The best questions are small and specific — a kitchen, a first wage, a song — and the big stories follow. Here are 51, in the order a life tends to go. You don’t have to ask them: Rosa does, so your mum or dad only has to talk.
How Rosa asks them
One thing at a time, and she lets a silence sit.
She follows the story, not the list: “What happened next?” and “What was that like?” are often the best questions of all.
She remembers what they told her last time, so nothing is asked twice and every conversation picks up where the last one ended.
Every answer is kept, in their own voice — as a recording of each part (on film, if they choose the camera) and a book for the whole family.
Childhood and home
What’s the very first thing you can remember?
Describe the house you grew up in. Which room do you picture first?
What were your mum and dad like when you were small?
What was for tea on an ordinary weekday?
Who did you play with, and what did you play?
What did you get told off for?
Was there a grandparent, aunt or neighbour you were especially close to?
Turning points, places and moves
What’s the biggest decision you ever made, and how did you make it?
Where have you lived, and which place felt most like home?
Was there a moment your life could have gone a completely different way?
What was it like the first time you left home?
Did you ever move somewhere you knew nobody? How did you find your feet?
Which year of your life would you most like to live again?
Family, love and friendship
How did you meet the person you married, or loved most — and what did you notice first?
If you have children, what do you remember about the day the first was born?
Who has been your best friend, and how did you meet?
If you had brothers or sisters, what were they like growing up?
What did your own parents teach you that you passed on?
What was the hardest part of being a parent — and the best?
Who could always make you laugh?
School and work
What was school like? Was there a teacher you loved, or one you feared?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
What was your first job, and what did you do with your first wage?
What work are you proudest of?
Who was the best boss you ever had — or the worst?
If you could have done any other job, what would it have been?
Hard times
Rosa goes gently here, and only as far as they want to go. Any of these can wait for another day, or never come up.
What was the hardest time you’ve lived through, and what got you through it?
Who did you lean on when things went wrong?
Is there someone you’ve lost that you’d like your family to know more about?
Was there a time you had to be braver than you felt?
What do you wish you’d known back then?
Is there anything you’d do differently?
Beliefs and advice
What do you believe in — and has that changed over the years?
What’s the best advice anyone ever gave you?
What matters more to you now than it did when you were young?
What are you proudest of in your life?
What would you tell your twenty-year-old self?
What makes a good life, do you think?
For the people who come after
What do you hope your grandchildren will know about you?
Is there a family story that must never be forgotten?
Is there something you’d like to say to each of the people you love?
Which family traditions do you hope will carry on?
How would you like to be remembered?
The small things
What song takes you straight back to being young?
What was your favourite meal, and who cooked it?
What did things cost when you were young — a loaf of bread, the bus, a trip to the cinema?
What’s the best present you’ve ever been given?
What made you laugh until you cried?
Which smell takes you straight back somewhere?
What was on the wireless or the telly that everyone talked about?
What did a perfect Saturday look like when you were twelve?
Let Rosa interview them
Rosa is a friendly computer host who asks questions like these, follows what your mum or dad actually says, and remembers it from one conversation to the next. What they tell her becomes recordings and a book for the whole family, kept online for the people they choose to share it with. Later, you’ll also be able to book a professional interviewer for a session, with Rosa listening and prompting them.