Tell your family story this National Storytelling Week

Today marks the start of National Storytelling Week, a time for us to not only think about all the great pieces of literature we have read over the years, but to reflect on some of the amazing stories we’ve heard within our own family circles. It’s hugely important to encourage our families, particularly older family members to share their most treasured memories, not only to verbalise those life events they may have never been asked about, but to help preserve them for future generations.

Storytelling is not only an ancient art form but one of the greatest means of human expression and while passing down stories through generations is certainly nothing new – in the age of computers and smartphones it seems people don’t always feel as much need to share their stories. Important events can get lost as lives are played out through short social media conversations. Valuable stories aren’t being shared in the way they used to be and many of us are missing the chance to capture these wonderful life anecdotes for future generations.

Recent research by bespoke autobiography service, LifeBook UK, revealed that nearly half of Brits (47%) would actually place a monetary value of more than £1 million on our most treasured memory and many regretted not recording these memories for the benefit of future generations. Nearly two thirds of Brits admitted that they particularly regret not writing down parents' and grandparents' war stories to preserve for future generations and although 64% of us have been told war stories by a grandparent or parent, just 8% of us have recorded them to preserve for our families. As a result, 62% of Brits really regret not recording these stories when they had the chance. With the Centenary of WW1 this year marking an extremely important historical milestone, this is certainly food for thought.

Preserving our memories and reliving life stories through storytelling is not only an enjoyable pastime but also carries with it the importance of creating a family legacy. The experience of doing so greatly refreshes family relationships and brings loved ones and different generations closer together. Creating an autobiography is a great project for retirement and using services such as LifeBook can make storytelling enjoyable and easy, while encouraging families to open up to one another – especially helping the younger generation to understand the importance of passing down and preserving these memories. Sharing our stories can ignite new conversations and inspire us – so making sure these precious family moments are recorded before it’s too late means we won’t have any regrets about not having done so in later life.

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Image courtesy LifeBook UK.