KIDS who get their GCSE results by email today will never know the fun of results day in the past. Here’s how yours played out.
Walked two miles to open an envelope
You couldn’t just open your email on your phone while lying in bed to discover your results in the 90s. No, you had to physically traipse all the way there to be handed an envelope by a teacher obviously pissed off at having to come in during the holidays. At least you got to see your mates, unlike the phone-obsessed Gen Z loners you’ve raised.
Shrugged at your results
These days there is a huge amount of pressure on young people to get incredibly high grades, but back in the 90s it didn’t seem to matter so much. Obviously you needed to get into the sixth form, but getting a couple of Cs in English and Maths was all you technically needed for university. Once you did eventually get to uni it’s not like you had to worry about paying back £45,000 tuition fees if you were actually too thick to be there.
Didn’t get chosen for the photo in the local newspaper
The only people who got chosen for the obligatory ‘jumping in the air’ photo were the kind of swingy-haired middle-class netball girls that the photographer from the local paper enjoyed perving over. You and your flared-trouser-wearing, roll-up-smoking indie mates were never going to get picked, even though you got way better grades than those PE-obsessed cretins.
Queued up at a payphone to break the news to your parents
You couldn’t text your parents, or send them a Snapchat, or record a reel. No, you had to stand in line at the single payphone outside the school reception and wait until you could phone them. And when you did, they weren’t in anyway, and you had no other way to get hold of them. Oh well, they could wait until you got home 14 hours later.
Went down the pub
Yeah, so you weren’t even 17 yet but you knew the landlord in the Crown and Anchor would turn a blind eye, despite the fact you turned up with a gang of similarly spotty little mates chattering on about starting sixth form next month. After three Archers and lemonade you ran out of cash, because you only got a fiver a week pocket money.
Head to a park with some cheap cider
After asking a strange man outside the off licence to purchase two litres of White Lightning with your remaining £2, you and your mates went to the nearest park to get thoroughly shitfaced. After you passed out, one of your mates reversed the charges in a phone box to call your mum and an important rite of passage on your great journey to adulthood ended in serious trouble and vomiting copiously.
