Kia Ora 
How are you on this fine summer’s day? Are you finding time to work on your story?
This will be the last email from me this year, and I want to talk to you about your memories of your parents and grandparents.
Sometimes people ask me if I think they should include them in their stories. And I reply with a clear “Yes!”
You are the bridge between your children and your elders. Your earliest memories of your elders are precious because chances are, you’re the only one (or one of only a few) who knows these stories.
So record your memories of them. Cast your mind back to the things that mattered to them, their struggles, their joys, their routines, their likes and dislikes.
What did they speak like? Look like? Wear? Spend their days doing? What did they do well? Or not do so well? What world did they exist in? What was happening socially, politically, economically during their lives?
The older I get, the more I wish I could sit down with my Grandad Tom and ask him about his life as a businessman in Tasman. He used to try to teach me how to run a business, to pass on his hard earned knowledge, and I was too young to realise how precious that time with him was. Today I occasionally miss him, and ponder the conversations I’d like to have with him, the questions I’d like to ask him, as an adult. But he died a long time ago.
If the young ones in your family aren’t interested in the old family stories now, chances are, they’ll care more when they’re older.
I think I’m a lot like my grandmother. I’m glad I knew her well enough to realise this. Maybe your stories will help someone realise who they take after too.
Keep writing,
Charlotte x
Find out ways I can help you write your memoir here.
Charlotte Squire 