"When you're young you feel that people will go on forever that they are immortal. Gradually it dawned on me that great uncles and great aunts were dying and no record was left of the wonderful stories they had told during their lifetimes. So we began when my mother was 90."
Anne's tape begins with her mother talking about her memories of the Dame School she attended at the age of 5. "Miss Miller sat high up, with a cane, almost on a throne, above all the pupils so that she could look down on them and see what they were doing. I was terrified of her."
Anne's favourite parts are the descriptions of the mischief her mother got up to at school, "At the High School she was in the C division. They had the reputation for wildness and mischief." According to Anne's mother, even the Latin mistress wasn't safe from C Division, "What did we do? We cut her hair - we took a bit of her hair. Poor soul, she was in tears. We were dreadful."
Since her mother died, Anne's feelings are mixed when she listens to the tape, "Pain, certainly regret, that we didn't to go further into her life, and pleasure because we have kept the sound of her voice. When people die, the memory of the voice fades fairly quickly and it is a great comfort to me to be able to listen to my mother's voice now when she is no longer here."
Anne feels that others would find it a comfort if they did the same thing, "Unfortunately for some it's too late because the memory may have gone or the inclination to do it. For my mother it was a great experience - her memories were being valued and listened to, in a way that often doesn't happen."
