My oldest grandson and his partner came for dinner the other night. I was going on a bit about how nothing seems to work in the writing department for me at the moment. They urged me to write a memoir.
I have been toying with that idea (and rejecting it) for some time. But I do think it’s important to write down memories before they go – or before I go – even if it’s just for the family. My sister, who also writes, and I have stored quite different memories in our brainboxes even though we mainly lived through the same events and are close in age.
Memory is a constant amazement to me. How can I remember these vivid pictures and emotions from eighty years and more ago? My brain will have replaced all its cells many, many times and yet these pictures, sounds, smells, hopes, and despairs are still safely stored! How?
Jenny Pattrick 
Ooh, yes please! Memoir enthusiast here! I find them fascinating – true life stories, describing life but “without the boring bits”, as Colleen McCullough once noted.
I am currently reading your novel Harbouring, which I am greatly enjoying. A friend recommended it to me, and I’m glad she did (even though I mostly read memoir these days), as I am a lifelong Wellingtonian, and a lover of history, so it is fascinating to get some well-researched insights as to what life in the area must have been like, back in 1839/40. Thank you for your mahi!