The idea for LifeTales was born one day as I listened to a voicemail message from my Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob is the brother of my deceased Irish mother and he was belatedly responding to an email I had sent him. In his lovely Irish brogue, sounding so much like my mother, Bob explained that he had been “unmercifully busy”. I hadn’t heard that phrase since my Mum died.  He then went on to further excuse himself by saying “you know how the Internet doesn’t work at night”! The only other person I knew who would have tried that excuse was my mother.  The whole message triggered a longing to hear my mother’s voice. Unfortunately I don’t have any recordings of Mum. I have little snippets of video but they consist of her saying “turn that thing off”. I would have loved to pop on a CD and listen to her talk. And to hear her talk about her family, her life, all the things that were important to her would have been extraordinary.

I’m inquisitive by nature, always asking questions and wondering why life unfolds the way it does, how human nature is expressed in individual lives. I worked for twenty years as a journalist always searching for the means to understand life’s vagaries. Along the way I learned that the way you ask questions is almost as important as the questions themselves. I came to appreciate the fine art of interviewing and I realized that everyone has a story to tell. As a broadcast journalist I always enjoyed finding that individual story so much more than reporting on a politician’s latest speech. And I loved telling the story, structuring the facts and thoughts into a compelling narrative.

I wanted to create a way to preserve those unique qualities about the people we love, their choice of words, their accents, the way they express themselves. I always loved working in radio because I believe it’s a more intimate medium than video. People convey so much in their voices and the images they create as they tell their stories live on inside our heads. I figured I could interview people, enhance their stories with sound effects and music and create an audio documentary of their lives.

So LifeTales allows me to indulge my passions for finding stories and building narratives. At the same time I’m able to give families a gift they will treasure for many years to come.