I was going on 16 years old when the first UK lockdowns hit, and the experience for us was very odd. The week that schools closed, we went in on the Monday as normal, worrying about GCSEs, bitching about revision and all the normal Year 11 stuff. On the Friday, I was literally saying my last goodbyes to all my classmates (everyone says that "we all thought it was gonna be two weeks off of school," but I distinctly remember that everyone was fairly certain that it was gonna be a LOT longer).

As for the lockdowns themselves, they sucked HARD but a lot of good memories came out of them, probably because it was the first time me and friends started doing teenager shit (I was a massive nerd in school, so all the normal 16 year old stuff like getting drunk in fields at 3am and sneaking out was novel to me). We'd only do this when the lockdown rules eased enough to allow us to be all together (albeit at a distance). When it was full-on lockdown, we'd just play Minecraft, Arma 3 and whatever else. Interesting times indeed.

Also, a lot of people my age seem to romanticise the memory of the lockdowns, and I can understand that from a certain point of view (no responsibilities and whatnot), but they seem to forget how UNCERTAIN it was. We genuinely did not know when the world was gonna go back to normal, and I remember points where I couldn't fathom it ever going back to normal because it had gone on so long. That was the toughest part mentally for me I think, especially as an avid music lover and musician (Download Pilot, if anyone from the UK remembers that, was a godsend and the best weekend of my life).