Dear LPG readers, 

This sounds random, but I hope it will become more than that if you give me time to explain.

My name is Maureen B, and I am the nearest thing to an editor that LPG has.  Together with the other members of our editorial group, I spend quite a lot of time listening to what the older people I meet have to say on the subject of any and everything that has, does, and will affect us because I feel that there is a story in nearly everything that we say. 

It has to be true that everything we have an opinion on in this world is drawn from an experience we have learned about from someone we have talked to or some situation we have been in at one time or another and, while our grandchildren will need time to gather those experiences, we oldies have a lifetime of them to draw upon.  

That brings me to the first word in my list. If stories were cars, becoming a pensioner by accruing at least enough to fill a multi-storey car park would only be possible.  Many of us might think that we have spent the central part of a lifetime doing the same things day after day, but the variations in the way that they have played out and the ways we have learned to improve the ways we deal with them are endless if you take the time to think back. 

Which brings us to word number two.   Thinking back is something that older people are likely to find quite challenging because we have so much more material to work with than the younger folk.  The word ‘backstory’ is a lot younger than most of us.  It officially began in 1990 and was initially coined to bring viewers up to speed with the history of a film character or plot. Let’s face it: we all have one, which often stretches beyond our birth to the circumstances of our conception.  Over the years, our parents and grandparents have frequently filled in the gaps the same way we have for those younger members of our families.

Then, we need to consider history.  Where would we be without it, even though it was the subject I liked least when at school? The extensive historical picture has to be the most fundamental aspect when it comes to working out where we are up to as a world now, and there is so much of it.  Political history, military history, national history, economic history, religious history, scientific history and social history come to mind as just a few of the historical pins that hold our world together.  

Now we come to the odd one, ' your’.  It is the odd one out for more than one reason.  The other three words can be written as prefixes to the word history, but while your story is a two-word phrase, it needs to be up there.  At LPG, we believe that it is all the tiny aspects of every story that keep the whole tale more accurate and whether we are talking about your thoughts, concerns, advice or stories on any of the different aspects of the subject mentioned above, every historical event has to have been routed in someone’s mind. This is why we are so keen to keep the record of our online contribution up to date. 

The four words I have chosen to feature today are not my way of entering readers into a mini intelligence test; they are my way of reminding you that every life story matters and, while telling them to your family and friends is good for ourselves and the people we share them with, we need to make sure that we do not rob future generations of the little stories that make the worlds ultimate history a genuinely accurate one, by omitting to leave our part of it somewhere on record. 

This is where I make the LPG age-old appeal and mention that we would have very little to print without your stories.  We know that every reader has one to tell and ask that you visit our contact page to learn how easily and anonymously you can present yours… 

Maureen b
For LPG