# 21 questions to ask a veteran about the 1960s

Most people lived next door to the sixties rather than in them. These questions find out which: where they were living, what they wore, what reached their town and what they only read about. Ask for the boring parts. The boring parts are where veterans are comfortable, and the big stories live next door to them.

1. What did a week's shopping cost when you were first married, and where did you buy it?
   An exact figure lets the reader feel the decade in their pocket.
2. What did a haircut, a cinema ticket or a pint cost when you were twenty?
   They will know it to the penny. Use the number.
3. Where did you go dancing, and what night of the week was it?
   The dance hall is where most of the love chapters begin.
4. What did you wear on a Saturday night out, and how long did it take to get ready?
   The getting-ready is a scene the book can open on.
5. Was there a band or a singer your parents could not stand? Did you play them louder?
6. Did you ever see anyone famous play live? What do you remember that nobody else would?
7. What was the first car the family had, and where did it take you?
   The first car redraws the family's whole map.
8. What was your first flight like? Where were you going, and what did you wear for it?
9. Where were you living in 1965, and who with?
   An address and a housemate fix the decade to a life.
10. What were you doing the day you heard Kennedy had been shot?
   Everyone of that age has this scene; the book wants theirs, not the newsreel.
11. Where did you watch the moon landing, and who was in the room?
   The room matters more than the moon.
12. What did you make of the Beatles at the time? Who in your house disagreed?
13. How short were the skirts, how long was the hair, and what did your mother say about it?
   The mother's line, verbatim, is the whole generation gap.
14. What was your weekly wage in the 1960s, and what did a night out take out of it?
   Wage against night out is a ratio the reader understands instantly.
15. Did the 1960s reach your town, or did you only read about them? What actually changed on your street?
   Most people lived next door to the decade, not in it. That is the honest chapter.
16. What did you drive, or ride, or wait for at the bus stop in the 1960s?
17. What did you argue with your parents about in the 1960s that you would now side with them on?
18. What arrived in your kitchen in the 1960s that your mother never had: a fridge, a washing machine, a packet of something new?
   A new appliance is a changed daily life, and daily life is the book.
19. Who did you want to look like in the 1960s, and how close did you get?
20. What did you believe the world was about to become in 1968? What did it become instead?
21. Was anyone you knew sent to a war in the 1960s? What did their mother do while they were away? (tender: ask once, late, in person)

## How to use these questions

Ask by voice, not by form. Record it. One or two questions a visit is enough; the follow-up ("who else was there?", "what did she say?", "what happened the day after?") matters more than the next question on the list. Tender questions are marked; ask them once, late, and with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question itself.

## About Tellforth

Tellforth asks questions like these by voice, remembers every answer, asks the next question a good listener would, and writes a finished book from what was said: a memoir in the person's own words, or a novel built on the true story. You own every recording. https://tellforth.com