Guide · Legacy

50 questions for interviewing your grandparents

Stories get lost because we don't ask in time. Here's where to start, and how to go about it so it doesn't feel like an interrogation.

We all have a grandad or a grandma who always tells the same four stories. And we've all discovered, too late, that we never knew the details of those four stories: what year it was, what that man was called, what happened next.

The problem isn't that we don't want to ask. It's that we don't know where to begin, and "tell me about your life" is an impossible question to answer. Nobody knows how.

Specific questions, on the other hand, open doors. These fifty work.

01First, how to do it

Before the list, six things that completely change the result:

• Eight or ten questions per session, no more. An hour is a lot. Better to go back on four afternoons than to cram it all into one Sunday.
• Record it. Your phone is enough. Twenty years from now, what you'll want back won't be the information: it will be the voice.
• Sit beside them, not opposite. Face to face feels like a job interview. Side by side, it feels like a conversation.
• Bring photographs. An old photo unlocks more memories than ten well-crafted questions.
• Let them wander. If they start talking about something else, don't steer them back to the question. Wherever they go on their own is where the good stuff is.
• The best follow-up is always the same: "And what happened next?"

02Childhood

1. What was the house you were born in like? How many rooms did it have?
2. Who lived there, apart from your parents?
3. What's the very first thing you remember?
4. What games did you play outside, and who with?
5. What did you eat at home on Sundays?
6. How did you get to school, and who took you?
7. Which punishment do you remember best?
8. What was your favourite spot at home or in the place you grew up?
9. Was there a year when times were especially hard?
10. What did you want to be when you grew up?

03Youth

11. How old were you when you started work?
12. What was the first thing you bought with your own money?
13. Where did you go dancing, and what did you wear?
14. What music did you listen to, and where did you hear it?
15. Did you ever leave home? Where to, and why?
16. What was the first trip you ever took?
17. Who was your best friend back then? What became of them?
18. Did you do military service? Where were you sent?
19. What did you do on Sunday afternoons?
20. What were you afraid of in those days?

04Love and family

21. How did you meet Grandad (or Grandma)?
22. What caught your eye about them the first time?
23. How did your wedding day go? What went wrong?
24. Where did you live in the early years, and what was that home like?
25. What do you remember about the day your first child was born?
26. What was the hardest thing about being a parent?
27. Is there anything you decided to do differently from your own parents?
28. What would you like your grandchildren to know about you?

05Work and trade

29. How did you learn your trade, and who taught you?
30. What's the hardest day at work you can remember?
31. Of everything you've done, what are you proudest of?
32. Were you ever treated unfairly?
33. Was there a boss or a colleague who left a mark on you?
34. What did you gain from working, and what did it cost you?
35. If you could have chosen a different line of work, what would it have been?
36. What was your last day at work like?

06The world they've seen

37. What did people at home say about the war?
38. When did you get your first fridge? And your first television?
39. Is there a big news story you remember so clearly that you know exactly where you were when you heard it?
40. Of all the inventions you've seen arrive, which surprised you most?
41. Is there anything that used to be done better than it is now?
42. And something that's infinitely better now?
43. What has changed most in your town or neighbourhood since you've lived there?

07The harder ones

Save these for the end, when you've already had three or four sessions and there's trust between you. If you can tell it isn't the right moment, don't push.

44. Is there anything you regret?
45. Is there anything you never got to say to someone?
46. What has been the worst moment of your life?
47. And the best?
48. What have you learned that was really hard to learn?
49. What would you like us to say about you?
50. If you could live one whole day of your life again, which would you choose?

08And afterwards, what do you do with it?

The most important part is already done: you have it recorded. Even if you do nothing else, those recordings are already something your family will thank you for.

If you want to go further, this is the order that works: transcribe the recordings (these days any app will do it for you), arrange them by stages of life rather than the order they came up in, and find the photographs that go with each story. With that, you already have the material for a book.

And if you don't have the time or don't feel up to doing it yourself, there are people who do this for a living. Us, for a start.