1944
She is six.
A label on her case, a train out of London, and a farmhouse in Suffolk whose kitchen she can still describe to the inch.
Question 4 of the hundred
What did it smell like on a Sunday?
- 1944 She is six
1956 Eighteen
1965 Twenty-seven
1976 Thirty-eight
2026 Somebody finally asks
One illustrative life, drawn for this design, not a client. Tap a year to read its chapter.
Every story is worth keeping, before it is lost.
Amanda Yaffe-Parker records relaxed conversations with somebody about the life they remember, and writes it into a life story the family keeps, in their own voice.
From £250. Nothing happens until you are sure.
Not family trees, and not ancestry research. One person's life, within living memory, told by the person who lived it.
“Nearly every person I speak to begins by telling me that there is nothing to tell. Not one of them has been right yet.”Amanda
One life, eighty years
Somebody says there is nothing to tell. Then you look at what they lived through.
Here is one life, decade by decade, each told the way that decade's photographs looked. Every chapter opens with a real question from Amanda's hundred: the ones that bring back what a photograph leaves out.
Illustrative life, a design demonstration, not a client
1956
She is eighteen.
A works outing to Clacton: the pier, a hired deckchair, and the friend from the typing pool she would write to for sixty years.
Question 73 of the hundred
Where did you go on holiday, and how did you get there?
1965
She is twenty-seven.
A terrace in Colchester, a red Mini that was mostly his pride, and a first baby asleep in the pram by the front door.
Question 49 of the hundred
What was the first home the two of you had?
1976
She is thirty-eight.
The summer the lawn went brown. The children lived outside, and the new telephone in the front room rang for her mother every Sunday at six.
Question 80 of the hundred
What was the first telephone, television or washing machine you had?
2026
She is eighty-eight.
Amanda sits with her, the recorder on the table between them. She starts by saying there is nothing to tell. By the last conversation, the Sunday smell of that Suffolk kitchen is on the page, in her own words.
Question 94 of the hundred
Where did that photograph on the wall get taken, and who is in it?
The life above is invented to show the idea; it is not a client. The four scenes are drawn for this design, each finished like the photographs of its decade. The questions are real: read all hundred.
How it works
There is no interview to prepare for.
Amanda handles the whole process, gently, from the first phone call to the moment it is yours to keep. Three pictures, from the first conversation to the finished book.
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1 We talk
Amanda spends time with you over a series of relaxed, recorded conversations, at their pace and in their own chair. Nothing has to be ready in advance, and the things that come back a week later go in too.
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2 Amanda writes
She shapes those conversations into a properly written life story, keeping the person's own voice throughout. You see a full draft first.
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3 Your book is made
The finished story becomes exactly what you want to keep: a professionally produced hardback, the original recordings, or a digital copy.
Amanda also works from what a family already has: the recordings, photographs, letters and half-finished journals sitting in drawers. See how it works, in full
Which of these is you?
Most people come to this for one of three reasons.
A gift, for an occasion
For an occasion already circled
A landmark birthday, an anniversary, a retirement after forty years, or a grandchild who has just arrived.
See gift options- His 80th is in a few weeks
- Their ruby or golden anniversary
- Retiring after a working life
- A new grandchild, and a story for them to grow into
While there is still time
Because something has changed
A parent growing more frail, a diagnosis that has shortened the timeline, or memory beginning to fade.
See what is possible- A parent or grandparent, ageing now
- A diagnosis has changed things
- Memory beginning to change
- They are moving into care
After they have gone
Piecing it together from what is left
For the story that was not written down in time, built from letters, photographs and the people who remember them.
See how this can still work- Letters, photos and fragments, woven into one book
- What family and friends remember, gathered properly
- A book to mark the anniversary of a loss
- The questions you wish you had asked
Your own story. Want to tell your own story instead, in your own words? This is for you too.
Telling your own storyOr do it yourselves. The questions and guides are free, and they are the same ones Amanda uses.
Start with the questionsWhat you end up with
A real book, made properly.
Not a printout in a ring binder. Something that sits on a shelf for fifty years and gets handed down.
What it reads like
I started on the factory floor at sixteen, sweeping metal shavings for four pounds a week, and thirty-eight years later they gave me a clock and a cup of tea in the same building. In between there was a wife, three children, a strike I still have opinions about, and more good men than bad ones. Nobody had ever asked me to say any of that out loud before, let alone write it down.
From a sample passage. Written to show the style. Not a real client.
Read all three passages- Before print
- You see a full draft before anything is printed.
- The shape
- A hardback, a digital copy, the edited recordings: worked out with you.
- More copies
- Extra copies for the family, from £95 each.
- Who does it
- Amanda conducts every conversation herself.
Pricing
Three ways to work together, whatever this moment calls for.
No hourly rates, and nothing added later. Nothing happens until you are sure.
The Memory Kit Coming soon
£30
Not yet available
Answer a set of questions together, in your own time, then send the recording to Amanda. Decide about the write-up whenever you are ready.
The Life Story
From £250
Depends on the number of sessions, worked out together on a call
Amanda conducts every conversation herself, from the first call to the finished book, in their own voice.
Bespoke
On the call
Fully custom
For a project that needs something beyond the usual shape.
Giving it as a gift? What you give on the day is the voucher, and they decide afterwards. Gifts and occasions · See full pricing
The person who writes it
“The skills that matter most here were not learned in a boardroom.”
I have spent fifteen years in some of the UK's top advertising and marketing agencies, managing projects for big corporate clients. But the thing I have been most passionate about throughout my career has always been the same: people's stories, and how to tell them well.
I studied psychology early on and later trained in therapy, and that fascination with what makes people who they are led me to train as a Samaritans listener. I spent years as a voluntary befriender to elderly men and women, many of whose stories have stayed with me ever since.
- Samaritans trained listener
- 15 years managing projects
- Level 4 Accredited Counselling training
Questions, guides and practical help
Most of what Amanda knows is on this site, free.
Plenty of families do this themselves, and they should. If you try it and would rather hand it over, you will know where she is.
Start a conversation
Let's keep their story, together.
Tell Amanda a little about who the story is for. There is no obligation, no pressure, and no salesperson at the end of it. Only her.
If time is short, message Amanda on WhatsApp. She will reply as soon as she can.