An 80th, for someone who wants nothing

Why an 80th works better than a 70th or a 90th

Not sentiment. Timing and appetite.

You know a year in advance. An 80th is planned. That is long enough for as many unhurried conversations as the story turns out to need, and then a proper piece of writing on top, which is the difference between a finished book on the day and a promise in an envelope.

They are usually well enough to enjoy the conversations. The conversations are the present. At eighty most people talk for an hour without tiring, are funny about their own lives, and have eighty years of material.

The family is already gathering. There is usually a lunch or a party, which means people who remember different things are in one room. That is the cheapest research opportunity a family ever gets.

Nobody knows what to buy. Which is why you are here.

What actually happens at that age

Two things worth knowing, because they shape how you offer it.

The first is that they will say it is a fuss and that nobody wants to hear about them. This is near universal and it is not a refusal. When they say there is nothing to tell is the whole of that conversation.

The second is that an 80th often comes with a quieter thought about being the last one who remembers something: a street, a works, a brother, a version of a town. People who will not talk about themselves will often talk about that, and it is usually where the best material is.

If several of you are giving it together

This is the normal way it happens, and it solves two problems at once. It makes the cost reasonable, and it means nobody has to be the one who decided their parent’s life was worth writing down, which some people find awkward on their own.

If several of you are putting in, say so when you get in touch and we will sort out the practical side between us.

Doing it yourself, around the party

Worth saying: an 80th is a good day to do this without me.

People who have not seen each other for years are in one room, everyone is in a good mood, and several of them remember the same things differently. An hour with a phone on the table, in a quiet corner, will get you more than any planned session.

The recording guide covers the practical side. If several people are contributing, when the family remembers it differently is the one to read first.

One caution: the party itself is a bad time for a proper conversation. Too loud, too many interruptions, everyone half-listening. The morning after is much better.

If it is a 70th, or a 90th

Same work, genuinely different conversations, which is why this page covers all three rather than pretending they are interchangeable.

A 70th usually catches somebody who is still working, or has only just stopped, and who does not think of themselves as old enough for any of this. That is an advantage. Seventy-year-olds remember detail that eighty-year-olds have started to lose, they are quicker on dates, and they will often get up and find the document rather than describe it. The obstacle is not frailty, it is that they think there is plenty of time. There usually is. It is still the best decade to do it in.

A 90th is the opposite problem. The material is extraordinary and the stamina is not. Sessions get shorter and there are more of them, and I work to whatever the person can manage on the day rather than to a fixed length. Some days work and some do not. What changes most is who else needs to be in the room: at ninety there is often nobody left who can corroborate a story, so brothers, sisters and cousins have usually gone, and the grandchildren become the people who ask. If a 90th is the occasion, do not wait for the date. Start now and let the birthday be when the book turns up.

And a 60th, since people ask: usually too early for a life story and a good moment for something narrower, a working life or one chapter, rather than the whole thing.

If yours is one of those rather than an 80th, tell me which and roughly how they are keeping. It changes how I would run it more than the number does.

Timing, honestly

If the birthday is more than six months away, everything is possible, including a finished book in their hands on the day.

If it is two or three months away, the conversations can start but the finished writing will follow the birthday. Most families are perfectly happy with this once they realise the conversations are the part that matters.

If it is weeks away, do not rush it. Give the intention, start properly afterwards, and do not turn something that should be unhurried into a deadline.