Have you ever wanted to capture a loved one’s history? Those treasured stories and memories that celebrate their life? Or even your own history, collecting and capturing it for generations to come?
Maybe you don’t know where to start, who to interview, or where to dig for records. Or maybe the idea of writing it all down is so overwhelming that you haven’t managed to start yet. You are not alone. It is a mammoth task!
We've documented many stories in our time and you can explore some of the popular groups we serve below.
We offer three packages; each helping you capture your history and stories in one of our beautiful bespoke ‘Life Story Books’.
We provide you with our step–by–step guide, multiple helpful resources, and two face–to–face consultations to help you create your own ‘Life Story Book’.
We support you to bring your story to life. This package includes a step-by-step guide, helpful resources, and three face-to-face consultations to help you find and capture information.
We then collate all of your information and create and print a bespoke ‘Life Story Book’.
In this comprehensive package our specialist team researches, records and creates your keepsake book for you.
We create a strategy and plan, identify who and where to contact to find information, we contact and interview, research and trace, source photos and records, and create a bespoke ‘Life Story Book’.
We provide you with our step–by–step guide, multiple helpful resources, and two face–to–face consultations to help you create your own ‘Life Story Book’.
LEARN MOREYour voice is the most identifiable element of your personality, bringing joy, comfort, and reassurance to family and friends.
In this intimate and private interview, we talk candidly and confidentially about the issues, events, concerns and circumstances that helped shape who you are today and provide you with the opportunity to speak up about what really matters to you. LEARN MOREWe support you to bring your story to life. This package includes a step-by-step guide, helpful resources, and three face-to-face consultations to help you find and capture information.
We then collate all of your information and create and print a bespoke ‘Life Story Book’. LEARN MOREIn this comprehensive package our specialist team researches, records and creates your keepsake book for you.
We create a strategy and plan, identify who and where to contact to find information, we contact and interview, research and trace, source photos and records, and create a bespoke ‘Life Story Book’. LEARN MOREThe Untold Story is a dream brought to life by Shannon Kendrick. It is the culmination of hard work, passion and years of experience supporting people. Shannon is the CEO of Caring with Carers, a foster care training and assessment agency, she is an accredited therapeutic life story work practitioner and has worked with children and adults from trauma backgrounds helping them understand and create their Life Story Books. She has built The Untold Story to provide this service to the wider community, believing everybody should have access to their life story.
She exemplifies empathy, sensitivity and respect and will ensure that your experience creating a ‘Life Story Book’ is rewarding, peaceful and full of joy.
CAPTURING LIFE The days of being a young mother, with babies filling your bed and your heart, are heavenly. Those wonderous years when you feel as though you are in a cocoon with your children are a gift. And in those moments, the most important thing is to be present. But though they are long, they are also fleeting. And one day, you will look back with longing. In those bittersweet moments, the memories of the cocoon you were in with your baby will fill your cup with joy. And then the toddlers stage arrives. Toddlers are perhaps the truest reflection of life itself, the ability to talk, walk, interact, but with utterly no self-awareness. Toddlers will fill your home with chaos, but also with deep, long cuddles. Chaotic bundles of love discovering life. It will be fast, it will be furious. And in your final years, the toddler years are the stuff of memories that will make you laugh long into the night. When your babies slowly become adults, in those teenage years, you will be torn between wanting them to grow but also wanting them to stay with you forever. It is bittersweet to walk side by side...
THE UNTOLD STORY OF CHRIS HENRY,OWNER OF BLACKBIRD CAFE THIRROUL In this episode Shannon sits down with Chris Henry, owner and head chef at the Black Bird Cafe in Thirroul. He talks about his journey through adoption and the big one over to Australia, at the age of 16, to start a new life. From a chaotic childhood, Chris found peace and calm with his wife Alice, who is the granddaughter of Gough Whitlam, and also adopted. Chris and Alice have had it all, lost it and now find themselves building strong community relationships as they run the well located and much loved Black Bird Cafe. Find out the amazing work they did during Covid and how being a father gives him the opportunity to create the childhood for his children, he didn't have. In our research we found some fabulous reviews that Chris humbly accepted. Follow them on socials and check out this rave about the cafe. "Divine coffee. Great service and lovely staff. The staff and owners are always friendly they greet you with a smile and hello and the food what can I say other then it is just so yummy.The corn fritters are the best I...
We also see so much joy in the world! The birth of new babies, the wobbly first steps of a toddler, their momentous first tooth and the Christmas morning overwhelm. We see the waves of exhaustion and elation for new parents, the awe and the love, the delicate movements and careful cradling. So many precious moments and experiences that are fleeting, they are innately limited, and that is what makes them so sweet! They are not things you can hold on to, those experiences cannot be recreated as we age.
But we can capture them, capture the moments, the still images, the recollection of the sounds, tastes, smells, feelings. We can capture it all while the memories are still close. And we can save them for you in a beautiful book that you can treasure and cradle long after the children have grown and flown. Investing in the moments and memories now will be something you will be endlessly grateful for when you are older, and wiser, and long for those vivid memories
and moments.
Capturing a life in a tangible way can be utterly unique, it can be for solemn reasons, for joy and happiness, for love and laughter. The WHY is limitless. The only important question you need to ask is when.
We have enough stuff, what we don’t have is enough stories
Chances are your family knows some of your stories. They might know the big moments or those moments they’ve been a part of. But what about the untold stories they don’t know.
Maybe it’s memories from your childhood that shaped you. Maybe it’s your teenage years. Your first job. Your first love. Your first-hand experience of times in history that perhaps you’ve alluded to but never really captured or spoken about.
Or perhaps there are some memories they’re not aware of. Sights, evocative smells, taste, desires, fears and more.
Now consider what it would mean to capture those stories, that history, not just for you but for future generations.
The gift of your story is a priceless gift that is so much more precious than ‘stuff’ yet too often we don’t think to record it until it’s too late. Many of us also either don’t have the time or perhaps we’re not sure what questions to ask of ourselves to discover these untold stories.
That’s what we at The Untold Story is all about. Helping you capture, record and commemorate for future generations, your family stories.
Family-owned businesses are rich in stories and history. However, as time passes, those stories are forgotten, they pass away with the founder or perhaps they’re known by owners but not shared with your customers.
Storytelling is a powerful way to engage with your customers. To develop trust, connection and to help them resonate with the human side of business.
So many business owners are looking for a story to tell when the answer lies within their history. The trouble is you’re too busy in your business to spend time drawing out the stories and writing them down, perhaps you’re not a storyteller yourself or you don’t know what stories to draw out.
Let us do that for you.
Chances are you remember some of the stories of your parents’ or grandparents’ childhood Of their teenage years. Their first job. How they met. Highs and lows.
Or perhaps there are some memories you’re not aware of. Sights, evocative smells, taste, desires, fears and more.
Now consider what it would mean to capture those stories, that history, not just for you but for future generations.
The gift of history, of our stories is so much more precious than ‘stuff’ yet too often we don’t think to record it until it’s too late. Many of us also either don’t have the time or perhaps we’re not sure what questions to ask to discover these untold stories.
That’s what we at The Untold Story is all about. Helping you capture, record and commemorate for future generations, your family stories.