AFTER reading Stephen Fry’s letter to his 16-year-old self, I thought I’d have a go and write a ‘Dear Me’ circa 1975.

But I’ve come to the conclusion it would be largely a waste of time, mostly because in some ways I was wiser and more together at 16 than I am now.

Unlike me, Fry has the benefit of much wit and wisdom. And his subject matter is important, historical social comment on the development of gay pride, written to his terrified teenaged self, agonising over the pain of coming out in the horribly homophobic early-70s.

But after hours of thinking (without the aid of Fry’s enormous brain) the best I came up with was a hackneyed ‘Put your life’s savings on L’Escargot in the Grand National’.

Then I remembered that I would have been too young to bet and I had no life’s savings, because in the summer of 1975 I blew my wages from waitressing at the Corbyn Head Hotel on clothes in Pink and Blue and Come West (boutiques, both demolished to build Fleet Walk).

I’d finished O-levels and left my all-girls school and was off to ‘the Tech’ (South Devon Technical College, as it was then) to do A-levels.

My one concern that summer was ‘What am I going to wear on the first day of term?’. I couldn’t get a pair of jeans to fit my ample ass.

Now I know, at 50, looking back, that I was perfectly beautiful, as all 16-year-old girls are. And I have come to realise after decades of angst, that boys love nothing more than a curvy bum.

And I could write to my sweet sixteen-year-old self about learning to love and appreciate myself as I am and not wishing my youth away.

But I now have teenage daughters of my own and I know, from talking until I’m blue in the face, that words don’t make any difference. I spend my life telling them how perfectly beautiful they are, and they don’t believe me.

Teenage girls look in the mirror and seek out the one tiny imperfection and concentrate on whatever is wrong, not what’s right.

So my words of wisdom to myself, aged sweet sixteen, would be: ‘Tough. You’re going to have to wait another decade or so for the invention of girl-fit, designer jeans.’

It’s the reason my generation of women spent our teens, 20s and early 30s looking in changing room mirrors asking ‘Does my bum look big in this?’

Girls today have no idea how lucky they are.

Back in the mid-70s jeans were not ‘designed’. They were Levi’s or Wranglers and made for cowboys, not women with child-bearing hips. Some girls looked great in them. Those girls all had long legs, long blonde hair and an Ambre Solaire suntan so dark you’d never guess sun showers and fake tan hadn’t been invented yet.

I wasn’t one of those girls. I had big hips and a small waist and jeans just looked silly. This may all sound trivial to you, but it made my life a misery.

If you were a teenager in the 70s you had to wear jeans. There were no alternatives. The Tech was a sea of blue denim legs.

My answer then (and I’m not sure I can come up with a better one now, without interfering dangerously with the space time continuum thingy) was to find a pair two sizes too small. As long as I could get them over my knees in the dressing room, I made them fit. You had to lie on the floor and take a friend along to help do up the zip.

It wasn’t vanity. They didn’t make your bum look smaller or nicer, they just flattened it in the wrong places. And the reason girls looked as if we were slouching in our chairs was that we had to keep our bodies straight at all times. It was impossible to bend in the middle, even sitting down. Apart from anything else, it played havoc with my bowels. My descending colon was paralysed from 1975 until 1978.

Better advice would have been: ‘Colleen. Stay at the convent school and wear the ugly, comfy pleated skirts for another two years, concentrate on your studies. You’ll definitely get better A-level results.’

But would I have listened? I’m not sure. I was a teenager and I did what all teenagers do. I followed the crowd.

I liked the convent. I liked my teachers. I had a free scholarship, so my parents didn’t mind either way. And I didn’t really mind the uniform (at least in the sixth form we wouldn’t have to wear the ridiculous hats and gloves. Grey felt hats and brown leather gloves in winter. White panamas and white cotton gloves in summer. Yippee).

But my best friend was more of a rebel. Her big brother was a biker and she had a small bum and big boobs and looked great in jeans and a leather jacket. The last I heard she was still biking her way around Australia in her late 40s.

And at 16 my best friend was the most important thing in my life. If she was leaving to go to college. So was I.

We did everything together. We worked at the Corbyn Head, and the following year we got a summer job at The Grand. And I was on a night out with her when I met my husband to be.

I could write a letter to myself saying: ‘Stay away from that idiot boy playing pool at Mr Matt’s nightclub in Walnut Road in 1976.’ But if I’d listened, I wouldn’t have my three lovely children.

So here is the sum total of my lifetime’s experience: ‘Dear Me. Whatever. Everything’s fine in the end. You’ll have great kids. Love your bum.’