Three life stories told

Three life stories captured and preserved for three lovely families.

I am feeling pretty pleased with myself as I have today, just sent out three stories to three families.

A Classic Story Keepers Film, a Zoom film, and an Audio recording.  Three families wanted to capture the stories of their seventy-something parents.

Despite the tellers coming from totally different backgrounds and even three different countries, there are themes that come out in their stories which I really enjoy. They all grew up in loving families in the 1950s, their mums were all housewives - if we can even use that word anymore! No one in their families had been to University and their families didn't push them or have high expectations for them. 

They all had a yearning to leave home and explore the world.  One was given the chance to travel by ship to Tangiers when still in her sixth form, an 'eye-opening' experience for a girl who had never been further than the Isle of White. One shared stories of hitch-hiking to Israel via East Berlin - quite a culture shock. Another took a train from her small town in Sweden to Cambridge where she had a job as a maid. On arrival, the first thing she was taught was how to climb up the drainpipe and back into college after the gates were locked. 

They all described the transformative nature of their travels. The Cambridge maid described how it was only through leaving home and traveling abroad that she learned that difference does not equal bad. The hitch-hiker never really went home and the sixth former was so bewitched by the travel bug that she went on to take out a bank loan to fund a trip to Nepal. She wanted her three primary-aged sons to experience different cultures at a younger age than she had been able to do.

And what's the point of this blog you might be wondering.  Well, I guess I am trying to say that it is through sharing stories and reflecting on memories that we get to think about what it is that makes us tick. While there is a lot of commonality in the stories, hearing our parents' and grandparents' unique journeys is just rather lovely.

So, if you are thinking of recording a story, or not sure where to start, drop me a line alice@thestorykeepers.co.uk , I'd love to help!