Start while the memories are still fresh

Every family has a storyteller, and almost every family loses one before anyone thinks to write anything down. Long-term memory in later life is often surprisingly sharp — a woman of ninety may recall the smell of her mother's kitchen in 1948 in vivid detail, yet struggle to remember what she ate yesterday. That paradox is exactly why an interview is worth doing now rather than "one day". The details that make family history come alive — the nickname nobody else used, the exact street, the reason two brothers stopped speaking — are rarely found in a census return. They live in living memory, and living memory has a shelf life.

You do not need to be a trained oral historian. You need a quiet hour, a cup of tea, a way to record, and the patience to let silences sit.

Prepare, but don't over-prepare

Do a little homework first. Dig out birth, marriage and death certificates, print off a relevant census page, and gather a handful of old photographs. Objects jog memory far better than questions do: a wedding photo, a union card, a school exercise book, a wartime ration book. Bring a notebook with the names and dates you are unsure about written down, so you can check them without interrupting the flow.

Choose the setting carefully. Mid-morning is often best — energy is up, the house is quiet, and there is no pressure to get lunch on. One-to-one conversations tend to be more candid than those with an audience, though a spouse or sibling in the room can help fill gaps and trigger memories the other has forgotten. Always ask permission before you record, and explain simply why: so that grandchildren yet to be born can hear the voice, not just read the facts.

Questions that open doors

Yes-or-no questions kill conversations. "Do you remember the war?" invites a shrug. Open questions, ideally about sensory detail or a specific day, invite stories. Useful starters include:

• What is the first house you remember living in — and what did it smell like when you walked in?
• What did your mother do all day? What did your father do for work, and what did he smell of when he came home?
• Who was your favourite teacher, and what made them different?
• What did you do for fun as a teenager, and where did you go to do it?
• Tell me about the day you met your husband/wife. What were you wearing?
• What was the worst trouble you ever got into?
• Which relatives came to the house at Christmas, and who never did?

Then use the three most powerful phrases in family history: "Tell me more about that", "What happened next?" and simple silence. Most people will fill a pause if you let them.

Listen for places, work and relationships

As you listen, keep three threads in mind, because they are the ones that attach to documentary records later.

Places. Push for specificity. Which street, which number, which side of the road? What shops were at the end of the terrace? How far was the walk to school, the pit, the mill, the docks, the station? Was there a church or a chapel, and which one did the family attend? Ask what stands there now — it helps you find the site on a modern map and on older Ordnance Survey sheets.

Work. Ask what they actually did with their hands, hour by hour. What tools, what hours, what wages, what shifts? Were they in a union, an apprenticeship, a trade with its own jargon? Did they travel for work, or was it the same works gate for forty years? Even the name of a foreman or a firm can unlock employment records.

Relationships. This is where families become real. Who was "Auntie" but not actually an aunt? Who fell out with whom, and why? Who married beneath themselves, or moved away and never came back? Nicknames, courtships, lodgers, step-siblings and second families are all gold — and all invisible in official records.

Recording, and keeping the details straight

A smartphone voice recorder is perfectly adequate. Place it on the table between you rather than waving it about, and check the levels with a quick test. Two sessions of forty-five minutes will usually beat one marathon of three hours; tiredness flattens recollection. As soon as you can afterwards, write down the date, the place, who was present, and an approximate timing so you can find a passage again.

Spellings need care. Accents, dialect words and local pronunciations can turn a surname into three different versions, so ask your relative to spell unusual names, and check place names against a map or census page. Photographs should be labelled in pencil on the back, not pen, and with names in full — "Auntie Poll" means nothing in fifty years' time. If you can, scan them too.

What to do with what you have gathered

Send a copy back. Let your relative hear the recording, correct the names, and add what you missed; they will often remember something new on a second listening. Add the details to your family tree and note the source plainly — for example, "interview with Ellen Marsh, 14 March, at her home in Ipswich" — so that anyone using your research later knows where it came from and how reliable it is.

Be sensitive. Some memories are painful, and nobody owes you a story. If a subject is closed, move on gently and come back another time, or not at all. The aim is not to extract a complete record but to keep a voice, a turn of phrase and a handful of remembered streets alive for the generations who will never get to ask.