Nothing is wrong. They are just older than they were, and you have started to notice which questions you have never asked.
You do not need a reason, a diagnosis or a deadline to start. The best time to record a parent's story is while nothing is wrong, because the conversations are easier, longer and funnier than they will ever be later. Start with one afternoon and one theme rather than a plan to capture everything.
If this is why you are here
- A parent repeats a story you have heard before, and this time you notice.
- They mention a name you do not recognise and you do not ask.
- Nothing is wrong exactly. You have just started counting.
The thing people notice first
It is rarely dramatic. A parent repeats a story. They mention a name you do not recognise. They talk about a job you realise you have never understood, or a brother nobody mentions. You catch yourself thinking, I should ask about that properly, and then you do not, because there is no particular reason to do it this week rather than next year.
That is the whole of it. Not a crisis. Just the first sense that the answers are finite.
Why now is better than later
The conversations are better. Someone who is well talks for an hour without tiring, goes off on tangents, contradicts themselves, laughs at their own stories. That is the raw material that makes a story readable. Later, the same questions get shorter answers.
You can do it slowly. Three conversations over two months is a completely different experience from four conversations crammed into a fortnight because something has changed. The gaps are where people remember things.
They will enjoy it. This surprises families. It is usually the first time in years that somebody has sat down and asked an older person about themselves for an hour, with no other agenda.
Nothing has to be decided. Starting does not commit you to a book, a price or a project. A recording on a phone is a start.
Where to actually begin
Do not begin with their life. Begin with one thing.
Pick a single theme, not the whole story: the house they grew up in, the first job, how they met. Forty minutes. The hundred questions are grouped by theme for exactly this, so you can take one section and leave the rest.
Record it, even badly. A phone on the table is enough, and the recording guide covers the five things that make the difference between a usable recording and an echoey one.
Then stop. Whatever you get in the second sitting is usually better, because the days in between do the work.
If they are moving house or into care
A move brings this forward whether you planned it or not. The house gets cleared, and the objects go with it: the tins, the photographs in the wrong boxes, the thing on the mantelpiece nobody could explain.
Two practical things, if you are in the middle of a move:
Photograph everything before it leaves, including the rooms themselves. It takes twenty minutes and it becomes the best set of prompts you will ever have.
Ask about objects while they are still in their hands. “What is this, and where did it come from?” gets an answer that “tell me about the old house” never will. Do this before it is packed, not after.
The move itself is usually a bad week for a long conversation. Do the photographs now and the talking a month later, when everyone has stopped lifting boxes.
The mistake almost everyone makes
Waiting for a better time. There is never a better time, because the reason you are reading this is that the good time is already passing.
The second mistake is trying to do all of it. Families decide to record their father’s whole life, realise that is a project, and never start. One afternoon and one theme is not a compromise. It is the method.
If you would rather not do it yourself
Some families would rather someone from outside the family sat in the chair. Less history in the room, no habit of who interrupts whom, and a parent who performs slightly less than they do for their own children.
That is what I do: I record the conversations and write them into a story you keep. How it works explains the process, and there is no obligation in asking.