`Write it down Mum`
 Some years ago, I persuaded my parents, then in
their late eighties, to sit in front of a video recorder and talk about their past. It wasn’t easy. For many years I had been trying to get them to
write something about their history, but they never got round to it. My mother didn’t even like the idea of talking
about her childhood very much.
I put it down to the fact that their parents, my
grandparents both maternal and paternal, had been immigrants from Eastern Europe, which
may have caused difficulties about talking of the past. The
family ethos was to follow the language and style of their new country while holding on to their own religious and
cultural traditions.
This double aim,
to assimilate and yet retain separate identity, must have been stressful and confusing at
times, so talking about the past may have been something to avoid. My parents, perhaps, never did ask. The families were much larger than they are today. Earning a living, learning the language and
customs, yet remaining part of the immigrant community were more important than an
individual sense of identity.
Most of us don’t pay too much attention to family
history until we reach mid life. For recent
generations, an individual sense of identity is focused on youth culture, the present and
future rather than the past. Only as we get
older, do we want to know about our antecedents. Sometimes
we leave it too late.
‘Write it
down mum,’ I have heard adult children say (not my own, because writing it down
is for me second nature; however, they have insisted on getting their father to talk and
even to get in touch with some of his long-lost relatives).
But what information do you provide? Maybe just a family tree if you lack the patience
for anything more. The internet is useful for
research on this, with many web sites on genealogy.
Getting down to
detail is more tricky. How far do you go
on character, circumstances, colourful anecdotes when you are uncertain of the facts? Over
time, almost any anecdote or family story is embroidered, expanded, subtly altered and
gains a kind of mythological quality. One way
round this is to begin with such an
expression as ‘the story goes’… or ‘my grandfather’s
version was…’ or possibly ‘I
like to think that maybe…’ Go on,
entertain your audience and don’t clam up through inhibition.
Talking of
which, should you divulge family secrets, scandals, skeletons in the cupboard? Only you can be the judge of this. It’s only fair to consider who might be hurt
or damaged by the revelation. Are you the
rightful person to expose the secret - say about a person’s illegitimacy? Of course the juiciest bits are the very ones you
might have to keep secret - annoying but maybe for the best.
 Finally, do you really have to write it down? There’s nothing wrong with telling, or
talking into a tape recorder, or being interviewed in front of a video.
Just do something for the children and grandchildren,
so they can be enriched by their past and can pass it on too.
Take a look at
the laterlife Genealogy and family tree section
|
Talkback is a regular
feature in laterlife.com run by journalist and author Helen Franks. 
