60 Questions to Ask Your Grandparents About Their Life
There is a moment most families know. You’re sitting with your grandmother, or your grandfather, and they mention, almost in passing, that they once danced with a stranger at a station, or emigrated with one suitcase, or turned down a job that would have changed everything. And you realise, with a small jolt, that you know almost nothing about the first fifty years of someone you’ve loved your whole life.
The questions below are how you change that. I’ve spent my career interviewing people on camera, from film stars to farmers, and I can tell you the best stories were never on red carpets. They were in living rooms, told by people who’d simply never been asked. Knowing the right questions to ask your grandparents about their life is mostly about giving them a proper invitation: warm, unhurried, and genuinely curious.
Here are sixty of the best, grouped by theme, along with a few professional tricks for drawing out the stories worth keeping forever.
First, a few tips from an interviewer
Don’t fire questions — open doors. Pick one or two from a theme and follow wherever the energy goes. If their eyes light up about the dance halls, forget your list and stay at the dance halls.
Bring an object. A wedding photo, a war medal, a recipe card in faded handwriting. Objects retrieve memories that direct questions never reach. “Tell me about this” is the most powerful question on this page, and it isn’t even on the list.
Let silence do its work. The best answers arrive about three seconds after you resist filling the pause. Count to three in your head. It feels like an age. It’s where the treasure is.
Choose their best hours. Mornings and good days genuinely matter, especially for anyone living with memory difficulties. A relaxed cup of tea at eleven will always beat a rushed visit at five.
And record it. More on that at the end, but even a phone on the table, quietly capturing their voice, is something your family will one day treasure beyond measure.
Childhood, and the world they grew up in
What’s your very first memory, and how old were you in it?
What did your childhood home look like? Walk me through the front door.
What could you buy with a week’s pocket money, and what did you actually buy?
What did you get in trouble for most as a child?
Who was your best friend growing up, and what did the two of you get up to?
Which smells or sounds take you straight back to being small?
Was there a teacher you’ve never forgotten? Why?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
Family, and the people who made them
What were your parents like when you were little, not as parents, but as people?
What’s something your mother or father used to say all the time?
What do you know about how your parents met?
Who was the real character in your family?
What did Sunday look like in your house?
Which relative do you wish I could have met, and why?
What family story always got retold at gatherings?
What’s the oldest family story you know, the one that was passed down to you?
Love, friendship and marriage
How did you two meet? Tell it slowly, I want the whole scene.
What did you think the very first moment you saw them?
What was your wedding day actually like, behind the photographs?
What’s the secret to staying together that nobody tells you?
What’s the most romantic thing anyone ever did for you?
Who’s the best friend you ever had, and what made them so?
What did falling in love feel like, back then?
Work, purpose and proud days
What was your very first job, and what did it pay?
What did you spend your first proper wage on?
What work are you proudest of, paid or not?
What was an ordinary working day like?
Was there a moment your life could have gone a completely different way?
Who taught you the most about hard work?
The world they lived through
What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in your lifetime?
What’s something you lived through that people my age only read about?
What did people worry about then that nobody worries about now?
What did a house cost when you bought yours? What about a loaf of bread, or a pint?
Where were you when the big news of your generation broke, and what do you remember of that day?
What do you miss about the way things were, and what don’t you miss at all?
Home, food and the little rituals
Which dish takes you straight back to your mother’s kitchen?
Did you have a signature dish? What’s the story behind it?
What were Christmases, or the festivals your family kept, like when you were young?
What’s a tradition from your childhood you wish still happened?
What music was always playing in your house?
What did you do on a Saturday night in your twenties?
Wisdom, values and what they’ve learned
What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given, and did you take it?
What have you changed your mind about over your life?
What did you believe at twenty that makes you smile now?
When did you feel bravest?
What got you through the hardest times?
What does a good life mean to you now?
Legacy, and what they want remembered
What would you like people to say about you when you’re not in the room?
What are you proudest of, full stop?
What do you hope our family holds onto after you?
Is there anything you’ve never been asked that you’d like to talk about?
If you could leave one sentence for your great-grandchildren, what would it be?
What should I ask you about next time?
And the playful ones, where the best stories hide
What’s the naughtiest thing you ever did and got away with?
Who was your first crush?
What was the best party you ever went to?
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten?
Which fashion did you love that you’d never wear now?
If you could relive one ordinary day, not a wedding, not a birth, just an ordinary day, which would it be?
What question do you wish I’d asked?
A gentle word about timing
If someone you love is living with dementia, or any condition that changes with time, the kindest thing you can do with this list is use it soon. In the earlier stages, most people can genuinely engage, remember and delight in telling their story, and the conversation itself often brings real joy. The window for a will, the window for a voice, the window for a story: they all close on the same quiet timetable. Don’t wait for a special occasion. The cup of tea this Sunday is the special occasion.
Keeping what they tell you
Whatever you do, capture it. A phone propped on the table recording audio is infinitely better than trusting memory. Label the file with their name and the date, and back it up somewhere safe. Future you will be so grateful.
And if you’d like their story kept properly, their voice, their laugh, the way their face changes when they get to the good bit, that’s exactly what I do. At Everseed, I sit down with someone for a relaxed, unhurried conversation about their life, then craft it into a short cinematic film with their photographs, their music and their own words: a life story film their family keeps forever. If that sounds like something your family would treasure, you can see an example film and get in touch at everseedstudio.co.uk.
Whatever you choose, the phone, the film, or simply the conversation, ask the questions. Every family has a storyteller worth listening to. Yours is probably waiting to be asked.
Gregory Cartwright is the founder of Everseed, a Hampshire-based studio creating cinematic life story films. Your story. Forever.