Tag: Teen

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Just a Saturday Girl #TeenInThe90s

Cece Beyer

We all had Saturday jobs in the 90s.  My first foray into work was Saturday girl in an old lady shop that sold tea-towels and big bras.  I think I earned £15 a day which was given to me in a brown envelope at the end of every shift.  It was the most money in the world.  That with a mix of baby-sitting and waitressing, were my first footsteps into the world of work.

Then when I was 16, in between my obsessions and homework, I managed to hold down a regular evening and weekend job at a popular men’s fashion store in Ilford.

My job came an extension of my social life.  I got paid somewhere around £4.50 an hour to talk to ‘fit’ customers, visiting school friends and colleagues,  and on occasion, I even folded Tshirts. Untitled design (6)

Ilford was hardly a style mecca and the men’s shop I worked in was basically the best of a very limited offer.  Popular for the  choice of Ben Sherman shirts, 501s and Kickers shoes,  it tried desperately to be hip and trendy.   Management sent us tape cassettes full of eclectic mixes of LL Cool J, St Etienne and the Cardigans – horrible mixes that everyone in the store hated, staff and customers alike.

There was a lot a lot or romance going on in the stock room.  I remember taking the rubbish out with a colleague and having an illicit snog in the lift on our way to the big rubbish bins. It was the first time ever I got paid to do something I shouldn’t and it felt great.

Even better was that a lot of mates worked in the neighbouring stores. We’d go and stand over the other’s till and gossip right through lunch-break and then later get dressed for a night out in the mall toilets.

I made so many friends through my Saturday job, that when I look back now, some of those Saturdays and Wednesday evenings, even the Boxing Days and Christmas Eves, these days are as important to me as those spent at school or on nights out.   Somewhere subconsciously I was picking up life-skills as well as having a great time with great people.  And true story – my husband always asks me to fold his jeans and T-Shirts for him as he likes my ‘professional’ style.   All that training finally paid off.

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*The 96 diary entry above makes me sound like the ‘bitter bitch’ – not the girl I was referring to. The poor girl had done nothing wrong but be my ex-boyfriend’s next girlfriend. She was actually lovely but I had to maintain an irrational hatred for her.  Sorry! 

If you’re wondering how much the 90’s high-street has changed from the high-street we love today, the answer’s not much.  Sure we lost Our Price and Woolworths, but the River Island, Debenhams, Burger King – the big hitters – they still all reign supreme.

If you like YA and are interested in reading more of my insignificant ramblings, then why not sign up to Beta read my first novel – whooohooo. Who knows, you might just like it (if you hate it then keep it to yourself). 

Writing

90s Indie clubs – The Island Ilford. Part 1

Cece Beyer

In 1996, I spent a lot of my time thinking and obsessing about Friday nights at an indie club tucked around the back of Ilford.  A barely converted cinema, with two levels of alternative music and cheap drink.  It was a magical place where anything could happen.

I grew up in this weird little corner of the world where London meets Essex. My early clubbing experiences involved bright coloured mini skirts and getting off with boys in pastel coloured shirts and curtains. But in May of 96, a much cooler friend took me with her to Supersonic, an indie/rock night that changed my life.

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I was late to the party.   Before the bibity-bops of indie took over, the club belonged to ‘Alcatraz’ a heavier rock and grunge night.    I’m kind of glad I missed it.   Making the transition from dance to indie wasn’t easy, and Supersonic was just the right balance of kitsch, disco and heartache to make me feel at home.

The folk at The Island were special. When I was sixteen, kids at my school,  spent a lot of time trying to look like replicas of each other, but not there. Within those walls we knew no uniform, Doctor Martin’s , big (fake) fur coats, black lace, black T-shirts, 70s flares, Adidas tracksuits, lumberjack shirts, 60s miniskirts, you could be whoever you wanted to be.

Downstairs was indie poppy – your Blur/Oasis fare with an 11 o’clock party mega-mix normally including Abba, Madness and Dexy’s midnight runners (who didn’t loose their shit to ‘Come on Eileen’?) .

It was massive, there was a dance floor that went on for ever and a large bar that stretched the whole of the downstairs, serving cheap Jack Dee with Coke and Snakebite- purple fizz that made you feel like a child and an adult all at once.

Upstairs was for a different crowd. The smaller space thrust with metal and rock, hard kids with attitudes, their long hair flying and chains jangling, as they jumped in the air.

The stairs themselves were hideaways – you could get lost under them or fall in love or fall in sex or fall in whatever.

I fell in love countless times on a Friday night. The Island was a pick and mix of surfer dudes and grungers, brit-poppers and rockers.  My favourite was a boy with spiky black hair, a 70s shirt,   jeans with chains and eyeliner…he once played a Green Day song on his guitar down the phone to me.   I hope he never got old.

A night at The Island cost £10 tops.  We’d bus it there, walk it home, get drunk before we walked in.     They were the best times of my life.

As well as being the best 90s club, The Island was also a popular music venue and bands that performed there included:

Oasis

Babybird

Sleeper

Mansun

Hey 90s kids, if you love like Indie, 90s and YA, you’ll love my book A Future Somewhere.

You can read the first chapter here  ! Check out the coolest book trailer in the world below and then READ THE BOOK!

Many thanks to Gideon S Fields for the trailer – you can check out more of his work here.

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90s Indie-girl influences – in movies

Cece Beyer

Whilst my tongue may be a little in cheek when writing the film briefs below, I never want to undermine the role of alternative women in 90s film. They inspired and included girls like me, who felt isolated by popular culture’s myth of beauty (think Baywatch).  However whilst reflecting on this blog, it irked me a little, that most girls on this list turned out to be dangerous, evil or psychotic.  These characters helped me explore my individuality, that I carried through to adulthood and explore in my own writing.    My generation are now creating more positive alternative role models for young women, and turning the world on its head.  Continue reading “90s Indie-girl influences – in movies” →

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Girl Sour Girl Power

Cece Beyer

Copy of teen in the 90s (1).png“Claire, Claire! You’ve got to see this.” First year of 6th form, 1996. I’m at my friend Sunita’s house and she’s flipping out about some music video just starting on ‘The Box’.   My eyes leave my sociology homework and follow my mate’s. She looks like she’s about to burst into flames.  Bright colours, short skirts, massive heels,  “Claire they’re amazing, can you believe how good they are?”

And that was my introduction to the Spice Girls, the 90’s sensation that bewitched Sunita and the rest of the Just 17 readership, with their colourful boob tubes and platform heels, citing ‘Girl Power’ as their mantra;  heroines to generations of girls and woman who thought they’d never been heard before.

What the…?   These girls had obviously never been to The Island, Ilford on a Friday night.

Girls that went to rock clubs and indie nights, we knew where it was at.    The Spice Girls changed the face of pop-music, but they didn’t change my life.   Here’s to the girls that did….

Courtney Love

“And the sky was all amythest, and all the stars look just like little fish.” On the first listen this song tore out my insides and then stomped all over them, the next time I heard it, it sounded more like a lullaby.

“They get what they want and they never want it again.”   A lullaby for the girl who at 16 just wanted to be pretty and sweet, and everything she thought boys wanted.  Fed on a diet of Saved By The Bell and Beverly Hills 90210, I thought the secret to finding love was to look like an angel and act like a whore.   My heart broke a million times over and Courtney was with me screaming about it.

Skin

I used to dance around my bedroom crawling along the floor to this one.  Skin was the embodiment of strong and powerful, yet she sang a song called ‘Weak.’

What it means to me, is that you can be the strongest person in the world but you can be weak at the same time.  You can be strong, you can be weak, you can be strong you can be weak, different sides of the same coin.

“In this tainted soul, in this weak young heart am I too much for you?”

Bjork

Oh Bjork, you were cool at my school because no-one had a clue what you were going on about and we loved it.   I used to do my hair in those tiny twisty ponytails and people used to point at me.   I didn’t care Bjork.

Sidenote – Iceland is one of the coolest countries on the planet.  There are some cool Iceland facts here.

Gwen Stefani

When this song came on in the club,  it was proper lose your shit time.     I perfected a dance that centred around an aggressive side-nod with my hands held tightly behind my back, thrusting my chest forward.

Cerys Matthews

I’m a girl born and bred in that corner of the world where Essex meets East London, but I have the soul of a Welshman, and Cerys is its siren.

Sickly sweet, yet witty and bitter, its all in the juxtaposition.

To me, Girl Power was never about Union Jack dresses and platform shoes.  It was the strong and the weird and the hurt, it was the depraved and the mad and the angry and the weak.

If you like to read and YA’s your thing why not sign up to beta-read my debut novel, A Future Somewhere.