…is not, necessarily, a chronological account of your life. It should be more a recollection of the events that - for diverse reasons - have meant most to you and can be retold, ideally, as stories about those events and the people and places involved. The guide will soon get you in the swing of recognising these as its various techniques stimulate your memory.

Life's events can carry so much momentum that the opportunity to reflect on them is sometimes lost before the next event or experience comes along. A memoir is also an opportunity to indulge that reflection with the benefit of a greater perspective and, hopefully, the wisdom that experience can give. In short, creating a memoir can be a voyage of self-discovery, a journey you take at your own pace and in your own time. You will also find it can be used to create its own opportunities, if you wish, to reacquaint yourself with people and places.

For the reasons above, it is primarily for your benefit. The next set of beneficiaries will be those near and dear and some, perhaps, yet to be born. In some way they will have been shaped by what happened in your life and they will be fascinated to learn as much about it as they can. And, who knows? Sometimes a memoir can take off and find a life of its own and a much wider audience. Our generation has seen - and had to cope with - more changes than any other.