What are we going to do?
We are going on a time journey. In search of the past. You do this by interviewing your grandfather or grandmother or another elderly person. You will record the interview with a video camera. You will go on two trips with a fellow student. One time you will be the one asking the questions. Then your classmate will be the cameraman/woman. The second time it’s the other way round. The recordings you make can be kept in an archive. They might later be used to make written stories about the old days, or a film or a play. And when you are later as old as your grandfather is now, you can see and hear yourself in the old recording as a child, talking to that long-dead grandfather about the old days.
Why interview older people in the first place?
Of course, it’s fun to pretend to be a journalist for once. And you can hear very different things about the old days than you learn at school. About ordinary things like eating or falling in love. About life without a phone or computer. Sometimes, in an interview, you come across things that were told in history lessons but are only now coming to life for you. Because someone who experienced it tells about it himself. Then it suddenly seems as if you are there yourself. That you are travelling along on the timeline. You can ask what you want. Later in this booklet you will find some sample questions. You will notice that older people often like it very much when they can tell you how it used to be. This is how stories are passed on in the family.