StoryPromptFrom 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.
If you've searched for this, you've probably already held one. FROM YOU TO ME's *Journals of a Lifetime* — Dear Mum, Dear Dad, Dear Grandma, Dear Grandad, Dear Nan and a couple of dozen other relatives — are the memory journals a British buyer is most likely to have already seen. They're a British company, their questions are written for British families, and the idea is in the name: you give the book, they fill it in, and it comes back to you.
So let's say the awkward thing first. Their journal costs less than StoryPrompt, and it's a hardback you can wrap. If a page comparing the two doesn't say that in the first hundred words, it isn't trying to help you decide.
What each one actually is
| StoryPrompt | From You To Me (Dear Mum, Timeless Collection) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | £25, once. No subscription, nothing to cancel. | £18 for the Timeless Collection; the Sketch Collection is £16 and the personalisable Tree Collection £20. Free UK delivery on orders over £30, so a single journal pays postage. |
| What you hand over | Nothing physical. You enter their email address and the first question arrives by email. If you want something to hand over on the day, that's a card you write yourself. | A hardback: 120 pages, portrait 21.5 × 15.3 cm, fabric cover with gold foil, ribbon bookmark. Wrappable. |
| How many questions | 52, one a week, for a year. | "Over 60 fun and inspiring questions", all in the book from day one. |
| How the questions arrive | One at a time, by email, every week, without anyone remembering to ask. | All at once. The book is theirs to open when they choose — nothing prompts them after the day it's given. |
| Who wrote the questions | Written here, for a British life — rationing, National Service, the first television in the street, the seaside. | A British company; their questions are written for British families too. On this point the two are closer than either is to the American services. |
| What you get back | A typeset PDF you download, share and print as often as you like. Every answer is in it as soon as it's written. | The book itself, in their handwriting — "returned to you once completed". One copy, and you read it when it's done. |
Where the journal is the better buy
- You want something to wrap. A fabric-covered hardback with gold foil is a gift that looks like a gift on the day. An email address typed into a website is not, and we can't pretend otherwise.
- Their handwriting is the point. A book filled in by your mum in her own hand is a different object from anything typed. If that's what you're after, buy the journal and don't look back.
- They won't use email. StoryPrompt needs them to open an email once a week and type into a web page. Plenty of 85-year-olds do that happily; plenty don't, and no amount of good design changes which one you've got.
- £18 is the budget. It's a fair price for what it is.
Where a weekly question works better
The thing a journal can't do is turn up. Sixty questions in a hardback are sixty questions on the day it's opened — and then nothing happens unless the person makes it happen. That's fine for some people. For a lot of others, it's the reason the book is still in the drawer at Easter.
“My mil has a cupboard of life story books that received as gifts, and her attitude is that anyone who wants to know her life history should do her the honour of sitting with her and spending time, not just expect her to produce a writing assignment for their convenience.”
“I spent ages trying to get my mother to write down her early memories of her life in India, and she just can’t get started. I suggested loads of different things – just starting anywhere, using a voice recorder, thinking about noises or smells she remembers – but none of it has worked.”
Neither of those is about From You To Me's journals in particular — the thread was about life story books as a category, and their titles are among the best of it. But both replies are the same problem from two ends: a blank book is an obligation, and an obligation gets deferred. One question, arriving on a Wednesday, asking about one specific thing — the smell of the kitchen on washday, the first wage packet — is small enough that answering it now is easier than putting it off. That's the entire design of StoryPrompt, and it's the honest reason to pay £7 more for something you can't wrap.
“What would you want somebody younger in the family to know about you that they might not otherwise find out?”
The other difference is the copy. The journal comes back once, finished, in one fragile volume that lives at whoever's house it ends up in. StoryPrompt's book is a PDF that exists the moment the first answer does — every sibling can read this week's answer this week, and no house clearance can lose it.
The combination a lot of families end up with
It isn't actually either/or. The situation this page is really for is the one in that first quote: a journal given a Christmas or two ago, some pages done, genuinely treasured — and the rest of the story still in their head. A weekly question doesn't replace the journal. It finishes the job the journal started, and the PDF can be printed and slipped into the back of it.
If you're still deciding between the two, memory books for grandparents is the longer version of why blank books stall and what to look for in one that gets finished. And if the other thing on your shortlist is the American service, Storyworth alternative UK is the same honest table for that one.
The straightforward version
- Their journal: £16–£20, a hardback with 60-odd British-written questions, filled in by hand, returned to you when it's finished. Buy it if the object and the handwriting are the point.
- StoryPrompt: £25 once, 52 questions arriving weekly by email for a year, typed answers, a PDF book you can download from the first week and keep afterwards, for as long as StoryPrompt runs. Buy it if the thing you actually want is the answers written down.
The question that turns up on its own — £25
One British-written question a week for a year, typed answers, and a book you can download at any point — during the year and after it, for as long as StoryPrompt runs.
See what £25 includes