Stories & Reflections

Not a family tree of dates. A way to keep the voice — the accent, the pauses, the way they tell it — before the window closes.

An accent is a map of where someone has been, and it fades one generation at a time. Text can hold the words. Only a recording holds the voice.

You are in your fifties, your mum or dad is in their seventies or eighties, and there is a whole life in there you have never quite asked about. Here is how to begin, and the five questions that open everything.