Thanks to my newsletter readers for sharing their reminiscences.

Breakup of Yugoslavia and reunification of Germany. Hurricane Hugo, Tiananmen Square massacre, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

I was stationed at Osan AB in South Korea from July 1990 until July 1991 working as an imagery analyst. I remember President Bush telling the North Koreans that we were still watching them despite The Gulf War. That was me. I was watching them.

Freedom. The freedom to choose how I wanted to live. I spent 1989 living on a narrowboat cruising the canals of England and Wales.

I qualified as a clinical psychologist, and took up my first professional position in the autumn of 1989. My first decision: to keep my racy Ford Fiesta XR2 (trainee lease car) or exchange it for the rather dull, but sensible Vauxhall Astra on offer with my new employer?

Margaret Thatcher cried leaving Downing Street. Paul Gascoigne cried when he was booked at the World Cup.

I took my GCSEs in 1990. I spent the rest of my time watching Italia 90 and cheering on England.

New baby, new house, new resolution to be teetotal and one of the most complicated jobs I've ever worked on.
Nothing much happened really...

Grandad in his chair, Grandma on her couch, Auntie Mah-gret kissing cheeks, telly on loud. Sticky patterned carpets, shiny foil Christmas decorations pinned to the Artex. Stale pee, plastic fruit, cousins high on crisps and juice. "Aye, a new decade," beams my Dad, raising his cigarette and whisky glass.

Closed my eyes to the signs my relationship was taking a nosedive. Found another partner once I’d come to relish living alone.