Words: Trawl old videos (including on mobile phone), answerphone messages, notes scrawled on bus tickets etc, shopping lists, old birthday cards, train tickets, stubs from events, receipts and, of course, letters (love, anger, splitting up, betrayal, apology, reconciliation...). Diaries. Journals. Childhood storybooks. Calendars. Wedding/funeral programmes. Words, messages and poems written on serviettes. Emails, Facebook messages.
Music: Pick out and listen to those songs that define a person, place or a significant moment in time in your memoir (eg Shalamar's 'Night To Remember' was playing on the car stereo as B drove me from Chester train station to Wrexham Maelor hospital to see my dying mother). Make a cd of the favourite tunes of people featured in your memoir. Dig out old vinyl. Trawl YouTube for pop videos, TOTP performances. Old videos or cassettes from childhood, teens, twenties.
Newspapers/magazines: Clippings, features, headlines, pictures... making a montage can be useful.
Scent: Perfume bottles, clothes with personal scent still present, soap, shampoo, aftershave.
Make-up: Lipstick (what shade did they wear/its name/brand?), eyeshadow, eyeliner, blusher/rouge, mascara, foundation, nail varnish (what shade... name/brand?), powder puffs, hair gel, hair clips and bands.
Ordinary objects: Trinkets, clothing, matchboxes, jewelery, pens, medical aids (and clothing), underwear, toys, gloves, gardening tools, crockery... basically anything that reminds you most strongly of that person or scenario.
Books and films: What books, plays or poetry moved/changed you as a child/teenager? Was there anything you read or watched at a particularly signficant moment that has stayed with you... a fragment of poetry, a line from a play? Find and re-watch those films you loved as a child or that feel significant to you or to the other characters in your memoir.
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