My mum spent part of her childhood in Singapore and Australia, and she had some wonderful stories about her time there. One I particularly remember involved her lying in bed in Australia and feeling a rather large lump at the bottom of the bed. They had a cat, so she naturally assumed that's what it was and went to sit up and give it a stroke, only to discover that it was actually a snake. There was apparently an enormous commotion, everybody screamed, and the snake slithered away. I can't remember every detail of how she told it, but I remember the story itself quite clearly, and it's one of those things I've always associated with her childhood in Australia.
The thing is, although I remember stories like that, there was an awful lot about her early life that I never thought to ask. Since she died, I've had conversations with her siblings and gradually pieced together more of her childhood. One of the things I've discovered is how much time she spent with her father on his boat. I knew that her relationship with her mother wasn't necessarily an easy one, but I would have loved to have understood more about her relationship with her dad. I know now that they spent time together on the boat, but I don't know what that experience meant to her, whether she particularly enjoyed it or what she remembers about being there with him. I can ask other people, and I have, but I'll never be able to hear her own interpretation of those experiences.
I think that's something many of us overlook when it comes to our parents. We know the surface details of their lives, and perhaps quite a lot about their childhood circumstances, particularly if we're a family that talks about the past. But underneath those facts are layers of more intricate detail, and beneath those again are the feelings and relationships that shaped how somebody experienced their life. It's entirely possible to know somebody very well without ever having explored much of what's underneath that first layer.
And, of course, you never know when your last opportunity to ask will be. I think it's a little like the last time you pick up your child or hold their hand. You don't necessarily notice when those things stop happening, because at the time there's no reason to think it will be the last occasion. It's only afterwards that you realise. The same can be true of conversations with our parents, whether that's because of illness, a deterioration in memory or simply because they're no longer here.
So I've put together 25 questions that might help you begin exploring your parents' childhoods in a little more detail. I've arranged them in layers, beginning with things that should be relatively straightforward to answer and gradually moving towards more personal memories. I wouldn't recommend sitting somebody down and working through all 25 in one sitting, though. In fact, I think that would rather defeat the purpose. These are intended to start conversations, and sometimes one question can lead to considerably more than you were expecting.
Start with what they know
If you're having this sort of conversation for the first time, I would begin with the absolute basics. That might sound a bit ridiculous when you're talking to your own mum or dad, because presumably you already know who their parents were and how many brothers and sisters they had. But I think there's a good reason for starting with information that somebody can answer quite confidently, without having to search through their memories.
People remember things very differently. I can clearly remember being given Ready Brek when I was little, and occasionally having a spoonful of jam stirred into it. It's a fairly insignificant detail, but it's something I can recall without any difficulty. Scott, on the other hand, would struggle to tell you what he normally had for breakfast as a child. He's in his forties, perfectly capable of remembering all sorts of other things, but that particular information simply isn't something he's retained. If I began a conversation by asking him about his childhood breakfasts, I probably wouldn't get very far.
I think there's an element of trust involved in getting somebody to talk about their life, and that trust develops through the ordinary back and forth of conversation. If you begin by asking questions somebody can't answer, they might feel that they're struggling before you've really started. Beginning with something definite gives them a comfortable way in, and you can gradually develop the conversation from there. You might also discover that some of the family details you've always taken for granted aren't quite as straightforward as you thought.
1. Where were you born?
Do you know the name of the hospital, or were you born at home?
2. What were your parents' full names, and what did you call them?
Did either of them have a nickname that other people used?
3. Did you have any brothers or sisters?
Where did you come in the family, and was there a big age difference between you?
4. Where did you live during your childhood?
Can you remember the addresses or names of the different places you lived?
5. What were your grandparents' names, and where did they live?
Did you know all four of them?
6. Was there anybody else living in your house when you were growing up?
Did you ever have grandparents or other relatives staying with you?
7. Which schools did you attend?
Were they close to home, or did you have to travel to get there?
Exploring the everyday details
Once the conversation is established, I'd begin looking at the more ordinary details of somebody's childhood. These are often the things that don't appear in family-history records, and they're also the things that can give you a much clearer impression of what life was actually like. You might be able to establish where somebody lived from an old census or directory, but that's not going to tell you what their bedroom looked like, who they played with at school or what happened when they got into trouble.
The important thing, I think, is to be specific without being restrictive. Asking somebody what their childhood was like is an enormous question, and it's quite difficult to know where to begin answering it. If you ask them how they got to school, however, you've given them a particular situation to remember. They might start by telling you they walked, but then remember a friend they met along the way, something they passed every morning or an incident that happened on the journey. You can follow those details as they emerge, rather than expecting somebody to produce a complete recollection of their childhood in response to one question.
I wouldn't concentrate exclusively on early childhood either. I think the teenage years are particularly revealing because they're often when people begin developing their independence and forming their own identities. The friendships they make, the things they become interested in and the rules they challenge can tell you quite a lot about the person they eventually become. And it's an interesting thing to explore with your parents, because it's sometimes difficult to imagine them as teenagers with their own social lives, questionable decisions and occasional disagreements with their parents.
Music can be a particularly effective route into those memories. I can hear OutKast's Ms. Jackson now and immediately remember being in my mum's hotel kitchen in Edinburgh, where I was washing dishes as punishment for getting horribly drunk with my friends. I had to do dinner service during the school week and breakfasts at weekends, and the punishment went on for what felt like an eternity. I remember trying to record the song from the Top 40 onto a cassette tape, but my hands were wet and I couldn't press the record and play buttons quickly enough to catch the beginning. It's also where my absolute detestation of cranachan comes from, having spent so much time scraping the leftovers off restaurant plates.
That particular song brings back an entire incident which has very little to do with the music itself. And that's why I think it's worth asking about the ordinary things somebody remembers from their younger years. You don't necessarily know which detail will prompt a memory or where the conversation might go once they've started talking.
8. What did your parents do for work when you were little?
Were you ever expected to help with their work or a family business?
9. Can you remember your childhood bedroom?
Did you share it with anyone, and what could you see from the window?
10. Did you ever visit or stay with your grandparents?
What do you remember about their house, and was there anything you particularly liked doing there?
11. Did you have any pets when you were growing up?
What were they called, and can you remember anything particularly memorable about them?
12. How did you usually get to school?
Did you travel with anybody, or was there a particular route you took?
13. Who did you spend time with during school breaks?
What games did you play together, and what happened when it was raining?
14. What did you usually do when you got home from school?
Were you allowed straight out to play, or were there jobs you were expected to do first?
15. Can you remember a time when you and your brothers or sisters had a big argument or got into trouble together?
What happened, and did your parents find out?
16. Can you remember a Christmas or birthday present you were absolutely desperate to get?
Did you get it, or can you remember being disappointed?
17. When you were a teenager, where did you usually meet your friends?
Was there a particular place you all gathered, and did your parents always know where you were?
18. What sort of music were you interested in as a teenager?
Did you listen to records, tapes or the radio? Can you remember your first concert? Was there a singer or band you were particularly mad about?
Using photographs to bring memories back
One of the things I would particularly encourage is getting out some old family photographs and looking through them together. I've found this to be an exceptionally useful way of helping somebody access memories, especially when they find it difficult to recall details in response to a question. A photograph gives them something tangible to work from. There's a familiar face, a particular house or somewhere they haven't been for years, and quite often seeing it will bring back things that hadn't occurred to them until that moment.
And you don't necessarily need to concentrate on whatever the photograph was originally intended to capture. Sometimes a person standing in the background, or something quite ordinary about the setting, can turn out to be far more interesting than the obvious subject of the picture.
I was interviewing somebody about the history of fruit growing in Longniddry, and we were looking at an old photograph of people grading plums. I asked whether she remembered being involved in the work, and she began identifying some of the people in the picture. One of the women had occasionally walked her to school and played with her when the adults were busy working. Suddenly we were talking about somebody who had been part of her childhood, and a relationship that I hadn't known existed.
I hadn't intended to ask about that woman at all. In fact, I wouldn't have known to ask about her, because she hadn't previously been mentioned. It was the photograph that brought her into the conversation, and once that memory had emerged, there was a whole other story to explore. I was there to find out about fruit growing, so I still needed to establish certain details about the work itself, but there was absolutely no reason to interrupt what had become a rather interesting recollection. I could always return to the original subject afterwards.
I'd suggest having several photographs available rather than choosing one particularly important picture. Look at photographs of ordinary family occasions, houses, school days or holidays. Sometimes it's the apparently unremarkable pictures that prompt the most interesting memories, because they're full of details that haven't been thought about for years. And don't be too quick to supply your own interpretation of what you're looking at. Let the person whose memories you're exploring tell you what they recognise and what those details mean to them.
19. Looking at this old photograph, what do you remember about the people or the occasion?
Can you remember where it was taken? What were the people in the picture like? Does seeing it remind you of anything else?
You might only establish the names of the people in the picture, which is useful information in itself. Equally, you might find yourself listening to a story that has almost nothing to do with the photograph you started with.
Getting to know the person underneath
I tend to think of people's lives in layers. The first is made up of the fairly obvious facts, such as where they lived, who their family were and where they went to school. Beneath that are the more intricate details of their everyday experiences, which we've been exploring through the earlier questions. But there are further layers connected to how somebody felt about those experiences, and I think those can be particularly revealing when you're trying to understand a person properly.
Two children can grow up in the same household, go to the same school and share many of the same experiences, but have quite different recollections of what their childhood was like. One might remember a particular period very fondly, while another associates it with feeling lonely or left out. Neither is necessarily wrong. They're remembering the same circumstances through their own experience of them, and those differences can tell you a great deal about their individual personalities and relationships.
I think grandparents are particularly important to explore at this point, too. If you're talking to your own parents, their grandparents are your great-grandparents, and that takes you another generation back into your family history. You might have names, dates and photographs, but those things can only tell you so much about what somebody was actually like. Your parent might be one of the last people who can remember visiting that person's house, hearing them speak or spending time with them as a child. Once those personal recollections disappear, they're extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct.
I'd approach the more emotional questions with a little care, particularly if you're discussing something that might have been upsetting. When somebody tells me about a difficult experience, I sometimes find it helpful to reflect back what they've said. I might suggest that something must have been disappointing or frightening, for example, and give them the opportunity to elaborate. Sometimes they'll agree, and sometimes they'll correct me because that wasn't how they felt at all. Either way, it allows them to explain their own interpretation rather than having mine imposed on them.
I also think it's worth remembering that somebody becoming emotional doesn't necessarily mean they want to stop talking. Equally, something that seems relatively innocuous to you might bring back difficult memories for them. If I'm unsure, I'll generally ask whether they're comfortable continuing and make it clear that we can leave the subject alone or revisit it another day. Ultimately, it should be their decision how much of themselves they're happy to share.
20. Was there a grandparent you particularly enjoyed spending time with?
Can you remember something the two of you used to do together?
21. Can you remember a time when one of your brothers or sisters stood up for you or made you feel left out?
What happened, and did it change how you felt about them?
22. When you were worried or upset as a child, who would you usually turn to?
Can you remember a particular occasion when they helped you?
23. Was there somewhere you particularly liked being when you were little?
What was it about that place that made you enjoy spending time there?
24. Can you remember a time when something felt particularly unfair or difficult when you were growing up?
Did you talk to anybody about it, or did you tend to keep those things to yourself?
25. Was there something about you as a child or teenager that you don't think the adults around you understood?
Can you remember an occasion when you wished they'd seen things from your point of view?
It's a conversation, not an interview
Although I've given you 25 questions, I wouldn't suggest treating them as a list that needs to be completed. They're really just examples of the sort of things you might ask, and the follow-up questions are there to demonstrate how you can begin exploring a memory in a little more detail. If somebody starts telling you something interesting, follow it. There's no particular benefit in interrupting a recollection simply because you've got another question written down.
If somebody struggles to remember something, I'd try approaching it from a different angle rather than repeatedly asking the same question. Perhaps they can't remember the name of their best friend at primary school, but they can tell you who they played with during break times or who they walked home with. Sometimes a name or an incident will emerge quite naturally once you've given them a particular situation to think about. And sometimes it won't, which is absolutely fine. Not everybody retains the same sort of information, and I don't think people should feel that they're somehow failing because they can't remember something from fifty or sixty years ago.
There's also an element of reciprocity involved in these conversations, particularly when you're talking to your own parents. It can be quite revealing to share your own recollections of family life, because your parents might have no idea how you experienced certain things as their child. You might both remember the same occasion quite differently, or discover that something which seemed terribly important to one of you barely registered with the other. I think being prepared to share a little of yourself can make these conversations more natural, particularly when you begin exploring feelings and relationships.
And please, if you're going to have these conversations, I'd encourage you to record them, with the other person's permission. You don't need anything elaborate. The voice recorder on your phone is perfectly adequate, and in my experience people forget remarkably quickly that it's recording once they've settled into a conversation. You can transcribe the recordings afterwards, make notes about the people mentioned or eventually turn the material into something more substantial if you'd like to.
Having somebody's memories written down is wonderful, but there's something quite different about hearing their actual voice. The way they laugh at something, the expressions they use and the little pauses while they're searching for a memory are all part of the person you're trying to remember. And although you might be able to piece together the factual details of somebody's life from photographs, documents and other relatives, you can't necessarily reconstruct the way they would have told you those stories themselves.
I would give an awful lot to be able to listen again to my mum talking about her childhood, particularly the things I didn't have the sense to ask her about when I had the opportunity. I have some of her stories, and I'm grateful for those, but there are parts of her life that I now know I'll never fully understand.
You don't need to make an enormous occasion of it. Perhaps get out some old photographs the next time you visit your parents, ask a couple of questions and see where the conversation goes. You might only cover one or two subjects, or you might spend the afternoon talking about people and places you haven't thought about for years. Either way, I think it's time well spent, and having a recording of that conversation is something you may be particularly grateful for in years to come.