Has anyone made recordings of elderly relatives?

daisiegg

Prompted by the very sad but inspiring thread about the lady with a terminal illness wanting to make memories for her sons, I started thinking about my grandparents and how they won't be around forever. They are not the types to sit and reminisce all the time, but when they do, their memories, even the simple ones, can be really interesting. Even something like the fact that they both have really classic Hertfordshire accents that you hardly hear anymore except in their generation would be of interest I think.

I was just wondering if anyone has set about recording the memories of an elderly relative in any sort of semi-formal way? It occurred to me I would love to have their memories to be able to play to my own children and grandchildren as things like the world wars become further and further away from us in history.

So I suppose my question was, if you have done this, how do you go about it? Does anyone have a list of questions to ask or prompts to get them talking about the past or anything?

Thanks in advance!

wolfehouse

I did an 'oral history' type project with the kids
just sat with a video camera and chatted with the person.

trouble was the storage formats kept changing so now things are on tapes etc that are not compatible with modern systems.

building_with_lego

My dad did this with an elderly (and now deceased) relative and I think he did have some specific questions about our family tree but mostly the conversation just flowed.

They were recorded with a dictaphone and uploaded to the computer as MP3 files.

olgadapolga

I haven't done this but wished that I had with my grandmother who was "in service" from the age of 14. Sadly she died just after telling me about it (it had never come out in conversation before) so I didn't have the opportunity. I'd planned just to use a dictaphone and just let her chat about it, rather than prompting her.

elsien

I would have liked to, but left it too late. My relative had to go into a nursing home, and although/because they had all their mental faculties they found it too hard. I just got lots of "I don't remembers" and changing the subject so I stopped asking.
I did get a couple of video clips on my mobile phone that I now wouldn't be without.

Errata

My stedad's social work did a memory book with him. The written and pictorial stuff she dug up on the internet and printed off was absolutely astonishing. We had his old cine films recorded onto CD's and added those to it.
After he died his great nephew got stuck in and found even more 'stuff' on the internet that related to stepdad, and now he's doing a similar record for his mum and his kids. It's turned into his hobby, and some of the skeletons that have rattled out were quite a surprise.

fluffnutter

It's a lovely idea but I bet it depends on the person. Not everyone has got an interesting story to tell and simply being old doesn't automatically make pearls of wisdom fall from your lips.

My grandma would have just rattled on about how 'ladies' shouldn't ride bikes or eat sandwiches or some such bizarre nonsense.

RedBern

It's easy to record and film on an iPad and you can share easily with Dropbox .

. fluffnutter It's a lovely idea but I bet it depends on the person. Not everyone has got an interesting story to tell and simply being old doesn't automatically make pearls of wisdom fall from your lips.

My grandma would have just rattled on about how 'ladies' shouldn't ride bikes or eat sandwiches or some such bizarre nonsense.

And what would be interesting would be why your grandma held such views.... And whether there was a story there...

fluffnutter

RedBern wrote: »

It's easy to record and film on an iPad and you can share easily with Dropbox .



And what would be interesting would be why your grandma held such views.... And whether there was a story there...

Nah. She was just curmudgeonly.

rozmister

I went to an event recently for Carers where a speaker spoke about making a memory book with a family member suffering from dementia. They did this to preserve the memories but also because people with dementia generally have great long term memories and it made conversation easier and less distressing for their family member.

You could record the conversation and follow the memory book - I'll see if I can find you a link.

rozmister

http://www.dementiauk.org/information-support/life-story-work/

This is it - it was produced by Dementia UK and the NHS and there's an explanation and template on that page