Questions we ask

To ask a parent or grandparent

Or answer them yourself.

1. What was the first home you remember, and what was the view from the window?
2. What did your kitchen smell like on a Sunday?
3. What was the family car, and where did it take you?
4. What food did you hate as a child and eat now?
5. What did you get in trouble for as a child that you would do again?
6. What game did the family play, and who always won?
7. What was a family tradition, and who started it?
8. What trip does the family still talk about?
9. What did an ordinary birthday or holiday actually look like?
10. Who kept the photographs, and what did they write on the backs?
11. How did your parents or grandparents meet?
12. What was a move — to a new town, a new country — that changed everything?
13. What was your bedroom like when you were ten?
14. What did you do between school and supper, and where?
15. Who was your best friend at eight, and what did the two of you do?
16. What was your first job, and what did you spend the first pay on?
17. What did summer smell like where you grew up?
18. What did you and your cousins play that the adults never understood?
19. Who lived on the street you grew up on, house by house?
20. What did you keep in a box or under the bed as a child?
21. What song takes you straight back to one particular year?
22. Where did everyone gather when the whole family was together?
23. What did the house sound like on a holiday morning?
24. Who was the first in the family to leave home, and where did they go?

About someone older in the family

Ask anyone who knew them.Call them GranGrannyNanNanaGrandadMumDadGrandmaGrandpaGrammyMamawPapawPop-PopMomAbuelaAbueloAbuelitaMamiPapiNonnaNonnoOmaOpaBubbeZaydeBabciaDziadekYiayiaPappouLolaLoloNaniDadiNanajiDadajiNainaiYeyePo PoGung GungHalmoniHarabeoji

1. What did Gran smell like — soap, tobacco, sawdust, a perfume, a kitchen?
2. What were Gran's hands usually busy with?
3. What did Gran wear nearly every day? Describe one piece of it.
4. What did Gran's laugh sound like, and what set it off?
5. What would you hear first when Gran came through the door?
6. What did Gran always have in a pocket, a handbag or the glovebox?
7. What did Gran hum, whistle or sing without noticing?
8. What did Gran fiddle with while thinking?
9. How did Gran take a cup of tea or coffee, and in which mug?
10. What did Gran's voice sound like calling you in from outside?
11. What did Gran cook that nobody else could get right?
12. What did Gran have for breakfast?
13. What could you always find in Gran's cupboard, fridge or biscuit tin?
14. What did Gran make for you when you were ill?
15. What job did Gran give you in the kitchen?
16. What did Gran order at a restaurant, every single time?
17. What would Gran not eat, no matter what?
18. What did Gran's table look like on a holiday — who sat where?
19. What did Gran cook when there was a crowd to feed?
20. Which of Gran's recipes would you want written down, and what's the trick to it?
21. What did Gran cook when somebody needed cheering up?
22. Walk through Gran's front door. What do you see, hear and smell first?
23. Which chair was Gran's?
24. What was on Gran's walls and shelves?
25. What grew in Gran's garden, yard or window boxes?
26. Where did Gran grow up, and what would a child there do on a summer afternoon?
27. Which room in Gran's home was off-limits to children, and what was in it?
28. Where did Gran go to get out of the house — a bench, a beach, a pub, a church?
29. What could you see from Gran's kitchen window?
30. What did Gran's car look like, and smell like, inside?
31. What did Gran's house sound like at night?
32. What did Gran do for work, and what did a day of it look like?
33. What could Gran fix, build or grow?
34. What did Gran teach you to do, and do you still do it that way?
35. What did Gran bring home from work?
36. What was Gran's first job, and how did it come about?
37. What was Gran better at than anyone else you knew?
38. What tools did Gran keep, and where?
39. What did Gran make that somebody still has?
40. What did Gran do on a day off?
41. What did Gran start — a job, a business, a trade — and what was the first day like?
42. What did Gran say so often that the family still says it?
43. What did Gran say when something went wrong?
44. What did Gran call you?
45. Which story did Gran always tell, and how did it go?
46. What did Gran believe about the weather, luck or money that nobody else did?
47. How did Gran greet you at the door?
48. What did Gran say at the end of a visit — the words, the wave, the hug?
49. What advice did Gran give you, asked for or not?
50. What word or phrase of Gran's did nobody outside the family understand?
51. What made Gran laugh until crying?
52. What would Gran never leave the house without?
53. What did Gran fuss over that nobody else noticed?
54. What would Gran never be talked out of?
55. What did Gran do to celebrate good news?
56. What did Gran do that made a stranger warm up?
57. Who did Gran admire?
58. What made Gran proud?
59. What did Gran do for friends?
60. What did Gran do that embarrassed you as a child and charms you now?
61. What was Gran's idea of a treat?
62. What did Gran do every morning without fail?
63. What did Gran do on a Sunday?
64. What did Gran do on an ordinary Tuesday?
65. What did Gran read — the paper, westerns, the backs of cereal boxes?
66. What did Gran watch or listen to, and from which seat?
67. What did Gran collect, or keep far too many of?
68. What did Gran do before bed?
69. What music did Gran put on, and when?
70. What game was Gran good at, and how did you ever win?
71. What team, show or pastime did Gran follow religiously?
72. What did Gran dance to?
73. What project did Gran always have on the go?
74. What's the earliest thing you remember about Gran?
75. Tell about one day you spent alone with Gran.
76. Where did you go on a trip with Gran, and where did you sleep?
77. What happened the time Gran surprised everyone?
78. What did Gran give you that you still have?
79. What did Gran do at a wedding or a big family day?
80. What did Gran do in a snowstorm, a heatwave or a power cut?
81. What's the funniest thing you ever saw Gran do?
82. What did Gran do when you came to stay?
83. What did Gran do on your birthday?
84. When have you seen Gran happiest?
85. What did Gran do for the holidays that nobody else did?
86. What did Gran let you get away with?
87. What object do you think of the moment you hear Gran's name?
88. What did Gran keep on the bedside table?
89. What did Gran carry everywhere — a pen, a penknife, a hanky, mints?
90. What did Gran's handwriting look like, and what did it turn up on?
91. Which drawer of Gran's did everyone know about, and what was in it?
92. What did Gran want to be as a child, and what came of it?
93. Which story from Gran's childhood got told and retold?
94. What did Gran tell you about being young?
95. Who was Gran's best friend?
96. What did Gran tell you about the place the family came from?

About someone you see often

Where a question says Dad, put in whoever you mean.

1. What does Dad do that nobody else would think to?
2. What sets off Dad's laugh these days?
3. What does Dad cook when it's a good day?
4. What does Dad say so often you could say it along?
5. What is Dad better at than anyone you know?
6. What does an ordinary Saturday look like for Dad?
7. What would you hear first if Dad walked in right now?
8. What does Dad always have in a pocket or a bag?
9. What does Dad get excited about that surprises people?
10. What small kindness does Dad do without being asked?
11. What's the funniest thing Dad has ever done in front of you?
12. What has Dad taught you, or what have you taught Dad?
13. Where is Dad's favourite place, and when were you last there together?
14. What trip with Dad would you take again tomorrow?
15. What does Dad do that reminds you of someone older in the family?
16. What has Dad made or fixed that you still use?
17. What would Dad order at a restaurant without looking at the menu?
18. Which gift from Dad do you think of first?
19. What does Dad fuss over that nobody else notices?

About a brother or sister

1. What did you and your sister both want as kids — the front seat, the remote, the last biscuit?
2. What game did you and your sister make up?
3. What did you and your sister do on the long car journeys?
4. When you and your sister shared a room, what did you talk about after lights out?
5. What was your sister like at ten?
6. What does your sister remember about your childhood that you've forgotten?
7. Who was your sister among the brothers and sisters — the brave one, the funny one, the fixer?
8. What do you and your sister still laugh about?

About a husband, wife or partner

1. How did you and your partner meet? Tell it the way you always tell it.
2. What did you notice first about your partner?
3. What was your first home together like?
4. What does your partner do in the morning before anything else?
5. Which song belongs to you and your partner?
6. What did your partner do that made you think "this one"?
7. Which of your partner's habits have you picked up?
8. Which day do you and your partner count as the start?

About a son or daughter

1. What was your daughter's first word, and who heard it?
2. What was your daughter afraid of at four, and what helped?
3. What did your daughter want to be, growing up?
4. What did your daughter carry everywhere as a toddler?
5. What did your daughter say as a child that the family still repeats?
6. When did you first see a grandparent in your daughter?
7. What does your daughter do now that you saw coming at five?
8. Which of your daughter's childhood days would you live again?