How to record a parent who won't use apps

The most common reason a family never records anything isn't apathy. It's the sentence "she'd never use it."

And she probably wouldn't. Someone who has spent eighty years without an account, a password or a home screen is not going to acquire one so you can hear about the shop her father kept. That's fine. The person telling the story does not need to operate anything.

The rule: the technology stays on your side

Whatever you do, the setup, the account and the fiddling stay with you. Their entire job is to talk. If any plan you're considering involves them installing, signing in, or remembering something, it will fail — not because they can't, but because it converts a nice afternoon into a lesson, and nobody wants to be taught by their own child.

Three ways to do that, easiest first.

1. Hand them your phone

Sit next to them. Open the record screen, press start, and put the phone down between you where they can see it.

This works better than anything else, and it isn't close. You get the pauses, the hands, the way they look at you when they get to the bit they weren't going to mention. You also get to ask the follow-up question — "wait, who was driving?" — which is where the actual story usually lives.

A few things that help:

• Put the phone down. Held up, it's a camera pointed at them and they perform. Flat on the table, it disappears in about ninety seconds.
• Don't announce that you're recording anything important. "I want to get this down properly" raises the stakes. "Tell me about the shop again, I want to remember it right" doesn't.
• Start in the middle. Not "tell me about your childhood" — nobody can answer that. "What did the shop smell like?" gets you twenty minutes.
• Let the silence run. The three seconds after they finish is where the second half arrives.

2. Text them a link

If you're not in the room, send a link. They tap it and record — no account, no download, nothing to install, and it opens in whatever browser is already on the phone.

This is the option to use when someone is willing but you're four hundred miles away. It's also the one to use for the relatives you'd never get in a room together: send the same question to three siblings and you get three different versions of the same afternoon, which is usually more interesting than any of them alone.

Send one question at a time. A list of twelve gets nothing; one question gets an answer, and the answer earns you the next one.

3. Sit with them over video

A recorded video call is the middle ground: you're together enough to ask follow-ups, and they don't have to do anything but answer the phone-shaped thing they already answer.

Fair warning — the first one is always a bit stiff. The second is fine. If you're going to do this, plan on doing it more than once, and treat the first as the one that gets the awkwardness out of the way.

What to do when they say no

Some people don't want to be recorded, and that is a complete answer. Push once, gently, and then stop.

But it's worth knowing that "no" is often about the format rather than the idea. People who refuse to be interviewed will happily talk while doing something else — cooking, sorting photographs, driving. The recording doesn't have to look like a recording. Some of the best ones are forty minutes of someone making dinner and talking about their mother.

Photographs are the reliable trick. Put a shoebox on the table, press record, and ask who everyone is. Nobody refuses that, and you end up with the names, which is the thing that's actually about to be lost.

The part people regret

Not the quality. Nobody has ever listened back and wished the audio were better.

What they regret is the questions they didn't ask, and waiting for the good occasion — the birthday, the anniversary, the visit when there'd be more time. There is no good occasion. There's a Tuesday, and a phone, and someone who will tell you about the shop if you ask.

Ask on the Tuesday.