This is a very short excerpt from the new and improved 2nd edition of ‘British Party Food Through the Decades’. This new edition will be available very soon and includes lots more content and improved look.

This particular part below is from the 1990s section after the party food chapter and is more like personal memories of myself growing up as a child in the 1990s in Scotland. I chose these memories as I think they relate to most older millennials too. This is only a couple, the new book features a lot more in the chapter.

(Please leave a comment below if you have any special 1990s memories) 👇

“For many people, the 1990s represented the last truly analogue childhood. It was a decade balanced between old and new, where traditional ways of growing up coexisted with exciting new technology that would eventually change the world forever.

Children born in the late 1980s and early 1990s experienced something unique. We remember life before smartphones, social media and streaming services, yet we were also the first generation to witness the arrival of home computers, the internet and mobile phones. It often feels as though we grew up in two completely different worlds. As a child growing up in Britain during the 1990s, I experienced that remarkable transition first-hand, and this chapter reflects on some of my favourite memories of that unforgettable decade.

Playing Outside Until It Got Dark

For many British children in the 1990s, the best memories weren’t made indoors at all. As soon as homework was finished, bikes were wheeled out of garages and the streets became our playgrounds. Parents rarely needed to organise playdates because everyone simply knocked on each other’s front doors or rang the landline to ask the familiar question:

“Can they come out to play?”

Entire afternoons were spent riding bikes around housing estates, climbing trees, building dens, rollerblading and playing games such as hide-and-seek, Kerby with a football and British Bulldog. There were no mobile phones to check in with, and parents simply expected you home when the streetlights came on or it started to get dark.

It’s remarkable how much freedom we were given and how much trust our parents placed in us. We disappeared for hours with little more than a bike and a group of friends, creating adventures that are still remembered decades later“

Check out the new edition of ‘British Party Food Through the Decades’ shortly to read the full chapter.

Keep checking my website to see when it’s available. sianalisonauthor.wordpress.com