StoryPromptFamily stories: everything we know, free
Question lists, conversation guides, and honest advice about recording a life — written to be genuinely useful whether or not you ever buy anything from us.
Questions to ask
Specific questions that get real answers, rather than the shrug that “tell me about your life” earns.
100 questions to ask your grandparents
Most lists of these are American, generic, and answered in four words. These are written to open a door — and grouped so you can work through them one visit at a time.
80 questions to ask your parents
Asking your own parents is harder than asking a grandparent. You already know the official version, and there’s more at stake in the gaps.
Questions to ask about National Service
A two-minute silence on Remembrance Sunday isn't a conversation. If there's someone in the family who was actually called up, the conversation is worth having well before then.
Questions to ask about the Second World War
Not a history lesson. Questions about what the war was actually like for the person in front of you, asked while there's still someone who can answer firsthand.
Reminiscence questions for someone with dementia
Visiting gets harder when conversation stops working the way it used to. Older memories are often the ground that still holds — here’s how to find it.
Christmas memories: questions to ask your grandparents
Christmas is the one day of the year when most families have a grandparent at the table, time to spare, and something to remember. These questions are about their Christmases, not about their life, which is why they work.
Questions to ask about a childhood home
"What was your house like?" gets a shrug. The street, the room, and who had the only television don't.
Wedding day questions to ask your grandparents
"How did you two meet?" has been asked so many times the answer comes out word-perfect. These questions are aimed at what's underneath it.
Questions to ask about a first job
Everyone remembers their first job in specifics — the wage, the boss, the bus fare — long after they've forgotten what they did on an ordinary Tuesday that year.
Seaside holiday memories: questions to ask your grandparents
Everybody who grew up in Britain has a holiday memory, even the families who never managed a whole week away. These questions are specific enough to get past "it was nice" and into the actual week.
Recording a life
How to actually get it done — starting the conversation, and finishing the book.
How to record your parents' life story
Everyone means to do this. Almost nobody starts, because the first step feels awkward and the whole project feels enormous. Here's how to make both smaller.
How to write your own life story
Somebody has given you a book, or a subscription, or just kept asking. You've every intention of doing it and no idea where to start. The starting point is smaller than you think, and it isn't the beginning.
How to write a family history book
Most family history books fail for the same reason: the scope is decided before anyone knows how much material exists. Here’s the order that works.
How to start a family tree
The records have waited the best part of two hundred years and will wait a while longer. The people who can tell you what isn't in them won't.
Memory books for grandparents — and why most never get filled in
The blank-page journal is the most-bought and least-finished gift in this category. If you're choosing one, it's worth knowing what goes wrong before you spend the money.
Storyworth alternative for UK families
Storyworth is a good product, and it does sell to the UK in pounds. The differences that are actually real are the price level, what arrives at the end, and who wrote the questions.
From You To Me journals — and when a weekly question works better
The Dear Mum and Dear Grandad journals are well made, cheaper than us, and a proper object to hand over. The honest difference is what happens after the handing over.
What to write in a memory book for a parent or grandparent
Most memory books are bought with real intention and abandoned after the first page, because “tell me about your life” is too big a question to answer in the time it takes to write in a book.
How to preserve a family recipe before it's lost
The recipe card says "a knob of butter" and "cook till it looks right" because the person who wrote it never needed it written down any more precisely than that. Here's how to get it out of their head while you still can.
How to label old family photographs before the names are lost
Every family has the box: decades of photographs, and exactly one person left who can put a name to most of the faces in it. Here's how to get the names down properly, and why the labelling is the easy part.
Birthday speech ideas for a parent or grandparent
You've been asked to say a few words at Mum's 80th, and every template online is a joke generator. Here's where the material actually comes from.
How to preserve old family letters and documents
A letter on its own is just paper that's survived. What makes it worth keeping is the part that isn't written down — who the person was, why they were writing, what happened next — and that part only exists in someone's head for a limited time.
How to get your parents to talk about their past
You've asked, and got a shrug, or "there's nothing interesting to say", or a flat no. That's not the end of it — it's usually the question, not the person.
Gifts
For people who genuinely don’t want more things.
Gifts for grandparents who have everything
"Don't get me anything, love" is usually meant. The gifts that work for this person aren't objects — they're time, attention, or something that removes a small ongoing annoyance.
Gifts for new grandparents
Most "new baby" gift guides are for the parents. This is for the grandparent — who just took on a new identity overnight and, usually, got nothing to mark it.
Grandparents' Day in the UK
It's a small day, and nobody expects a present. The things that go down best are an hour of attention and something written down that wasn't before.
Christmas gifts for elderly parents
“Don’t get me anything” is usually sincere by this stage of life. Here’s what works instead — and the one thing that gets more valuable every year.
Gifts for someone in a care home
One room, a shared laundry and a lifetime of belongings already left behind. The gifts that help are the ones that fit that life, not the one they had before.
Silver wedding anniversary gift ideas
Twenty-five years in, a couple isn't at the own-everything stage yet — but it's the first anniversary big enough that the usual card and bottle of wine stops feeling like enough.
Pearl wedding anniversary gift ideas
Thirty years in, a couple has usually had every obvious card-shop gift already — the pearl tradition is a starting point, not the whole answer.
Ruby wedding anniversary gift ideas
Forty years in, a couple has usually had every obvious anniversary gift already — the thing worth giving instead is the story nobody's written down.
Golden wedding anniversary gift ideas
Fifty years is the one anniversary where the obvious gift genuinely isn’t enough — and where the couple almost certainly own everything already.
Diamond wedding anniversary gift ideas
Sixty years is rare enough that the obvious objects stop making sense — and it's the first anniversary that actually qualifies for a message from the King.
Platinum wedding anniversary gift ideas
Seventy years married is rarer than a diamond wedding, not more common — the couple is now very likely in their nineties, and the gift has to respect that first.
50th birthday gift ideas for a parent
Fifty gets treated like the start of the downhill slope. For almost everyone reaching it this year, State Pension age is still seventeen years off — so that's the wrong gift to buy.
60th birthday gift ideas
Sixty used to be shorthand for retirement. For most people reaching it now, State Pension age is still seven years off — which changes what actually fits as a gift.
70th birthday gift ideas
Seventy is often the retirement milestone, not the frailty one — most people this age are busier than they've been in years. The gifts that land here are different from the ones for an 80th or a 90th.
80th birthday gift ideas for Mum or Dad
An eightieth is a milestone that deserves more than a jumper — but by eighty, most people mean it when they say they don’t want things. Here’s what works instead.
90th birthday gift ideas
By ninety, the person you're buying for has had ninety birthdays' worth of objects already. The gifts that land are rarely more of those.
100th birthday gift ideas
A hundredth birthday is rare enough that most families only plan one once. Here's what tends to matter on the day, and the one piece of official paperwork worth starting early.
Retirement gift ideas for mum or dad
Work will give them a card and a clock. The present from the family can be about the forty-odd years the office never saw.
Mother's Day gift ideas for mum
Flowers die in a week and she'll tell you not to bother next year. Here's what she keeps, plus the one gift that's worth more with every year that passes.
Father's Day gift ideas for a dad who has everything
Mother's Day gets the flowers-and-cards treatment sorted early. Father's Day is the one people leave until the week before — here's what to get right with the time you've actually got.
Or have the questions arrive on their own
One a week, by email, answered in their own words and collected into a book you can download any time. £25, once.
See a sample book