Tanya Sweeney: 'Music is the closest thing we have to actual time travel. A song doesn't just remind you of who you once were; it seems to summon her'

"Recently, I had reason to dust off a very interesting memory from secondary school. It was in the locker room before gym - always a moment of compromise, given the element of partial undress - when a girl, let's call her Gemma, rounded on me. What Gemma lacked in physical stature, she more than made up for with haughty imperiousness. And this time, she had a pack of other girls with her."

"Her eyes rounded, narrowing, on my yellow canvas satchel, with dozens of band names scrawled over it in black permanent marker. There were a few attempts to create the logos of bands like Nirvana or Soundgarden, but I'm no artist. It was a mess, but it was my glorious, little mess, and I loved that bag (would some clever Irish designer not resurrect this genuine piece of 1990s iconography? Anyway)."

An adult revisits a vivid secondary-school memory set in a locker room before gym. A small but imperious girl named Gemma, accompanied by other girls, confronts the student. Gemma fixates on a yellow canvas satchel covered in dozens of band names scrawled in black permanent marker. Attempts to recreate band logos like Nirvana and Soundgarden appear on the bag despite imperfect artistry. The satchel represents a cherished, messy emblem of 1990s music fandom and personal identity. The narrator expresses affection for the bag and notes its authentic period character and the pull of nostalgic design revival.

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