When I was in my 20s, my Granny gave me a chess set. The roughly-hewn pieces were little more than a centimetre in height. It had belonged to my grandfather, a Russian doctor who had set up medical clinics providing free medical services, first to orphans and then extending this kindness to treating the very poor. This attracted the attention of Stalin’s totalitarian state and my grandfather was duly charged and convicted as an enemy of the state. A keen chess player, he carved the set while he was a political prisoner.

The chess set is among my most prized possessions. I know little of the rest of my grandfather’s story. He died well before I was born. The information I have was passed on to me by my Granny, a survivor of the labour camps in Siberia, but she too has passed, along with many of her own stories. Did he appreciate that he risked attracting the ire of the Stalinist state? What was prison like? What became of the rest of his family? What was his perspective on World War 2? Why did he become a psychiatrist when he was resettled post war in England?

My granny might have answered some of these questions but I didn’t think to document these stories when I had the chance. Now they won’t be coming back. It is a loss I still feel deeply, not just for myself but also for my own children. They never knew my grandparents, but I have little doubt that they would have found interest and potentially inspiration in their stories. These two independent thinkers are in my children’s DNA but so little of their stories are known.

I wish I had more of these stories.

Fast forward to 2023 when I had the opportunity to facilitate the documenting of a very different life story: that of a grape farmer from outside Mildura. On one hand his was a simple, normal story. But on the other, it was not that at all. It was a story full of anecdotes, humour, romance, partnership, hardship, with a dash of philosophy and some refreshingly down to earth political perspectives. It was a local history, a reflection on times past and present, a chronicle of changes in the local community.

So why tell a life story?

Simply, because every life is unique, lived once, never to be lived again, and each with it’s own slings and arrows, tales and travails, achievements, relationships, full of nuances, challenges and perspectives. We are a combination of genetics and a myriad of pieces that will never combine in the same way again. This is what makes our story and this, too, is what is an integral part of the story of our own family.

Could there be any more valuable gift to give a family?

Sincerely, from my own personal experience, I think not.