Questions to ask your aunt or uncle

20 questions to ask your aunt or uncle about friendship

Friends see what family cannot. These questions ask for the first friend, the one who caused the trouble, the one who turned up unasked, and the one who was never thanked. Ask "what was my mother like at twelve?" about halfway through. An aunt will answer that question more honestly than your mother ever will.

How to use this list. Ask by voice and record it. One or two questions a visit is plenty; the follow-up ("Who else was there?" "What did she say?" "What happened the day after?") matters more than the next question. The 3 marked tender come last: ask them once, late, in person, with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question.

1. Who was your best friend when you were a child, and what did the two of you do that nobody else knew about?
2. What did you eat at school at midday, and who did you sit with?Who they sat with at eleven is the first friendship chapter.
3. Did anyone from your class become famous, rich or notorious? What were they like at twelve?
4. Tell me about the best night out of your life. Who was there, and how did you get home?
5. Was there a pub, a hall or a club where everyone went? What did it look like inside?One room described well stands in for a whole youth.
6. Who did you meet on a journey that you still remember by name?A stranger remembered by name for fifty years has earned a paragraph.
7. Who was your first friend outside the family, and how did the two of you meet?The first friend is the first choice they ever made.
8. Who has known you the longest, and what do they call you that nobody else does?The old nickname is a voice from before everyone else arrived.
9. Which friend got you into the most trouble, and which one got you out of it?Trouble is the plot; the friend is the cast.
10. Who did you make friends with at work that you kept long after the work was over?
11. What did you and your friends do on a Friday night at sixteen, and where did your parents think you were?
12. Which friend did your mother not approve of, and was she right?The disapproved friend is a chapter about both of them.
13. Who taught you something you still use every day: a trick, a recipe, a way of handling people?
14. Is there a friend you have never thanked properly? What for?
15. What did your friends call your group, and who was the one everybody secretly followed?A gang with a name is a gang with a story.
16. Who is the friend you would phone at three in the morning, and have you ever had to?
17. What is the longest you and your oldest friend have gone without speaking, and who broke the silence?
18. Tell me about a friend you lost touch with. When did you last speak, and what was the last thing said?tenderThe last words said are usually remembered exactly.
19. Was there a friendship that ended badly? What would you say to them now?tender
20. Who turned up at the hospital, the funeral or the door without being asked?tenderThe unasked arrival is the clearest proof of a friendship the book will get.

What these questions are for

A good book about a person needs more than facts. It needs the person on the page: how they talked, what they wanted, what they did when it mattered, the story that shows them. These questions cover 11 of the things a writer needs about your aunt or uncle: key relationships, the story that shows them, habits, routines and work, how others saw them, objects, places, food, music, where they came from, their voice and sayings, wants, fears and wounds, temperament and humour, loss and fate, contradictions.

More questions to ask your aunt or uncle

• All questions to ask your aunt or uncle
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about their childhood
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about family history
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about love and marriage
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about their work
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about faith and beliefs
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about food and the kitchen table
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle that are funny
• Questions to ask your aunt or uncle about hard times

Or see questions for everyone else, and how to interview a parent about their life.