Life Story

Everyone’s story is unique and important. Our Life Story project works with older people to produce a personalised Life Story Book that can be shared with family, friends, and care staff...

Our brilliant volunteer visitors and typists both play a central role in documenting the lives of older people. Volunteers visit or telephone clients on a weekly basis, and encourage them through friendly chats to reminisce and recall special events, people and places that have played an important part in their life. People are encouraged to share memories and include as much or as little as they want in their own story book.

The information is then passed to one of volunteer typists who compile the stories into printed books, including special photos and images to bring the book to life. Once complete, we can organise a special Life Story presentation involving the volunteers, along with family and friends.

We are back to providing home visits again, following infection control guidelines to keep everyone as safe as possible.  We can also do your life story over the phone.

Come and join our volunteer team - we need more volunteers to visit people living in care homes and the community to help them tell their life story!  Contact us for more information.

Life Story Newsletters

Click here to see our Life Story Newsletters!

The benefits of Life Story

Life Story is an enjoyable and worthwhile activity for everyone involved and can be cherished by the person and their family for generations.

• Helps to make people valued and respected, with the enjoyment of regular company, conversation and chats with people who are interested in finding out about their life.
• Families can reminisce with their loved ones with the book, sharing memories important to them.
• Can be used by care staff to assist them in getting to know the person they are caring for; knowing a person’s likes, dislikes, needs and aspirations can enable more effective care planning and delivery

There is no charge for the service, two copies of the Life Story book are provided free when completed, one copy for care staff and one copy for the person. Additional copies can be requested by friends or family for a donation of £15 per copy to cover printing and binding costs.

We also try to make our life stories accessible for all including large print and record audio books for the visually impaired.

If you would like to write your own Life Story, write one for family or friends or are part of a community group who would like to do this as an activity, we can provide you with a template to help get you started and some hints & tips on how to put it together and can give you support if needed.

What does a Life Story book look like?

There are many different ways of doing Life Story work, which do not always involve producing a printed book. Some people prefer memory boxes or picture collages or collections of music as an alternative. Each book is as individual as the person.

Here's an example of a Life Story book that our volunteers have put together, working alongside Audrey and her daughter who have kindly given permission to share Audrey's story to help raise awareness about Life Story work. 

Download Audrey's Life Story book here.

Accessing this service

If you or someone you know would benefit from our service, complete the form below and return it to 'Life Story, 10 Church Lane, Oldham, OL1 3AN'.

Life Story Form (PDF)

Life Story Form (Word document)

If you live in the Oldham borough the service is free of charge.  We ask for a donation of £15 to help cover the printing costs of each extra copy of your life story book.

If you live outside the Oldham borough, we ask for a donation of £60 to cover the costs of producing your life story book.

Contact

Anne Madden (working days: Tuesdays & Fridays)
Phone: 07859 355 028
Email: LifeStory@ageukoldham.org.uk 

or 

Nicola Shore
Phone: 0161 622 9257
Email: nicola.shore@ageukoldham.org.uk