Every prompt, in order
Thread 01 · ~5 min · 3 prompts
Orientation
A few minutes for the microphone, not for the memoir. Just to find your voice.
- 1
Your full name, where you were born, and when.
- 2
Who you most hope might be listening to this, one day.
- 3
Why you're sitting down to do this now. Even if the answer is "I'm not sure yet."
Thread 02 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
Earliest memories
The first scenes you can summon — fragments more than stories, but specific.
- 1
The first room you remember. What was on the walls, what was on the floor, where did the light come from?
- 2
The first time you remember being afraid.
- 3
A meal that comes back to you — what was on the table, who was around it?
- 4
The first thing you remember wanting badly.
- 5
A sound from your childhood you'd recognise anywhere.
- 6
A smell that takes you straight back to somewhere specific.
- 7
A toy, blanket, or object that mattered more than it should have.
- 8
The first secret you remember keeping.
- 9
The first time you understood that adults didn't know everything.
- 10
A moment of pure happiness from before you knew the word for it.
Thread 03 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
The family you were born into
The people who shaped you before you could choose them.
- 1
Who was your mother before she was your mother?
- 2
Who was your father before he was your father?
- 3
A grandparent's story — whether you knew them, or only knew the stories about them.
- 4
The sibling dynamic, or the only-child experience: what was the real shape of it?
- 5
A family ritual — Sunday lunch, Christmas, a birthday — and what it actually felt like, not what it looked like in the photos.
- 6
Something the family never spoke about, and why.
- 7
An aunt, uncle, or extended family member who mattered.
- 8
A row that you still remember in detail.
- 9
A moment of unexpected tenderness from someone in the family.
- 10
A family trait — physical, temperamental, or moral — that you carry.
Thread 04 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
The places that made you
The rooms, landscapes, and streets that became part of how you think.
- 1
The house, or houses, you grew up in. Walk the listener through one.
- 2
The street or road you grew up on — the neighbours, the sounds, the rhythm.
- 3
Your school — not the official version, the real one.
- 4
A landscape — beach, forest, fields, street, harbour, mountain — that's part of how you think.
- 5
A place you went to escape.
- 6
A place that frightened you as a child.
- 7
A place you've been back to as an adult, and what had changed (or hadn't).
- 8
A place that doesn't exist anymore.
Thread 05 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
School and the early world
The first world outside the family — and the first time you noticed yourself in it.
- 1
A teacher who mattered, for good or ill.
- 2
A friend whose name you still remember and why.
- 3
The first time you understood you were good at something.
- 4
The first time you understood you weren't.
- 5
An injustice from those years, and what you did or didn't do about it.
- 6
A day you'd live again if you could.
- 7
What you wanted to be when you grew up, and what came of it.
- 8
A first kiss, a first dance, or any first time you felt seen.
Thread 06 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
Adolescence
The years of becoming, in all their tenderness and noise.
- 1
The music that was the soundtrack to your teenage years.
- 2
A risk you took that should have ended worse than it did.
- 3
The first time you fell in love, or thought you did.
- 4
An argument with a parent you still remember.
- 5
Who you wanted to be at seventeen, and who you were.
- 6
The first time you saw an adult as a real person, with their own problems.
- 7
A friend who was a bad influence, in the best way.
- 8
The first time you got truly drunk, or its equivalent — and what you remember of it.
- 9
An older person who saw something in you.
- 10
The first time you understood your parents weren't going to live forever.
Thread 07 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Leaving home
The first steps into a life of your own making.
- 1
The day you left, or the day you knew you wouldn't.
- 2
The first time you had to fend for yourself.
- 3
The first space that was yours — a flat, a room, a corner of one — and what you put in it.
- 4
A decision you made then that shaped everything after.
- 5
Someone you lost touch with and wish you hadn't.
- 6
A friend who became family in those years.
- 7
A belief you held then that you no longer hold.
- 8
The first proper heartbreak.
Thread 08 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Money and class
The shape of money in your life — what you grew up with, what you learned, what you still feel.
- 1
What you understood about money as a child.
- 2
The first time you realised your family had more or less than someone else's.
- 3
A financial decision that shaped your life.
- 4
A time money was tight, and what you did.
- 5
A time money came easily, and what you did with it.
- 6
A class boundary you crossed, or didn't.
- 7
What you'd want a child or grandchild to understand about money.
- 8
What you believe about money now that you didn't at twenty.
Thread 09 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
Work and vocation
What you've done with your days — for pay, for love, for someone who needed it.
- 1
The first work that asked something of you — paid or unpaid — and what it taught you.
- 2
The work you've been proudest of.
- 3
A boss, colleague, or mentor who changed how you saw things.
- 4
A failure at work, and what you did with it.
- 5
A choice between two paths, and how you chose.
- 6
The moment you knew you'd found (or hadn't found) your calling.
- 7
A time you were treated unfairly at work, and what you did.
- 8
Someone you mentored, taught, or supervised.
- 9
What work has cost you, and what it has given you.
- 10
What you'd tell yourself starting out.
Thread 10 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Friendship
The people who weren't blood and weren't lovers, but became essential.
- 1
The friend who knew you best at twenty.
- 2
A friendship that ended, and how.
- 3
A friend you made later in life, against the odds.
- 4
A friendship that survived a major rupture.
- 5
Someone you wish you'd been a better friend to.
- 6
The friend you've known longest, and what's kept it.
- 7
A small kindness from a friend that you've never forgotten.
- 8
What friendship has given you that family or romance hasn't.
Thread 11 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
Love and partnership
The people you chose, and the ones who chose you.
- 1
How you met the person you ended up with — or how you didn't.
- 2
A moment when you knew. Or a moment when you knew you didn't.
- 3
The first time you said "I love you" and meant it.
- 4
A hard season in a relationship, and how you came through (or didn't).
- 5
An argument that almost broke things, and how it didn't.
- 6
A small daily ritual that has mattered more than the big moments — with a partner, with yourself, with a friend, with a place.
- 7
A love that didn't last, and what it gave you anyway.
- 8
What you've learned about being loved.
- 9
What you understand about love now that you didn't at twenty.
- 10
A love letter, message, or note you still have, or wish you did.
Thread 12 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
Children, or the absence of them
A turning, either way.
- 1
The day you found out you were going to be a parent — or the choice not to be.
- 2
One thing a young person in your life has taught you — your own child, a niece or nephew, a godchild, a student.
- 3
A moment of caring for someone younger that you got right.
- 4
A moment you got wrong, and what you did about it.
- 5
A small daily moment with a child in your life you want to remember.
- 6
A worry about a young person that turned out fine — or didn't.
- 7
Watching someone you love become themselves, separate from you.
- 8
A nephew, niece, godchild, or other young person who's mattered.
- 9
What you hope to pass on — to a child, a niece, a godchild, a community — that isn't money.
- 10
The version of yourself you became when someone else's wellbeing started to matter more than your own.
Thread 13 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Hands and craft
What you've made, mended, grown, or shaped with your own hands.
- 1
Something you made or built that you're proud of.
- 2
Something you grew, or kept alive.
- 3
Something you fixed when you didn't think you could.
- 4
A skill someone taught you that you still use.
- 5
A craft, hobby, or pursuit that's been with you for years.
- 6
A creative project that didn't work, and what you learned.
- 7
A tool, instrument, or piece of equipment you've loved.
- 8
The work of your hands as opposed to your head.
Thread 14 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Trouble
The mischief, the rule-breaking, the times you should have been caught — and the ones you were.
- 1
A prank or scrape you still tell people about.
- 2
Something you did that should have ended worse than it did.
- 3
The teacher, boss, or parent you outwitted — and whether you ever got caught.
- 4
A rule you broke on principle, and whether you'd break it again.
- 5
The accomplice — the friend you got into trouble with — and the trouble itself.
- 6
A piece of nonsense that still makes you laugh out loud forty years on.
- 7
The closest call — a night, a moment, a line you nearly crossed.
- 8
Something the children or grandchildren would never believe you did.
Thread 15 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
The body and its history
The vessel you've been in all this time, and what it has carried you through.
- 1
A childhood illness or injury you remember vividly.
- 2
A time your body did something you didn't think it could.
- 3
A time it failed you.
- 4
Your relationship with sport, exercise, or movement.
- 5
A scar and the story behind it.
- 6
An operation, hospital stay, or fragile season.
- 7
How you've felt about your body through the decades.
- 8
What ageing has taught you about being in a body.
Thread 16 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
The wider world
How history broke into your private life, and what you've seen of the world.
- 1
The first time you understood the world was bigger than your country.
- 2
A piece of news that changed how you saw things.
- 3
A place you travelled to that surprised you.
- 4
A historical event you remember exactly where you were for.
- 5
A political belief you've held, and how it's evolved.
- 6
A country, culture, or community that became important to you.
- 7
A moment when the world's noise broke into your private life.
- 8
What you understand about your country now that you didn't growing up.
Thread 17 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Books, music, art
The work made by others that became part of how you think.
- 1
A book that you keep returning to.
- 2
A song or album from a particular season of your life.
- 3
A film or piece of theatre that stayed with you.
- 4
Someone whose work — written, sung, painted, made — has shaped how you see.
- 5
A piece of art, music, or writing you don't understand and love anyway.
- 6
Something you used to love and grew out of.
- 7
Something you grew into.
- 8
What you'd want someone to read, watch, or listen to to understand you.
Thread 18 · ~75 min · 8 prompts
Belief and meaning
The questions that have stayed with you, and the answers you've made some peace with.
- 1
What you believed at twenty.
- 2
What changed it.
- 3
A practice or discipline that's shaped you — faith, sport, art, craft, work.
- 4
A question you've never resolved.
- 5
What you've come to trust.
- 6
A moment that felt larger than itself.
- 7
A piece of wisdom from someone older that's stayed with you.
- 8
A time you were wrong about something important, and what you did with it.
Thread 19 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
Loss and grief
What has been taken, and what you've kept anyway.
- 1
The first death that mattered.
- 2
A loss that wasn't a death — a friendship, a marriage, a home, a self.
- 3
Something you grieved more than you expected to.
- 4
Something you didn't grieve, and noticed.
- 5
How loss has changed what you spend your time on.
- 6
A funeral or memorial that's stayed with you.
- 7
Someone you'd want to say one more thing to.
- 8
A grief that surprised you with how it came, and went.
- 9
Something you've learned about grief from being with someone else's.
- 10
An anniversary you keep, privately.
Thread 20 · ~90 min · 10 prompts
What you know now
The end of the path, which is also the beginning of the telling.
- 1
A piece of advice you actually believe.
- 2
Something you used to be sure of and aren't anymore.
- 3
A small pleasure that's never let you down.
- 4
A regret that's softened with time.
- 5
A regret that hasn't.
- 6
What you'd say to yourself at twenty-five, in one sentence.
- 7
A day from the last year that you'll want to remember.
- 8
What you've come to expect from life, and what you've stopped expecting.
- 9
The one thing you'd want a great-grandchild to know about you.
- 10
The story you want told at your funeral, in your own words.