Five conversations on his phone. A story you can read and hear, every line in his voice. A hardback on the shelf. If it doesn't sound like him, your money back.
The memoir kit arrives. The first few questions get answered. By week six it's in a drawer, and everyone means to get back to it. Then the window closes.
The answers go through a machine and come out smooth. The family reads it and thinks: that's lovely, but Dad doesn't talk like that.
Told is built to remove both. It runs the conversations so nobody has to nag him, and it builds the story from his actual words so it can only sound like him.
Tell us who the story is about, the names and places he's likely to mention, and who in the family should be able to hear it. We send a code to his phone. Someone sets it up with him once, in person.
The app asks one question at a time, out loud and in big type, with one big button. He answers for as long as he likes. Twenty to thirty minutes, once a week, five times. It knows when a part of the story is complete and when to ask for the scene behind something he just said.
After each conversation you get a short list of names and places to confirm, each with a few seconds of him saying it. About fifteen minutes. That is your whole job.
The story arrives as chapters, built from his own words with short connecting sentences. Tap any line and hear him say it. If he said "I think it was 1968", that is what the story says. Anything we can't tie to something he actually said is flagged for a person to look at, never smoothed over.
When you say the story is him, we print it. A hardback, with a small code beside each quote that plays his voice. Nothing is printed until you've read it and said yes.
You read the finished story before we print a single page. If it isn't him, tell us, and we refund you. You keep every recording and every transcript, because they're his, not ours.
Full terms at the foot of the page.
Told isn't only for the very old. A parent with a diagnosis. A grandmother who tells the same three stories every Christmas that nobody has ever written down. A father who never talks about his own parents unless someone asks properly. Someone who took one trip that changed everything and wants it told right.
No. One question, one button, big type. Someone in the family sets it up with him once. After that he opens the app and talks.
He says so and the app moves on. It's never asked again. The hard parts come last, once he's used to it, and he can stop any time.
He decides, from his phone, and he can change his mind. The family manages the story within what he has allowed, not beyond it. He also chooses what happens to it after he's gone.
In Sydney. You can download all of it whenever you like, and the download works without us. The story page is included for five years; after that, a small yearly fee, or simply keep your copy.
It's assembled from his words. The connecting sentences are short and plain, and every factual line points to the recording behind it, which you can play. We don't produce polished narratives, because polish is where he stops sounding like himself.
Not yet. The first edition is his words and his voice. Photos are coming.
No. The Parents Story is about his parents: where they came from, the house, what they were like in a room, one story about each, what they said that stuck. Other packages, a whole life, one trip, one lesson, follow once this one is right.
Or the kit could still be in the drawer. Start with a conversation.