A Life Well Told
Your life story, in your own words and voice.
Studio Memoirs produces bespoke, cloth-bound heirloom books with recorded audio woven into every chapter. Your interviews, in your own voice. Your family photographs, professionally digitised and edited. All bound together in a single, beautifully made keepsake.
My Story
Who I Am
My name is Leigh. I created Studio Memoirs as a process devoted to preserving personal stories. The idea was born from a passion for non-fictional storytelling and oral history.
I hold an MSc in Digital Journalism with distinction and am a member of the Oral History Society. I have spent years interviewing people from all walks of life, including naturists, artists, scientists, and many more in between. I have produced my own audio documentary pieces and have a deep love for working with sound as a medium.
I work with individuals, couples, and families to record life stories with warmth and dignity. My work is not ghostwriting. I preserve each story in the person's own words and their own voice, so that what you hold in your hand and hear in your ear is genuinely theirs. Whether you want to capture a parent's memories, your own journey, or a shared history, I create a calm, guided experience from the first conversation to the finished heirloom.
I love what I do because memories come to life in the voices that tell them.
The Commission
Four elements, one heirloom
Every commission brings together four elements — your recorded voice, your written word, your family photographs, and the custom-bound book that holds them all.
Recorded Voice
Your interviews, professionally recorded and edited to studio quality. Your actual voice — the pauses, the laughter, the accent — preserved so every chapter can be heard, not only read.
The Written Word
Every interview transcribed and gently shaped into a flowing, readable account — always in your own words, never rewritten. Your story as you told it, set down to be read for generations.
Family Photographs
Treasured photographs digitised and gently restored, then arranged through the book by a designer so the faces and places sit right beside the story they belong to.
The Custom-Bound Book
A hardback bound by hand, printed on quality cream paper and made to last for generations. The finished heirloom that holds it all together — words, images, and the recorded voice within its pages.
What You Receive
The finished Heirloom, in your hands.
When your Heirloom Commission is complete, you receive:
2 custom-bound hardback books of your life story, printed on quality cream paper, section-sewn and made to last.
Recorded audio of the storyteller, edited to broadcast standards, discreetly embedded in every chapter. Tap a page with your phone to play.
A curated selection of digitised and gently restored family photographs, arranged throughout the book.
Digital copies of the audio and photographs, delivered in a family-owned archive.
Additional hardback copies, printed to order for other family members (additional costs apply).
The Difference
Why People Choose Studio Memoirs
Your own voice, always
Studio Memoirs is not ghostwriting. I preserve your story in the words and voice in which you chose to tell it. No script. Your character left intact.
Book and audio, together
Every heirloom book carries the recorded voice within its pages. Turn to a chapter, tap the discreet audio sign with your phone, and hear the words come to life in your own voice.
Your photographs, preserved
I digitise, restore, and curate the family photographs you want to appear in the book. What was fading in storage becomes a vibrant, permanent part of the story.
My Approach
How It Works
A thoughtful, end-to-end process, handled with care at every stage.
Discover
We meet, over tea, without microphones. You tell me who the story is for and what matters most in your telling of it. I listen, ask a few questions, and we agree on the shape of the project together.
Record
Gentle, guided interview sessions in the comfort of your home. Four to six visits, each about an hour long, at a pace that suits you. Nothing is rushed.
Curate
Over a visit or two, we go through your photographs together and choose which belong in the book. You decide which memories make the cut; I take care of the digitising and restoration.
Craft
I shape the interviews into a readable transcript of your own words, edit the audio to broadcast quality, design each page with a professional book designer, and prepare the whole thing for print and custom binding.
Deliver
The finished heirloom is placed in your hands. We sit down together one last time so I can show you how everything works — then it is yours, to keep and to share.
“Studio Memoirs gave our family something priceless—a way to hear my father's story in his own voice, preserved with such care and beauty.”
— A Studio Memoirs Family
Client Stories
In Their Words
Each memoir is as individual as the person behind it. These are some of the voices and stories I have been entrusted with.
From North Berwick to Balmoral
The extraordinary life journey of the Very Reverend Dr Derek Browning
Audio snippet
Emerald Years
Fifty Years of Love, Family, and a Life Well Lived
Audio snippet
Start Your Journey
Let's have a conversation.
Whether you're thinking about recording your own memories, or preserving the voice of someone you love, I'd be glad to hear from you. Fill in the form below and I'll be in touch for a relaxed, no-obligation chat.