70th birthday gift

A 70th birthday gift from everyone who loves them

For the parent who has everything

By seventy, most people have enough scarves and photo frames. What they rarely have is everyone’s words in one place: what a sister remembers of their childhood, what an old colleague saw in them at work, what the grandchildren would say if asked. A 70th birthday book of memories puts all of it between two covers, each piece with the name of the person who wrote it. Sentimental, in the best sense: every word in it is somebody’s own.

Sue,

I knew you before David, before the children and long before anybody called you Grandma.

You were exactly the nurse I wanted beside me on a bad shift: calm when everybody else was flapping, practical, funny at precisely the wrong moment and completely incapable of walking past somebody who needed help.

You were also an appalling influence after nights.

There are stories I am choosing not to include because your children will be reading this.

Thirty-five years of nursing is a lot of people whose lives crossed yours when they were frightened, ill or having one of the worst days of their lives.

Most won’t remember your name now. But I know how many of them were safer because you were there.

Happy birthday, old girl.

Carol x

Page 1 of 4

Every message keeps the name of the person who wrote it, and the photographs they sent go with it.

One link, and everyone can add

You set the book up in a few minutes: their name, the birthday, the chapters. Then you share one link however suits your family, whether that’s the group chat, an email, or a printed sheet with a code to scan. People write a message, or speak one if they’d rather not type, and add photographs. Nobody needs an account or an app. If an old friend won’t go near a link, you can add their message for them.

Help for people who don’t know what to say

Most people want to write something good and don’t know where to begin. The page they write on offers ideas to start from, and help with shaping what they’ve written if they ask for it. You can also sort people into groups, such as family, school friends and work, each with its own link and its own prompts. A few lines is plenty. A longer letter gets the room it needs.

Seventy years, in chapters

The book starts with chapters made for a seventieth: Childhood, School years, Early adulthood, Career, Family life, Recent years, and Now. Rename any of them, take out what doesn’t fit, and add the ones only your family would think of.

Everything people send arrives on the board, an online page where messages and photographs gather, and you decide where each piece goes in the book. The board stays online for 10 years, and ordering the book doesn’t close it.

Kept a surprise, if you want it to be

The board is private unless you choose to open it. People can still write, and only you read what arrives. The invitation is yours to edit, so you can ask everyone to keep it quiet until the day.

A real book, arranged by you

The book lays itself out as a first draft. You move things, take things out, and choose the cover photograph from what people sent. You see every page, and nothing is printed until you approve the book. On the front: a large 70 and the day they were born. It’s a square hardcover on 200gsm silk paper, printed when you order it and posted to the address you give.

The board is free to set up. You pay for the book when you order it, priced by its number of pages.

Help with the speech

If you’re the one standing up to say a few words, we can help you get started. Using only the contributions in the book, we’ll pull together the stories, memories and lines worth including into a first draft. You’ll see whose words each part came from, and you can change as much or as little as you like.

Questions