Memorial Board

A memorial board for the people who knew them

Online for ten years. No account needed to add to it, and nothing to install.

No one person holds the whole of someone’s life.

Their family knows one version. Their friends know another. Their school, their work, their neighbours, the people who knew and loved them too, each of them holds something different.

A memorial board brings those pieces together. Photos and the stories behind them. Memories that would otherwise stay in someone's head. The things people would say if they had somewhere to say them.

Around the funeral, and long after

You set up the board and share one link: by message, by email, or with the QR code we give you, printed for the funeral or the celebration of life. You can start it in the days before a service, or a year later, around an anniversary.

It does what a condolence book or remembrance book does at a service, with room for more than a line. The people who could not be there can remember them too, and add to it from wherever they are.

Nobody needs an account. People write a few lines or a longer memory, say it aloud instead of typing if that is easier, and add the photographs on their phones.

Somewhere the family can return to

A memorial board is somewhere a family can return to and find them. On their birthday. On the anniversary. On the day someone finds an old photograph and wants to add it. On the day a grandchild wants to know what they were like.

What gathers is what people would say if they were asked. The story behind a photograph. A memory from work. What they were like as a friend. The small detail someone has carried for years and now has somewhere to put.

When the family is ready, what has gathered becomes a printed memory book they can hold. You see every page, and nothing is printed until you approve the book.

For all the people they were

The board works for everyone, whether they were a parent or not, whether they had a thousand friends or a quiet life. People still want to say what they remember. Their family still wants to read it. The book is still the place to keep it.

Who reads the board

Anyone with the link can read the board and add to it, so people see what others have shared. If the family would rather keep it among themselves, you can make it private. Only you then read what arrives, and people can still send their messages.

Taking messages has its own switch, and you choose when to stop. We ask search engines not to list boards, and we never sell what is on them.

The board keeps growing. The book gives the family something to hold.

The board does not close when you make the book. The book is a printed edition of the memories you choose at that point, arranged in chapters to start from: childhood, school, work, friends, family life, later years, and any you add or rename.

You can make a first edition after a month, after a year, or whenever enough has gathered.

If you’re writing a eulogy

If you’ve been asked to say a few words, we can help when you’re ready. Using only the contributions already in the book, never messages sent privately to the family, we’ll bring together the memories, stories and words that may help you create a first draft. You’ll see whose words each part came from, and you can shape it in your own way.

For the children and grandchildren, later

A child may one day want more than dates, formal photographs, or careful summaries. They may want to know what made their parent laugh. What they were like before they were anyone's mum or dad. What their friends relied on them for. What they said about their children. Whether people still think of them.

The board gathers those details from the people who knew different parts of their life. They may want to know: what they were like as a friend; what they were like before they were a parent; what made them laugh; what they always said, or always did; how they spoke about their children; why people wanted to be around them; what stories people still tell; which parts of them people still see in the family; who still remembers them.

The philosophy

There is an old idea that we die twice: once when life ends, and again when our name is said for the last time.

A memorial board gives people somewhere to keep saying the name, sharing the stories, and adding what they remember, now and in the years to come.