Writers are reunited with their younger selves and find out what life lessons they would share

Dutch artist Ard Gelinck released a series of Photo-shopped portraits last week in which the stars of the hit show Friends appeared to be reunited with their TV alter egos, 20 years on.

In some cases — not least the remarkably youthful Jennifer Aniston — it looked as though barely a year had passed between the two pictures, never mind two decades.

So if you were reunited with your younger self, what would you say to them? Here, with a little photographic trickery, we reunite writers with their younger selves and find out what life lessons they would share …

Prue Leith, 80

Restaurateur, broadcaster and writer

I’ve been looking through my office diary for 2000, amazed at how much I did in those days. I thought I was at home writing novels after selling my catering company, restaurant and cookery school, but it seems I was a veritable committee woman!

Director of Whitbread, Ashridge Management College and a venture capital trust, about to join the board of Woolworths. 

I was deeply into education, chairing a company that turned round failing state schools, setting up the Hoxton Apprentice restaurant to train disadvantaged young people for the restaurant trade, and chairing the charity I’d set up to teach cooking in schools.

I sat on the Stamp Committee, which oversees the design of British postage stamps. I was trying to get producers Tiger Aspect to make a TV series about a chef school (I failed). And lots more.

I must have been mad.

And then I realise I have learnt nothing in 20 years. Nothing about pacing myself, or sticking to my knitting, or not biting off more than I can chew.

My diary is still full. The difference is that then I was driven by interest, necessity and ambition, and I worried a lot. Now I’m driven by interest, egotism and pleasure and don’t worry at all. But I’m very grateful for a great life.

Sarah Vine, 52

Daily Mail columnist

I remember having that byline picture taken. We were told to look serious, which I seem to have interpreted as not wearing any make-up and not smiling.

My first thought is that I look like a boy — my 15-year-old son, in fact, which is a little troubling. Clearly eyebrow-threading had not then been invented, or if it had I had yet to discover it. 

And is that the merest hint of a moustache? This was around the age when my hair started thinning, hence the cropped cut. I was incredibly shy and self-conscious about my appearance because of it and look very hesitant, worried, a little lost.

The contrast with the picture taken a few weeks ago is striking. The person on the left is confident, engaged. 

No, she doesn’t have the same smooth skin — but to my mind she looks so much more relaxed, mischievous, as if she might actually have something interesting to say (which she often does, sometimes too much).

By contrast, my younger self looks rather unformed. A bit of a wallflower. Which I was.

The woman before you now is a much tougher cookie. There is a sense of a life lived and lessons learned, and of having survived with sanity and sense of humour relatively intact. 

That is not to say the shy, serious girl isn’t still in there somewhere, hidden beneath all the hair and make-up; just that she isn’t so scared any more.

Amanda Platell, 62

Daily Mail columnist

Jennifer Aniston and I have a lot in common. We both have good hair, our first marriages ended when our husbands ran off with someone hotter, and neither of us got the one thing we most desired — children.

Looking at the me of more than 20 years ago, I do see a hint of something akin to smugness, a glint in my eye, believing that the world would forever be my oyster. Odd, that, as I hate oysters.

Back then, as a newspaper executive with an eye-watering salary, more designer frocks than any woman has a right to, and an adorable fiancé I now realise I took for granted, I didn’t know what life would have in store for me.

Then, I didn’t know I would lose my older brother Michael to cancer and have to live with that endless sadness. The picture of him by my bedside that I still say goodnight to does, however, remind me to be grateful for the life I have and to live each day as if it were my last.

I also had my wonderful mum and dad. Now they are gone, too.

The other kinship I share with Jen is friendship. That’s what gets you through life, keeps you smiling, reminds you every day who you really are. Friends, a stupid name for a TV show that is still so popular decades after it ended.

Twenty years on, I still have the friends I had back then: some even from childhood, others I have gathered along the way.

Like Jen, my hairstyle has changed, lovers have been and gone, I still adore wearing red. And I know that friends are the most important people in your life.

Yes, I have a great career. I have a lovely home and designer frocks. I’ve done things Mandy from Applecreek couldn’t have dreamt of in her little bedroom in Australia.

Yet my greatest achievement, and that of which I am most proud, is my fellowship of friends.

Daisy Goodwin, 58

Author and creator of the TV series Victoria

I can’t believe how long my hair is in that picture. I think it was taken after I had my second child and I guess I hadn’t been to the hairdresser in ages. 

All I can remember of that period is how utterly focused I was on getting enough sleep. I had a big job and a small child and it was hard work.

I think my younger self would be amazed at all the things I’ve done in the past 20 years. I’ve written a memoir, three novels and four TV series. Writing was something I was only dreaming of then.

I would tell my younger self to enjoy the good bits, as they won’t last for ever — but neither does the bad stuff.

In the past few years I lost my job, my house burnt down and I got breast cancer. But I can honestly say I have found a silver lining in all of them.

I would definitely tell my younger self not to worry about the kids so much; they will turn out brilliantly. Oh, and buy paintings instead of shoes — they age better.

Jane Gordon, 62

Author

Hello, is it me I’m looking at (to paraphrase Lionel Richie)?

The shocking reality of coming face to aged-face with the woman I was 20 years ago has confirmed my belief that most of us see only what we want to when we look in the mirror. 

But upsetting as I find the contrast between her then and me now, at least I still have all my own (greying) hair, teeth and hips.

And yes, deep down I think we have quite a lot in common and that if I’d known then — as a married mum of three — what I know now (as a divorced granny), I’d probably do the same again.

Although maybe I would have been a bit more Jennifer Aniston. In fact, is it too late to ask for details of her laser treatment?

Linda Kelsey, 67

Former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine

On first seeing myself pictured with an arm around the me of 20 years ago, I grinned. We look happy together, like mother and daughter perhaps (my own mother was only 20 when she had me).

At second glance, to my surprise, I welled up. Not because I lament the way I’ve aged. A little more faded, the hairline somewhat receding, extra wrinkles masked by kind lighting, but generally I’ve done all right.

What brought the tears close to the surface was hindsight: that the joy on my face in that younger photo, taken on the day I married the father of my son, with whom I’d been living for 15 years, would not last. A few years later we split up.

Plus the knowledge that both my dear parents, who were there to celebrate with us that day, are dead.

What I want to say to the younger Linda is that the lows and inevitable losses will mount up in the next decades. But the good stuff is sure to blossom, too.

You will learn to care less what people think about you, to speak the truth rather than always wanting to be liked. Doors will close and open.

You thought you’d stay a magazine editor until retirement. Instead, you will become a novelist and embark on two degrees. You will even find new love.

With age, you will discover, there is plenty of room for growth. Try not to dread turning 50 because it will be a great decade in many ways. And the menopause is a blip, not a life sentence.

If I look pretty cheery in that recent picture, too, there is good reason. It was taken on the same day as I had my portrait taken with my half-brother, whose existence I had only just discovered — a man who turned out to be not just a dead ringer for my dad but a lovely human being.

So, young Linda, know this too. Life never runs out of surprises.

Jenni Murray, 69

Broadcaster

I’m not sure if it’s a pleasure or a pain to look back 20 years or so and see a pretty, vibrant young woman with barely a wrinkle, only the merest hint of grey hair peeking through the natural dark brown I loved and nurtured, and sparkling, laughing eyes unconcealed by the specs that, soon after, became a permanent feature of my face.

But no, I regret nothing. It’s good to be reminded that I once looked terrific with minimal artifice.

It’s also quite satisfying that a not-too-dissimilar appearance can be achieved with a good moisturiser, an effective hairdresser and the same eye make-up I’ve worn since I was a teenager.

And I’ve grown very attached to the glasses!