaways, taking it in turns to sleep at friends houses. Driving a Ford Fiesta and the girls holiday was 2 weeks in Newquay on a tight budget.

Now married (to the man I broke up with at the start of 1994!) with 2 adult children and most Fridays are spent chilling in the house after a week at work.

20, uni, dancing to britpop on a sticky dance floor with cider and black in a plastic pint glass

Same age as you - round a friends, drinking, smoking and snogging a boy with curtains and a bit of weed if anyone had any. Hash, mind. I’d put on all my ear cuffs from Camden market and pull out my hair wraps I’d kept hidden all week at school!
We had Saturday school so this was a Saturday night.
Up to the park also, bonfires, mix tapes and whatever Nirvana, Rage against the machine, prodigy was around on tape. Someone had that chili peppers album too, and a Jane’s addiction. Bangers!

I would be six... So I'd be in my pink and flowery nightdress watching the Friday night Disney compilation show that was on TV in my home country every week and then go to bed 🙃

I'm now 38, and last night I was in my PJ's watching the Lion King with my six year old...

I'm basically the exact same person, although last night's PJ's were blue instead of pink and not a flower in sight!

It was so carefree. We just roamed.
I don’t think my kids were ever that worry free, and definitely not now as older teens.

May 1994 on a Friday night, I was 19 and would have been out with my first serious boyfriend! In fact the 2nd May 1994 would have been his 20th birthday, so we were out celebrating at a local pub with friends!!

In Germany partying hard, NAAFI bop, dirt cheap drinks, great music and a schnelli on the way home.

I was 6 and probably watching a Disney VHS with my 5 year old sister. Probably the lion king. We used to argue because the tape wasn't rewound and we'd squabble over who had been supposed to rewind it.

Just turned 29. 23 weeks pregnant with my first child. Extremely happy and loving being pregnant. Bump quite large and wearing some awful 90s Mothercare maternity monstrosity.
Love Is All Around by Wet Wet Wet will always remind me of being pregnant and Saturday Night by Whigfield will always remind me of having a tiny newborn.

Now 61, still feel I should be 29, divorced from the father who has since died.
Son is a maths lecturer and has a 29 year old brother.
I’m happily remarried, sitting watching Notting Hill tonight and off to a local music gig tomorrow night with my husband which will be loud.

Getting ready to go to Cream in Liverpool. Not getting home til the next morning..

I'd be doing the sensible adult thing with three young children.