Born on 1 January 1989

Back in 1989, life felt like it was shifting gears, caught between the neon glow of the eighties and something entirely new. I remember that blistering summer—the hottest for years—where we’d sit in parched beer gardens nursing a pint of Hofmeister or a cold Tab Clear, while Jason Donovan’s ‘Too Many Broken Hearts’ seemed to drift out of every open Ford Capri window. On the telly, we were all gripped by the tragedy of the Hillsborough disaster, yet we found escape in the high-stakes drama of *Casualty* or tucked into a Findus Crispy Pancake while *The Krypton Factor* played in the background.

If you weren't at the cinema watching Batman or sobbing through *Dead Poets Society*, you were probably at home trying to master the Game Boy, which had just changed everything for us. The Berlin Wall coming down felt like the world was cracking open on the news, but in the local, we were just arguing about whether the new-fangled satellite dish on the neighbour’s house was worth the fuss. It was a year of Batmania, acid house smiley faces, and the simple, sticky joy of a Solero in the sun; a time when the future felt bright, loud, and just a little bit magical.