Client story: The most meaningful wedding gift she could have received

Adam discovered Ethos Books at just the right moment: he was searching for a meaningful wedding gift for his daughter, while also worrying that his family’s older generations’ stories hadn’t been written down. In the end, he decided to order not just one book, but two – one about his mother and another about his mother-in-law. The most amusing part was that the books had to be kept secret from the children, which led to quite a few comical moments!

Had the idea of a wedding gift been on your mind for a long time? Were you worried about what to give?

No, I can’t say it weighed on me too heavily. It was more that when I first heard of Ethos Books, my father-in-law had just passed away and I realized that neither I nor my children would ever be able to ask him anything anymore. Then, as soon as I heard about writing these personal books, I thought: “Well, since both my mum and my mother-in-law are still alive, it would be wonderful to get their stories down on paper.”

I’d often thought about my own dad, whom I never got around to properly visiting. Life was always so busy—building my business, always another week going by. My dad would ring me, asking if I’d drop by, and I’d say “next week” or “next month,” until one day there was nowhere left to go. Before that, I also had a grandmother, and there were so many things I wish I had asked her. But that idea was always somewhere in the back of my mind, and I never acted on it.

Then I thought about my own children, and my brother’s children – four of them, all growing up together – and realized I wanted them to have their grandmothers’ stories in book form. I figured it was the best time, perhaps the last good chance, to get these books done.

You mentioned that at first neither your mother nor your mother-in-law were keen on the idea of having books written about them.

They were really against it to start with!

How did you manage to convince them?

Initially, I talked to one of them about it. She said, “I’m not interested – who would want a book about me?” So the convincing happened slowly and gently. I reassured them that I wasn’t forcing them, and that it was perfectly okay if they didn’t want to do it. But I added that one of the grandchildren was getting married soon, and it would be such a lovely present.

One day, they seemed to think it was a good idea… but the next day they’d change their mind. So then I started a bit of playful rivalry. One grandmother lives in Bath and the other in London. I told my mother in London, “Hey, the Bath grandmother is already on board,” even though we hadn’t really finalized anything. At the same time, I told the Bath grandmother that the London one was keen on doing it – so she thought, “I can’t be the one who refuses now!” I’m not sure if you’d call that manipulation, but I had to get them moving somehow.

We worked on these books in secret. Was it hard to keep it under wraps? One of your family members even contacted us separately about writing a book for the same grandmother. How did you juggle that so nobody spilled the beans?

Some of them definitely suspected something was up. With the London grandmother, there was one time when the grandkids happened to be visiting, and the writer phoned her. So she darted off to the bathroom for half an hour, talking secretly, and nobody could figure out what was going on. They were joking among themselves, “Does Grandma have a secret admirer?”

Also, one of my other daughters learned about Ethos Books somewhere, got in touch with you, and told me she thought it would be an amazing wedding gift for her sister if we could make a book about Grandma. I told her, “Look, these books take a while – at least a year – and it’s pretty expensive, so I’m not sure we can do it now.” That was some crafty misdirection on my part! But the end result was fantastic. Everyone was happy, and there was a lot of genuine surprise.

How did you present the gifts? What was that moment like?

At first, we planned to give the books at the wedding, but then I realized we couldn’t do that on the big day itself – it would distract from the bride. So we waited until the day after the wedding when we were all together in the countryside in Devon. We were sitting around, having coffee, and then after a while, we brought out the books and handed them around.

Did you learn anything new about your mother from reading the book?

Yes, I did. There were plenty of things she said about me that I felt like arguing with! I was thinking, “Where on earth did she get that idea? It never happened!” Either I don’t remember it that way, or she’s recalling it differently. But there was also a lot about her own life that I simply didn’t know. I was aware in broad strokes where she had lived or what she had done, but the book went into detail. For instance, I’d heard of certain people, but only now did I finally learn the full story. Perhaps someone was just “some lady” to me as a child, but now I found out she’d been my mother’s colleague for ages, and they did all sorts of things together.

What was the whole process of creating these books like for you?

Initially, I worried I’d have to be much more involved, but thankfully I hardly needed to do anything. You handled it all so smoothly, and the communication was direct between you and them. I’d occasionally check in, but I didn’t want to interfere. I wanted the books to be truly theirs, not me jumping in to edit and saying, “No, you didn’t go there, you didn’t do that.”

When my mum wrote down dates, now and then I did step in, saying, “That’s definitely not right.” She claimed she went to Canada in 1963. I said, “No, you definitely didn’t. You didn’t even have kids yet.” Then she suddenly remembered, “Oh, right! That wasn’t until 1979.” She’s 84 now, so some facts can get a bit jumbled.

How did reading these finished books make you feel?

It’s hard to put my finger on the exact emotion, but I definitely felt something deep down. I devoured them both very quickly. I got them a couple of days before the wedding and thought I’d just skim through, but I ended up reading them cover to cover in one evening. I want to pick them up again on a quiet day and read them once more, slowly.