Professor Elizabeth Keating

What might it have been like to grow up in a time where ice formed on the inside of your bedroom window and you were crushed with the weight of the wool blankets?

These are the details that often go completely unspoken about.

We got a call from the bank and said, are you aware that there's no funds in this account?

As I understood it, the video just didn't make any money.

She spoke to Evan Davis.

My parents passed away, and it was only after they passed away that I realised how little I knew about their early lives, their childhoods, their teenage years.

What made them the people that they became, which of course influenced who I became?

So I did some research and I used my anthropology training and came up with some questions that work very well to get an older person to put themselves back in time to

to describe what it was like when they were children and when they were teenagers.

And it's a wonderful way to connect across generations because, of course, it's changed so much.

I'm an advocate of recording because the nuances of a person's way of speaking.

Also, it's very difficult to take notes and also pay attention at the same time.

At least it is for me.

And so I think recording captures so much more of a person's way of communicating.

Yes, I always suggest starting with a few warm-up questions like, where were you born?

Are there any stories about your birth?

What were your favorite things to do as a child?

Just some warm-up questions that are very easy to answer.

And then the first substantive question is, can you describe the house or the flat that you grew up in?

And this question has proved to be a wonderful opening for people.