Helen Spencer

My name is Helen Spencer and I am the Yorkshire, UK based, Founder of www.SaveEveryStep.com, relentless in my mission to urge mothers to capture and preserve their family memories as a legacy for their children.

I am a 44 year old mum/mom (depending on your side of the ‘pond’) and step-mum to 4 kids in total (predominantly boisterous males, ranging from 23 years old to just 4!), 2 dogs, a cat and a lizard. I recently gave up corporate life to launch my own business and spend more time shouting at my kids.

I blog about family nostalgia at http://saveeverystep.wordpress.com. Those memories we all have from our childhood which become so precious as we age, such as baking with mum, the endless summer holidays, picking blackberries and climbing trees. I am passionate about family and the preservation of our personal stories for future generations. I try my hardest to recreate those precious times with my own children for one good reason…..

I lost my own mum (Jean)to a very sudden death 5 years ago. I discovered soon after she passed away that I was pregnant with my youngest son, Ollie. It was a poignant discovery. I had been through a painful divorce and my mother would have been thrilled to see me settled and to know that a new grandchild was on the way. They never met, of course and I felt totally overwhelmed by the need to ‘save’ her memory and story in a format which would I could pass on to future generations, so that she would be more than just an unnamed face in a faded photograph collection. More importantly, it led me to think about the kind of legacy I might want to leave for my own children – a record of our times together, and preserved memories of the decades through which I have lived, of which they will have no interest …until I’m gone, that is.

My mother was the inspiration for the website www.saveeverystep.com, where families can save their memories in chronological order on a timeline, in words and pictures, and this is the reason I Blog.

I record the progress of my children through school reports, sports days, birthday parties and family trips, and compare their experiences with those of my own as I grew up in 1970s Britain. There is often a look back in time even further to the days when my parents were kids, with recollections of a wartime childhood. I have found that within a single generation we are ancient history – my father’s childhood was so far removed from that of my children that it is almost fantastical to them, and yet their grandfather is living and breathing recent history! The passage of time takes us all by surprise, and it is the sad eventuality that so many parents die talking their stories with them that I am determined to help people prevent. http://www.saveeverystep.com