THE 90s was my decade. It was an era through which I survived tumultuous teenage years, left home, went to university, shacked up with a boyfriend, voted in a general election for the first time and embarked upon a journalism career.

In recent days, I have found myself fondly reminiscing after seeing the trailer for new Channel 4 series This Is England '90. The final instalment of the Shane Meadows penned drama sees the disenfranchised youth from This Is England '86 and '88 usher in the post-Thatcher years.

My first thought was: "Err, hello, isn't it a bit soon to be doing the nineties?" My second was: "Gah! How can it be 25 years?" My third: "Damn, I wish I had kept that pair of Reebok Pumps …"

Ah, the 90s. The bold, glorious and unabashedly in-your-face 90s. A time when the bucket hat reigned supreme, the only music considered decent arrived out of "Madchester" or Seattle, hairstyles came in three options (bowl cut, centre parting or "Rachel") and you wouldn't be seen dead leaving the house without legs engulfed in Joe Bloggs baggy flared jeans.

It was a decade that gave birth to Cool Britannia (Noel Gallagher hanging out with Tony Blair at No. 10 Downing Street), the Ladette generation (former Radio 1 DJ Zoe Ball clutching a bottle of Jack Daniels on her wedding day) and the Spice Girls (Sporty was always my favourite) whose smoke-and-mirrors brand of feminism boiled down to clumpy platform shoes and copious high-kicking antics.

Kate Moss spawned the waif look, Mark Wahlberg paraded his honed six pack in Calvin Kleins and Melinda Messenger successfully combined girl-next-door charm with Page 3 notoriety to become the nation's favourite pin-up girl. New Labour promised that Things Can Only Get Better and Bill Clinton assured us: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky."

These were simpler technological times: evenings spent waiting for a landline telephone to ring, mail came via a letterbox in the front door and the Sony Discman was king. Tamagotchi digital pets were considered the height of gadgetry sophistication.

Then there is the padlocked Pandora's Box within the 90s vault we would rather forget: Global Hypercolour T-shirts (proudly showcasing your sweat patches for the world to see), high-heeled jelly shoes (sweaty, blistered feet guaranteed before you had even left the house), tattoo choker necklaces, mood rings and butterfly clips (cringe).

The ubiquitous Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting posters on the walls of every student flat, people plonking their backsides onto sticky nightclub floors when the DJ played Sit Down by James and Channel 4's butt-clenchingly awful The Girlie Show. Hmm, maybe 25 years hasn't been long enough.