A life story, in their own words
Amanda records conversations about a life and writes them into a book the family keeps. Not ancestry research.
Every story is worth keeping, before it is lost.
Amanda sits down with someone you love, records relaxed conversations about the life they have lived, and writes it into a book the family keeps, in their own voice.
Lives within living memory, told by the person who lived them. This is not family-tree or ancestry research.
From £250. Nothing happens until you are sure.
Nearly every person I speak to begins by telling me that there is nothing to tell. Not one of them has been right yet.
Amanda
Seven hundred years ago a Lincolnshire lord paid for a great illuminated book. Its painters filled the bottom of the pages with the people who worked his land: threshing, ploughing, cooking, carrying. Nobody wrote their names down, but you can still see exactly how they stood.
The same honour, for the lives people remember now: wash day, the first job, the bicycle, Saturday night.
“What did your mother do all day?”
The question that opens it, from Amanda’s hundred questions.
Drawn for this concept in the manner of the Luttrell Psalter margins. Illustrative, not a real person.
“What was your first job, and what did it pay?”
The question that opens it, from Amanda’s hundred questions.
The broom is pushed the way the old book’s threshers swing their flails. Illustrative, not a real person.
“What did you drive, or how did you get about?”
The question that opens it, from Amanda’s hundred questions.
Drawn for this concept. Illustrative, not a real person.
“What did you do on a Saturday night?”
The question that opens it, from Amanda’s hundred questions.
Drawn for this concept. Illustrative, not real people.
“What do you remember about the day I was born?”
The question that opens it, from Amanda’s hundred questions.
Drawn for this concept. Illustrative, not a real person.
“Where did you go on holiday, and how did you get there?”
The question that opens it, from Amanda’s hundred questions.
Drawn for this concept. Illustrative, not real people.
“Is there anything you would like to say, while this is recording?”
The last of Amanda’s hundred questions. Every leaf before this one comes out of an afternoon like this.
Drawn for this concept. Not real people.
The questions are free: read all hundred.
Amanda handles the whole process, gently, from the first phone call to the moment it is yours to keep.
Amanda spends time with you over a series of relaxed, recorded conversations, at their pace and in their own chair. Nothing has to be ready in advance, and the things that come back a week later go in too.
There is no fixed number of sessions. It depends on the person and the story, and is agreed together on a call.
She shapes those conversations into a properly written life story, keeping the person’s own voice throughout.
Amanda records every conversation herself and writes every story herself. You see a full draft before anything is printed.
The finished story becomes exactly what you want to keep: a professionally produced hardback, the original recordings, or a digital copy.
Which of those you have is worked out with you. Amanda agrees the shape on the first call, and the price follows from it.
Most people come to this for one of three reasons. The notes in the margin are the moments that usually bring them.
For an occasion already circled. A landmark birthday, an anniversary, a retirement after forty years, or a grandchild who has just arrived.
See gift options ›Because something has changed. A parent growing more frail, a diagnosis that has shortened the timeline, or memory beginning to fade.
See what is possible ›Piecing it together from what is left. For the story that was not written down in time, built from letters, photographs and the people who remember them.
See how this can still work ›Your own story. Want to tell your own story instead, in your own words? This is for you too. Telling your own story
Free, the questions and guides. Plenty of families do this themselves, and they should. The hundred questions, the recording guide, what to do with a box of photographs or an unfinished journal: it is all here, it costs nothing, and none of it needs Amanda. Read the hundred questions
Drawn for this concept. The shape of your book is agreed with Amanda.
Not a printout in a ring binder. Something that sits on a shelf for fifty years and gets handed down.
I started on the factory floor at sixteen, sweeping metal shavings for four pounds a week, and thirty-eight years later they gave me a clock and a cup of tea in the same building. In between there was a wife, three children, a strike I still have opinions about, and more good men than bad ones. Nobody had ever asked me to say any of that out loud before, let alone write it down.
Written to show the style. Not a real client. Read all three passages
¶ What it can include. A professionally produced hardback, the edited recordings so you keep the voice as well as the words, a digital copy, and extra copies for the family from £95 each.
Amanda studied psychology, trained as a Samaritans listener and spent years as a volunteer befriender to older men and women. That is why this leans where it does: towards conversations with older relatives, memories that do not arrive neatly or in order, and the stories sitting behind a family tree.
Before this she spent fifteen years managing projects in UK advertising and marketing agencies. It is not a company with staff. It is Amanda, a recorder and a lot of hours at a desk.
No hourly rates, and nothing added later. What you end up with is worked out with you on the call, not fixed in a package.
From £250
Amanda conducts every conversation herself, from the first call to the finished book. The exact price depends on the number of sessions, worked out together on a call.
Talk to Amanda ݣ30
Answer a set of questions together, in your own time, then send the recording to Amanda. Not yet available.
About the Memory Kit ›
Here this page ends, and their story begins
Tell Amanda a little about who the story is for. There is no obligation, no pressure, and no salesperson at the end of it. Only her.
WhatsApp 07843 171332. If time is short, message Amanda; she will reply as soon as she can.