Sample · an invented person
Margaret is invented, so we can show you a real-looking book without sharing anyone's private memories. The illustrations stand in for the family photos that fill a real book.
The cover
Each book is a hardback of 48 to 80 pages. Inside, every memory gets a spread of its own: a photo on the left, the story on the right.
Scroll on to see the kinds of pages a book contains.
Opening
The book opens with their name and dates, and a few lines that say who they were, written from what the family told us.
In memory of
Margaret Ellis
1938 – 2024
In short
A baker's daughter, a haberdasher, a gardener
Margaret worked behind the same haberdashery counter for forty years and kept the most generous allotment in the city. She married Frank in 1961, raised Susan and David, and was nan to five.
Early life
Childhood chapters come from the people who heard the stories most often, usually children and brothers or sisters.
Early life
Born above the bakery
Margaret was born in March 1938, in the flat above her father's bakery. She fell asleep to the sound of the ovens being lit, and was paid in currant buns for folding paper bags.
Work
Jobs, skills and the small details colleagues remember: the things that never make it into an obituary.
Work
Her first job
At fifteen she started on the haberdashery counter of a department store in the city centre. She could match any thread by eye, and by 1970 she ran the department. Customers asked for Mrs Ellis by name.
Later years
Holidays, homes and habits. Every family has a place that belongs in the book.
Later years
Every August in Tenby
After she retired, Margaret and Frank spent every August in the same guest house in Tenby. She swam in the sea until she was eighty-one, whatever the weather, and sent a postcard to every grandchild.
Tributes
Each person can add a short message of their own. When there's no photo, a quote takes the left page.
“She never let anyone leave without something from the garden.”Joyce, her neighbour
Tributes
From her grandson, Tom
Nan taught me to tie my shoelaces, to use a sewing machine and to always thank the bus driver. I still do all three, and I think of her every time.
Back pages
The book closes with a timeline and the family, so younger readers can place every story.
Timeline
Family