[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4258
Set by Leonora Casement
We asked for conversations, letters or writing from those who were today’s teenagers as they look back with nostalgia from the second half/latter end of the 21st century.

This week’s winners
Not bad – a very wide range of responses, all the way from unimaginable technological advances to being back with the wood-burning stove for heating. Hon menshes to Adrian Fry (“Remember the sweet agony of buffering, waiting a few seconds for a video clip to stream?”), Shirley Curran (“Those were the days! The sun really did shine sometimes, not this 24-hour super smog from China”) and Sid Field (“You know, I’ll never forget how easy it was to get booze then . . . And you could get all the dope –weed, horse, snow, crack anything – just at the street corner or in the pub”). The winners get £25 each, with the Tesco vouchers going, in addition, to Katie Mallett.

Naughty alcoves
Those were the heady days of cigarettes smoked in the rain on romantic, windy corners and in naughty alcoves, and sometimes it wouldn’t be raining and you could stand on a dry patch of pavement and revel in the bright-yellow disc peeping between clouds. Then, you could go for a night out and still have change from £100. We made our own entertainments, playing Hunt The Remote at Xmas on the sofa and sharing the joystick. People still spoke with their mouths, often using their lips, tongues and teeth to create syllables. Writing, a bit like this, was not unknown. Handwriting, even, with biros – beautifully designed plastic objects. You could find food in the shops and cannibalism was taboo. A sort of open justice was administered in things called courts, with weird wigs. You could eat amazing turnips, intense, orange carrots, and pink apples. Yummy potatoes, white as snow . . .
Josh Ekroy

Face to face
I was thinking about that business of having to text and phone everyone all the time. Do you remember, we had these portable devices we had to carry around and keep on looking at them in case somebody had phoned us and we’d missed a call. And then of course they got a bit more clever and you could look up the internet on them. There was never any respite from that little screen. You only had to half remember something and someone would say, hey look it up, Google it and then the signal would go. That was really frustrating. Life’s much simpler now. If you want to talk to someone you just go and see them, and if you can’t remember something it’ll come back to you eventually. But I miss the digital age, it was fun. Hey, you’d better go and get some more wood. The fire’s going down.
Katie Mallett

A real community
You did have the feeling in them days you could be anything you wanted to be – a TV talent show contestant, a McDonald’s employee of the month, a shoplifter, an internet troll, whatever. Personally, I became a benefit cheat as soon as I left school, picked up a lot of skills that way. We was a real community. I even got named and shamed in the Daily Mail once, sold ’em a wicked story. And drugs? You could get anything you fancied within a stone’s throw, guaranteed. Cost you a bit, of course – and in pounds. Remember them? Yeah, the freedom and opportunity we had 60-odd years ago. Different world. And the booze! And the music! Mind-blowing or what? Mind you, don't get me wrong. I’m a law-abiding citizen and I’m not saying the mosque attendance and the prayers and everything are bad. Just different is all.
Basil Ransome-Davies

Chapoin of puncheration
dr dairy its strangle to think I am know like 80 or 90 and yet I think back to dais when we were peirced and tatted in nurserys by our mums and testd testd testd to like distraction by the systm when u went to a cademy (aftr scols) I went to a like specal scol tht was calt a Fre Scol, ware the clut of Gov was like vary strong He was the chapoin of puncheration and standhards, like hius grandfarhther be4 him. And itwas a vary hapy time. We learnt our BAC our somes our dicisplane and we didn’t like feal we needd too go to Uni, and that was gd. we like new dats and wats and all like 19fiftys. Now lookatem, they can all spel&gramer & all that sort stuff, nose in ar like Gov hisself His xspearminy worked out on us. Now luke Random
Bill Greenwell