The 1990s were Britain’s sunset years

A myth seems to be developing about the 1990s. In a recent programme on Disney Plus called In Vogue: The 90s, a series of talking heads rhapsodise about the decade. ‘God, the 90s just changed everything,’ oozes Hamish Bowles, a fashion journalist. ‘It was a great time to be alive, it really felt like a revolution was underway,’ says model and actor Tyler Beckford. ‘Wow – what does the 90s mean to me?’ asks Naomi Campbell, suggesting it’s almost too vast a question to answer.

Outside the programme, others seem to agree. ‘The 90s were the best decade ever – a time of real fun, freedom and abandon,’ says a recent article in the Irish Mirror. Novelist Bret Easton Ellis adds: ‘They were completely awesome all the way round, from movies, to music to…just freedom. It was freedom.’

Listening to the gush of this nostalgia, I can’t help wondering, did these people and I live through the same decade? Because the 1990s, as I remember them, were almost unremittingly dull.