Questions to ask

27 questions to ask about later life

General questions get general answers: *what was your childhood like* produces *we were poor but we were happy*, and then a silence. These 27 questions about later life are specific enough to open your grandmother up. Later life is the period people are least often asked about, and the one they have thought about most. Grandparents are often the easiest people to interview and the ones with the least time. Both of those are reasons to start this weekend.

Before you start

27 questions in 6 groups. Pick eight or ten; do not try to get through them all.

  • Ask if you can record. Almost everyone says yes, and almost everyone forgets the recorder is there within ten minutes.
  • Sit beside them rather than opposite. It is easier to remember something difficult when nobody is watching your face.
  • Have a photograph to hand. A picture unlocks more than a question does.
  • Let silences run. The useful answer usually arrives about four seconds after you would normally rescue the pause.
  • Do not correct dates. Being wrong about the year is not the same as being wrong about the memory.
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Before you start

Most people ask your grandmother about getting older once, get three sentences, and never ask again. Not because there is nothing to say — because the question was too big. "What was it like?" is impossible to answer. The questions below are small on purpose: they ask for one thing at a time, and they ask for detail rather than summary, because detail is what memory actually stores.

There are 27 here, in 6 groups. Pick eight or ten. You will not get through them all in one sitting and you should not try.

The questions work the same whether you are asking grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, parent, grandparent, husband or wife and yourself. What changes is not the question but how much they will say to you, so start with the group you think they will enjoy rather than the first one here.

Changing

  • When did you first feel old, and what caused it?
  • What can't you do now that you miss?
  • What are you better at than you used to be?
  • What surprised you about getting older?
  • What did nobody warn you about?

The body

  • What's the honest state of it?
  • What frightens you medically, and have you said so?
  • Who looks after you, and how does that feel?
  • What do you still do that people think you shouldn't?

People

  • Who have you lost?
  • Who is left from the beginning?
  • Who do you see now, and how often?
  • Are you lonely? It's alright to say so.
  • Who would you like to see again?

Time

  • What do you do with an ordinary day now?
  • What do you look forward to?
  • What do you think about when you can't sleep?
  • Does the past feel close or far away?

Reckoning

  • What are you proud of?
  • What do you regret?
  • What did you get wrong about people?
  • Who should you have forgiven?
  • Who should you have thanked?

What's left to say

  • What haven't you told anyone?
  • What do you want the family to know?
  • What do you want them to stop worrying about?
  • Is there anything you want done that you've not asked for?

When they stop talking

Stop. Say that was hard, and mean it. Offer tea, change the subject, and come back another day — the recording will still be there. A conversation that ends kindly can be continued; one that ends badly usually cannot.

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These question sets are free to use and free to download, with no account. They are here because the recording is the part that cannot be done later, and it should not sit behind anything. When you have the recordings, Transcription turns them into clean verbatim and Themes from Bulk Audio finds what the material is actually about.

A professional oral historian at £150–£400 a day brings judgement about what to follow that a question list does not. What a list gives you is the courage to start, which is usually the actual obstacle.

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