About Steven and Kate

STEVEN

I started secondary school in 1977, so I was a teenager in the 1980s. I remember that time very clearly. We all listened to new romantic music, wore colourful clothes and used make-up. The technology was new, and we were all interested in it. In 1984 we had our first IT lesson. We had one lesson a week and shared computers with three or four students. One student used the computer, and the others watched.
My cousin lived in London. She told me about fast-food restaurants, so I was very excited when one opened in my town. I went there for the first time in July 1982—my best friend Peter celebrated his birthday there. After that, he and I ate there once a month. I always ordered a cheeseburger, and he always ordered a hamburger. We thought it was delicious, but now I never eat fast food, and he’s a vegetarian.

KATE

I was at school in the 1990s. Boy bands like Take That were popular. My brother sang in a band with his friends – they were terrible, and they never sold a ticket. I loved the Spice Girls and listened to them on my personal CD player.
Some people had PCs in their homes, but not many. My parents bought one in 1994. It was expensive and very slow. In IT lessons, we used floppy disks. They held very little data. Our teacher talked about the Internet and email. I found it difficult to understand what the ‘world wide web’ was!
I left school in 1996 and got my first job. I saved money and bought my first mobile phone. It made phone calls, and I could text with it. However, there was no music, no photographs and no Internet access. I thought it was great! I couldn’t imagine anything better.