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As The Inbetweeners, the film about a guys-only vacation, opens with record box office, four British comedians call their own youthful journeys

LUCY PORTER

When I was 16, my friend persuaded her uncle to give Caramel a group of us to his Spanish villa. We were all very shy girl and not so popular at home, so we thought we could get abroad and tanned boys kissing. We had a lot of planning meetings and I have our travel documents in a folder with "Five Go Mad in Marbella" in bubble letters on the front. Unfortunately, the mansion wasn 't really in Marbella, it was miles out, on a steep hill. Thanks to my employee discount at Ravel, we 'd bought all new plastic sandals. We went into town once and were crippled.

Then we stayed put and tried to bask, but the place was littered with flying and retired British police officer next door asked if we were lesbians. For evening entertainment there was a novel that had been left behind in the House - James Clavell 's Shogun . I can still recite passages of me today.

Finally, we have decided one night, but because we 'd have all of our planning meetings to talk about boys, we hadn' t worked out our budget. B y the time we 'd taken a taxi into Marbella and eaten chicken and french fries, nearly all our money has been blown. We went to a bar, all divided, Bacardi and Coke and got a few guys from Preston chatted. The boys told us they would go home, but she accidentally broke a patio door repairs, for which we had to pay even months after we released her back. I snog one of them, though, so overall I thought it was a very successful holiday.

Shazia Mirza

I had a very sheltered. The most exciting thing we ever did was to go on holiday to Wales with my parents when I was six years old, staying in a caravan for four days. I had always planned and dreamed that when I got all the freedom that I would go somewhere really exciting, Judith Chalmers had anywhere.

I used a ice cream parlor, as a student and two guys with whom I worked looked like John Lennon and Paul McCartney. They were hippies, peace in the world, had beards and guitars and would go to Amsterdam every couple of months. She told me stories and show me pictures how great it was. I was curious and desperate to go.

None of my friends was available, so I went by myself for five days. I didn 't know the city at all, hadn' ta clue is where I'll stay to speak 't Dutch and didn' couldn \ t know what is legal and what wasn 't. I was in a Youth Hostel, which in retrospect like a prison cell, but at the time I thought it was really exciting, I like '\ d never been before a bunk bed with a stranger in a red-light area is divided.

I was fascinated by everything I saw. Every night I walked around the red-light area and stared at the women in the windows. They learned to know me and I thought I knew them. Such a night I have my camera out and began to photograph, so I could show my friends back home. Suddenly, the woman jumped from her window and ran after me through the red light area, which run all their friends too. There were about 20 women in their underwear running after me on one channel, shouting and screaming. Then a huge man with gold teeth and a Rottweiler came out of nowhere. All around me and shouted: "camera" I handed the camera, and they took from the film and threw it into the water.

I was so shaken I went to a coffee shop to have some tea and calm down. I bought a piece of cake to have with my tea, but didn't realise this was "Space Cake" and had grass in. It tasted nice but I felt really strange, so I decided to go on a boat ride to get some fresh air. On the boat, my head started spinning, and I tried to get off, while the boat was in mid-flow; the driver pulled me back by my Afghan coat to stop me falling in and I was carried to the nearest pavement.

In retrospect, I can not believe 't how brave I was. Brave, fearless, independent, or just plain stupid? I don 't know which. But I 'd never do that now. I had a sense of adventure and curiosity, which worsens with age - there 'rescue is a shame, but also life.

ISY Suttie

It was the summer after my freshman year in Guildford School of Acting, and I went with my Slovenian friend, Majita, and her mother stay in a place called Nova Gorica for two weeks. One of the worst moments was when we went to the river and she and her friends just took all her clothes off - men and women - and got in. You 'd been talking about doing this, but because I hadn' t they understood it came as a shock. I thought: "There is no way I 'm doing that \." I went so far as my trousers rolled.

All my baggage to Vienna instead sent to Slovenia, so that for the first few days I had this extra-large T-shirt with the Slovenian airline logo on it and a pair of shorts, Majita me.At was one point I was walking the street wear down, wearing my big airline T-shirt and shorts, cigarette in hand. Majita later said to me, it was all over the city, that I was a prostitute away, because no women smoked in Nova Gorica on the streets if they were prostitutes. I said to her, "Why 't you tell me before I got \?" I was really upset about it.

We had another argument, if we talk about beauty. "Your face ..." she said and then she looked me in the face for ages. "It 's like your eyes are of a face, the nose of a different face and your mouth is from a different face." I'm really excited. She felt that the English were too sensitive, because in Slovenia, they say what they think.

One day we went to the top of a castle in the village and I was so drunk, I started talking to the moon. I lay down on a wall, saw the moon, and almost fell out. I could have died.

Majita and her friends wanted to introduce myself only to their lifestyle, but I suspect it is really difficult was so drunk and then not be able to be understood by everyone, so I 'd end up feeling quite alone. I spent a lot of time daydreaming and I were planning a new image for me, braiding my hair in a lot of threads involved. These daydreams were "\ special place" a \ I would go if the people were talking and I could 't really understand everything that was going on.

Majita and I are still friends, but it was just this feeling, sometimes stranded if you couldn 't sense of anything.

Stephen K Amos

Hoover did so much amazing, where if you bought one of his vaccuum cleaner you two free round-trip ticket to New York. I was one of the many hundreds of thousands of people who went out and bought a Hoover for this reason. I think it's around £ 150 and two return flights to New York were probably costs about £ 500 per time. It was a PR stunt, which really go backwards. It is almost bankrupted the company.

It was my first time to New York and I took my younger brother. I was 19 and he was 16. It was everything I could have dreamed would be New York - yellow taxis, the people hanging out of the subway, the great lights of Broadway and the shady characters around drinking beer from brown paper bags. It was like being on a movie set.

A very good friend of mine had emigrated to New York from England and was living on 34th Street, just from the Empire State Building. So we stayed at his home on the living room floor. By coincidence, a woman named Delphine Manfield was staying at the same time. It 's the person who first said to me: "Oh my God, you' She was opening a comedy club in Putney, southwest London, and again really funny Have you ever thought about standup comedy \?" Big Fish called and told me to come. That 's how I got my first standup comedy gig.

We did all the touristy things - shopping for Levi's, wandering round Macy's, eating humungous pizzas and visiting Staten Island on the ferry.

I was used on the subway on the way, but nothing prepared me for the New York subway. It was a big maze. I remember one day I lost my brother after a dispute arose and panic. But 45 minutes later I found him, to his relief!

China Town was huge and I inevitably lost because all the street names were in Chinese. I went into a store and asked for Coke and always got the look of disgust, because they call it soda there. The shop owner thought I was looking for something else.

I also tried the clubs. It was in the days before former Mayor cleaned it up, it gave off a lot of meanness.

We stayed for 10 days and the ride feel like a bona fide adult. It was the whole process of manufacture make your own decisions, stay late and do not cause concern, say what someone wanted. There was no one there to tell me what to do.