Kings had chroniclers. Your family has Amanda.
Every story is worth keeping, before it is lost.
Amanda sits down with someone you love, records relaxed conversations about the life they have lived, and writes it into a book the family keeps, in their own voice.
Lives within living memory, told by the person who lived them. This is not family-tree or ancestry research.
From £250. Nothing happens until you are sure.
Amanda Yaffe-Parkerrecords every conversation herself and writes every story herself. Colchester, Essex.
An ordinary life, given the treatment history kept for kings.
For centuries, chronicles, illuminated books and county maps were made for monarchs, abbeys and great estates. Nobody wrote down the year a girl came south for work with one suitcase, or the bicycle she saved for, or the wedding on the coldest day of the year.
That is the book Amanda makes. Not a family tree going back to the Normans: the life somebody actually lived, from the 1940s onward, told in their own words.
The old English chroniclers began every year's entry with one word: Her. Here.
Nearly every person Amanda speaks to begins by saying there is nothing to tell. The page on the right is what "nothing" tends to look like once somebody asks properly.
The chronicle of an ordinary life
- 1949Here she was born, in the room above her father's shop.
- 1965Here she came south for work, with one case and a letter from the agency.
- 1968Here she bought a bicycle, and rode it to the coast and back in a day.
- 1971Here she was married, on the coldest day of that year.
- 1974Here a first child, and the wireless on all night to keep them both company.
- NowHere she told it all, in her own chair, with a cup of tea going cold.
There is no interview to prepare for.
Amanda handles the whole process, gently, from the first phone call to the moment it's yours to keep. Here is how a conversation becomes a chapter.
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Folio I · Recorded in her own chair
- Amanda
Where were you living when you left school?
- Her
Above my dad's shop. I couldn't wait to get out.
- Amanda
And what took you south?
- Her
An advert in the paper. Typists wanted. I was sixteen, and I'd never been further than the coast.
Stage IWe 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.
There is no fixed number of sessions. It depends on the person and the story, and is agreed together on a call.
- Amanda
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Folio II · The shape appears
- IHere she was born, above the shop
- IIThe year she came south for work
- IIIThe bicycle, and the coast
- IVThe coldest wedding
- VThe wireless years
- VIWhat she would tell them now
Stage IIAmanda writes
She shapes those conversations into a properly written life story, keeping the person's own voice throughout.
Recording a conversation and shaping it into something somebody will actually want to read are different skills. The work is finding the shape of the story, so it reads as something worth handing down, not a transcript.
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Illustrative passage, written to show the idea. Not a client.
Chapter II · The year she came south for work
I came south in the September with one case and a letter from the agency. The town seemed enormous. I had a room in a house on a road I can still walk in my head, and a landlady who kept the heating off until November. The first week I cried every night. The second week I met Joan, and after that I didn't cry at all.
In their voiceA chapter, not a transcript
Every word sounds like them, because it came from them. Amanda records every conversation herself and writes every story herself. Nothing is handed off.
You see a full draft before anything is printed.
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Folio IV · What you keep
- A professionally produced hardback
- The original recordings, so you keep the voice
- A digital copy
- Extra copies for the family, from £95 each
Stage IIIYour book is made
The finished story becomes exactly what you want to keep: a professionally produced hardback, the original recordings, or a digital copy.
Which of those you have is worked out with you. Amanda agrees the shape on the first call, and the price follows from it.
Which of these is you?
Most people come to this for one of three reasons. The notes in the margin are the moments that usually bring them.
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Chapter I
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
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Chapter II
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
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Chapter III
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
Appendix A. Your own story. Want to tell your own story instead, in your own words? This is for you too. Telling your own story
Appendix B, free. The questions and guides. Plenty of families do this themselves, and they should. The hundred questions, the recording guide, what to do with a box of photographs or an unfinished journal: it is all here, it costs nothing, and none of it needs Amanda. Read the hundred questions
Drawn for this concept. The format of your book is agreed with Amanda.
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 · from a sample passage
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.
Written to show the style. Not a real client. Read all three passages
What it can include. A professionally produced hardback; the edited recordings, so you keep the voice as well as the words; a digital copy; extra copies for the family, from £95 each. Which of these you have is agreed with Amanda on the first call, and the price follows from 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
The person who sits with you, and does the writing.
Amanda studied psychology, trained as a Samaritans listener and spent years as a volunteer befriender to older men and women. That is why this leans where it does: towards conversations with older relatives, memories that do not arrive neatly or in order, and the stories sitting behind a family tree.
Studied psychology. Samaritans trained listener. Years as a volunteer befriender to older people. Fifteen years managing projects in advertising and marketing agencies.
Meet AmandaFrom £250. Nothing happens until you are sure.
What you end up with is worked out with you on the call, not fixed in a package.
The Life Story
From £250
Amanda records the conversations herself and writes the story herself. The exact price depends on how many conversations you want, agreed on a call.
Talk to AmandaBespoke
Priced on a call
For a story that does not fit the usual shape: several people, an unusual format, or a deadline.
About bespokeThe Memory Kit
£30 Coming soon
A set of questions and discussion points to go through together in your own time. Not on sale yet.
About the Memory Kit- You see a full draft before anything is printed.
- Amanda records every conversation herself and writes every story herself.
- Extra printed copies are from £95 each.
- Gift vouchers have no fixed price; tell Amanda what you have in mind.
- Most families share the cost. Say how many of you there are.
- Nothing can be bought on this website. Everything starts with a message.
The questions people actually ask.
What if they do not want to talk? Nothing gets recorded until they have agreed to it. The first conversation is about whether this feels right at all, and if they would rather there were no recorder in the room for it, there will not be. Most people who are reluctant at the start are glad of it later on.
What if there is not much time? The Memory Kit is being built for exactly this, a set of questions to go through at your own pace, but it isn't quite ready yet. If time is genuinely short, please just message Amanda directly.
What happens to the recordings? They stay between Amanda and you, and nothing is shared beyond what goes into the book. Whether the edited recordings come to you as well is something you agree with her at the start.
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.
WhatsApp 07843 171332. If time is short, message Amanda there; she will reply as soon as she can.