The 80’s…..the year of materialism and consumerism, apparently. In my teens and early twenties these were the best and worst of times. Leave home, go to college to study theatre arts, get a perm, have no clue about make up, but it was certainly bold, experiment with love and ultimately finding yourself. The essence of freedom. Away from home, doing what you want, when you want and feeling the ups and downs of love and heartbreak, disappointment,and achievements.
You waited in line to call your parents from the Halls of Residence, coin pay phone, where everyone else in line could hear your call. No mobile phones in those days, a somewhat better life, maybe even more exciting, where not everything was available at the touch of a button, where letters and postcards were still written and meet ups arranged via an actual conversation with a person. We were alive and Sunday nights were for recording the Top 40 with a cassette player, sat next to a radio. No Spotify and no streaming. If you had a Walkman cassette player with foam ears, you were cool. Needless to say, I didn’t get one until much later, late to the party as always.
I look back on the photos of us all on the that course and it was literally like something from ‘Fame’, the American Theatre and Music series. A tight little group, all different and all wanting different things, but bonded by our love of theatre, music, dance, and the arts. We wore legwarmers too, mostly fluorescent. This time came and went almost in a flash but long-termfriendships were made, a lot of us still keeping in touch. Soon it was time to pack up and think about some sense of ‘what am I going to do with my life?’ Back then, I didn’t know.
I moved to Edinburgh, it was definitely calling to me back then and I needed away from my life and roots in the Highlands and ready to branch out. I wanted more, to see more, be more and do more. I just didn’t know what. Initially I worked in a youth hostel, which was a shit job.
I shared a room/dorm with 6 others, 5 of which were Australian men. You can imagine the scene. They all snored, they all stole my alarm clock so they wouldn’t miss their shift, but I did,and we all bickered over who would clean which dorms. We had to clean the dorms, do all the bedding and laundry and fight over whose turn it was to empty the sick out of the wastepaperbuckets, which invariably was a daily chore. The dorms were inspected before being refilled and so of course we blamed others when they weren’t restored to shiny tip top conditions. Still, we got free board and the freedom to explore the city, meet lots of people from all over the World and work part time to save money for flats that we would all eventually move into. We were young and we didn’t care.
I started to work in a bar in Edinburgh, which is still there to this day, I still go to it. It was arguably one of the top bars in Edinburgh run by a team of entrepreneurs, and frequented back in the day by the Scottish Rugby team, and famous footballers, most of whom could not pronounce the bottle of Moet or Chablis that they were ordering, they were there to be seen. We couldn’t care less for any of them. We were happy and it became our social life.
During this time, I was spied by a new team, who were looking for newbies to launch new ventures and bars. My then boss put me forward for this, as I was already a supervisor and the new venture needed new fresh meat and ready to mould young Assistant Managers. I thought, cool, it’s a step up, let’s see what it’s all about. During this time, I had lived with my Canadian pal who is still a best friend today, albeit over the miles. Then, I lived with my boyfriend, in a shared flat, with 2 other couples. Some shocking memories of that time. One the flatmates (male) used to get so drunk that we would go to the toilet in the cupboard, and I’m not just talking wee wees!
He would appear shamefaced the next afternoon with a bucket and disinfectant whilst we rolled about laughing. And imagine actually repeating that behaviour several times over. He would spilt up with his girlfriend every time and then the next day she forgave him and was back.
This boyfriend would go on to break my heart. The cleaner at the old bar told me that he found him in a ‘compromising position with his jeans around his ankles, in a cleaning cupboard with one of the managers’. That was the end of that, although proper love and heartache, it took me ages to get over it. I watched hours of Friends on tv as this was what everyone watched. The ‘Rachel’ haircut was popular for years and scrunchie’s were an actual trend. Grunge came into its own and those awful baggy trousers and the skater look. We didn’t wear heels, we wore trainers or big chunky boots. People had answer machines and Mario games were all the rage.
The internet, google and amazon began, you dialled into your PC that took ages to warm up! Gail Porters bum was beamed on to the houses of parliament and Brit Pop was huge. Think Blur, Oasis, Suede and Pulp all dominated the music scene along with the emergence of Girl Power….The Spice Girls. There was mental music too like The Chemical Brothers, the Prodigy and The Shamen (E’s are good!). TV was big and we watched Twin Peaks, The X Files, The fresh Prince of Bel Air, Beverly Hills 90210, Will and Grace and of course our Favourite Sex in the City.
Enter the scene, the arrival of my bestie. We met at work, and both quickly became Assistant Managers, we were similar, we looked like sisters (we still get this now!), were both from Inverness, although didn’t know it as I was 4 years older, but absolutely not wiser, for the record. We clicked instantly and got up to ALL sorts.
We liked the same things, but thankfully we liked different types of men so never fell out over boyfriends. We quickly became pretty inseparable, we both had other friends of course, but stuck like glue, fiercely protective of each other.
I mean if I said we were a force to be reckoned with it would be an understatement. We would shimmy about at work in our little power suits and short skirts, telling all the boys what to do. We lived at each other’s flats and poured over Sex and the City, drinking cheap wine, trying to decide which character we would be, both wanting to be Carrie!
We fell in love with Mr Big and all that those big 90’s romances depicted. So this is what love is……or wasn’t as it turned out. We both dipped in and out of relationships and honest to god, the amount of random snogs (we called it that, back in the day) in dark nightclubs was insane. We were quite loose as it turns out. I should say at this point that we were a management team of 5 at the bar. Me, bestie, 2 other guys around our age and top man who we called Bombo Chipolata, I mean, does it need explaining? It’s really not what you think. It was something off a TV show that Ulrika Johnson used to host I think. The other 2 we called Skeg and Girly Bum. Likely no need for explanation there either. And interestingly enough we both snogged them both. We treated them like a throw away night out, but they definitely wanted more of a relationship than we ever did. We still cringe to this day. We were all pals though and that’s what mattered. We did each other’s shifts, picked up the pieces when things weren’t good and were a great team. We, the girls, always outshone the boys though and I have that on good authority.
It was during these times that we went out straight from work a lot. We would lock up, have a couple of drinks – usually beer, cider or big at the time – the alcopops, mostly Ginzingand horrendously sugary drinks like that. A quick change and we were off to the dark side, the clubs in the Cowgate. Our favourite haunt was The Subway.
We went every weekend and sometimes during the week. We wore jeans – bestie was cool and wore leather trousers, which we could never share as she was taller with longer legs, the bitch. However, we shared everything else. We wore tight t-shirts that were sometimes cropped as we were also thin back then, pre kids. We had similar hair and that was sometimes long and sometimes crop short as was the fashion at points in the 90’s. We wore glitter on our face and trainers on our feet. We knew the bouncers and always jumped the queue.
We banged into the same people, all of whom we gave names. One in particular was a guy who was always there – we called him The Bug Man. He had big bug eyes and smelt of potatoes. He of course recognised us and we always had a tokenistic dance with him, usually to the Spice Girls – Spice Up Your Life. I don’t think we ever left each other and went home with any guys, although we did of course exchange numbers with people, we always gave our number, but didn’t take the guys. Of course, still no mobile phones at this point. Sometimes we gave our number as the same flat number so we could die laughing at the answer machine messages they often left.
We would play them over and over again and scrutinise then, analysing it and wondering if they were cool people or not. One time a guy left a message for bestie, asking to meet up that night. I got to the message before she was over to the flat. I called him back and pretended to be bestie and arranged to meet that night. She really wanted to go, so I was merely helping! The absolute nonsense of it all! We called him Billy, Billy Zane, as that was who he looked like. Turns out Mr Zane had no chat and was boring so there was no second date, even though he was aesthetically pleasing.
We were both absolute risk-taking minxes and there’s more. At one point bestie had a boyfriend, one that arguably she wanted to move on from. She was being hit on by the guy that installed the computer system at the bar. The flirting became mutual.
They had a drink after work one night and had a couple of dinners out, he was much older, and it was all quite a thrill. Her boyfriend called the flat one night to speak to her, as she often stayed at mine etc. I told him she was in the bath with period pains because no one is going to argue that are they? She was, in fact, in a hotel room in Aberdeen, waiting on the computer guy to arrive, where they spent the night! Oh so naughty and very Sex and the City! I don’t honestly think I can put into words what we called him. It was rude. Let’s leave it there. Of course, like all these things, it petered out. That never stopped us looking up all these people later in life when Facebook became a thing! Honest to God!
We literally never answered the house phone, we always let it go to answer machine so we could screen the calls. One of the reasons for this was that our boss Bombo, was always hounding us and leaving messages about bloody weekend rugby beer orders, the alarm going off in the pub, or where were we, like we were at his beck and call. We weren’t of course, but he liked to think we were. Sometimes, we took it in turn to be on call for the alarm people, at the bars, if the alarm went off or someone tried to break in, as did happen a couple of times, however, we let it go to answer machine and always got into trouble but also always got away with it. He called us ‘his girls’ and at one point his wife was quite frosty as a rumour started that bestie was having an affair with Bombo.
I mean, I can categorically say she was not, and we never found out how that started. She was fuming of course, saying she wouldn’t touch him if he was the last man on earth and she meant it too. I could see why the rumour started though, bestie was a wee slice and a personality to match, and at one point she went to London with Bombo and Fat Ell (one of the owners) to scope out new pubs and eateries for the growing business. I think the rumour started there. She had her own hotel room and was constantly on the phone to me with the updates.Hilarious.
She also dated The Veg Man. Nothing to do with his veg I may add. He was cute and delivered the veg to the bar for the restaurant part. We used to get drunk and leave huge longwinded voice messages on his answer machine, as that was how we ordered the veg, and asked for extra large marrows. Even the notion. However, he had a twitch that she couldn’t see past and he was rude to her, insinuating she wasn’t clever, when in fact she was very much so and he was full of his own self-importance, another one bites the dust. Another lucky escape as he hasn’t aged well. Bless.
One night in particular at the night club, I met a very handsome, muscley guy (not in fact my type, if we even had a type then). We had a few snogs in the club and we all went back to my flat. We called him Mike the Bike, he was apparently called Mike and he was a personal trainer. He had a pal with him, who bestie definitely wasn’t into to. It became clear on arrival that the flat that we were calling it a night, we both had work the next day and were now managing in 2 different bar/restaurants. Cute muscle man left and his drunk pal fell asleep on the sofa. By the next morning, the drunk guy was no where to be seen but left us a present – he peed on the sofa, which was soaked and stinking. No wonder he left. Absolutely raging and on my new Habitat throw. Manky bastard.
After that night out we went to our separate bars to open up, likely meeting up after work, at one of the pubs. I was just setting things up, whenthe fax machine pinged. Yes, it was also the era of the fax machine. Sometimes we would write each notes and fax them to each other. This was not one of those faxes. This was a whole page spread in a Scottish newspaper. On the picture was Mike the Bike who was in town for some event and it turns out he was the personal trainer for Gwen Stefani and her band No Doubt! You actually couldn’t write it. I had snogged him in the nightclub the night before, and he had come back to the flat. Thank God, nothing else happened. It was literally all me and bestie spoke about for weeks. And we actually both quite liked the band.
Due to no dating apps and no mobile phones, we took out ads in a popular music magazine called The List. They had sections for people leaving messages in either Edinburgh or Glasgow. It was called ‘I saw You’. We were constantly writing messages in that sounded like this……..’Hi gorgeous…you, tight jeans, blonde hair, white tshirt…..me, glitter face and bam bam hairdo…going back to the Subway on Sunday for more of the same?xxx’. Oh the laughs and it was a way of having encounters with people, and trying to repeat that experience. Madness. Sometimes we put them in for other people and didn’t tell them!
So many good times, we replicated our very own Edinburgh based version of Sex and City and more. We worked and played hard, went out, drank wine, danced and got up and did it all again. Of course, we’re older now, still besties although busier, with our different things, marriages and kids but we still reminisce and can remember the detail of a lot. Good timesand amazing memories. I’d like to point out that we are slightly better behaved now, but only slightly. If we go on holiday, just the girls, we still do drunk, knock and run in the hotel! How old? Bestie always instigates though. All her fault.
NEXT UP – Life with changing your path.
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