Pollsters are yet to officially confirm it - but all the indications are that Britain's general election 2017 was a fight between young and old.

According to an election day survey by Lord Ashcroft, two-thirds of 18-24 year olds voted for Labour, as did more than half of those aged 25 to 34 - while the over 55s broke for the Conservatives.

More significantly, the youth turnout was anecdotally much, much higher than it has been in recent years.

Voting by age

There are not yet official figures, but unofficial figures shared on social media ranged from 48% to 72% for the under-25s - compared with a 2015 turnout of 43%.

This matches a large growth in enrolment among young people, following a strong registration drive on social networks such as Facebook and Snapchat, with musicians such as grime artist JME urging people to register.

These two trends - more young voters than 2015, who were more likely to vote for Labour - drove some huge swings to Labour.

One of the most astonishing was Canterbury - which held the Guinness World Record for the longest time held by the same party.

The Conservatives and their earlier counterparts held it for 160 years, but Labour snatched it away on Thursday by just 187 votes.

The Tories said the seat had been taken away by students in this university campus city attracted by Labour's promise to scrap tuition fees. But locals interviewed by the Guardian said the appeal of Corbyn's Labour was much broader than raw self-interest.

Similar results popped up across the country: where young voters were concentrated, Labour swings rose - the pattern was repeated in Bristol, Cardiff, Ipswich, Warwick and Leeds, often resulting in Labour gains.

The result was foreseen by Survation - the pollster whose prediction of a hung parliament was widely dismissed before the election, but which stuck to its guns.

In a blog post defending their figures just days before the vote, Survation CEO Damian Lyons Lowe said he had found an "unusual voting intention boost among the 18-24s" - more young people than usual were telling them they were 'absolutely certain' to vote.

Other pollsters refused to believe them, and mapped their predictions onto 2015 turnouts.

But Survation decided to take them at their word. And they found that these groups were much, much more likely to back Labour.

"There is some evidence the younger voters will play a more crucial and active role in this election," Lowe wrote ahead of the election. He noted that it wasn't unreasonable, as Labour had a "retail offer" for younger voters on tuition fees.

This generational divide was seen last year too, in the Brexit referendum where 75% of the under-25s voted Remain.

But in that case, turnout of that demographic was a long way below that of the retirees - an astonishing 90% of over-65s voted. There simply weren't enough young people in the country to compensate.

This time, there were.

And Labour MP Catherine West believes it was about more than just the fees. It was the change in Labour's campaign, inspired by Corbyn's deliberate focus on idealism and hope rather than retail politics.

"The way we campaigned was person to person rather than the more robotic approach from the Tories," she told Fairfax. "Young people were telling other young people to vote on Facebook. It was quite a breakthrough for a campaign that is often quite old fashioned, using old media.

"The swelling number of people going out to vote I think was quite a new element. Particularly in large young populations we saw that surge."

West doesn't put it all down to youth. She believes the Conservative manifesto 'dementia tax' scared off a lot of older potential Tory voters.

The growing age gap

The rise of the generation gap was also seen coming by Strathclyde university's Prof John Curtice.

A week before the election, he said polls were showing a "very remarkable" breaking of young people to Labour and old to the Tories - at a level much greater than in 2015.

"The Corbynista strategy was avowedly to persuade young people to vote Labour and to turn out," he said.

He had seen the first part of the plan work: on election night he saw the second.

In England and Wales there was only a 2.5% swing to Labour in seats where less than 7% of the population was aged 18-24.

But in seats where at least one in 10 voters were under 25, there was a swing of 5%.

On the other hand, only 15 of Labour's 35 gains had more 18-24 year olds than average, so there were clearly other factors at work on the night.

It may seem like good news for Labour.

But former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, who lost his seat in the election to Labour, used his concession speech to warn of the consequences of this demographic divide.

The next parliament, he said, would be "presiding over a deeply, deeply divided and polarised nation".

"We saw that in the Brexit referendum and we see it here again tonight - polarised between left and right, between different regions and nations and areas of the country.

"But most gravely of all, this huge gulf now between young and old.

"My only plea from me to all MPs is this??? that we will not pick our way through the very difficult times that our country faces if MPs simply seek to amplify what divides them. We must try to reach out to each other.

"We've got to heal those profound divisions. If we do not our country will endure unprecedented hardship and difficulties."