Watching his 100-year-old grandmother read stories to rapt young nieces and nephews, Garth Kearvell realised she wouldn’t be around forever.
That gave the Mount Hawthorn man the idea to launch NonnaVoce—Nana’s Voice.
Mr Kearvell visits homes and records grandparents reading bed-time tales. The recordings can then be played long after the reader has gone to the happily ever after in the sky.
“The baby boomers are getting older, my parents are getting older, that’s all going to be lost and people don’t realise that at some stage they won’t be around,” Mr Kearvell says.
He says the service has also been popular with fly-in/fly-out workers: “Maintaining that connection with kids is important, and having those stories, they can go to bed listening to mum and dad.”
He’s done a few so far and says the most popular stories are the classics like Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs (they’re also in the public domain, which alleviates any potential copyright snags).
“There’s a plethora of older stories, myths and legends like Mother Goose and Grimm and the stories of Monkey that we all watched as kids, all this literature and these classical works that have survived over time. Aside from the nursery rhymes I encourage them to do an intro and an outro, so for the recording it might be something like ‘Hi little Bob and Jenny, it’s grandma here and this is the date and when I’m recording this you’re three’.”
Previously a state manager for “fast-moving consumer goods” (companies like Arnotts, Kraft, Coca-Cola) Mr Kearvell says, “I hit around 40 and wanted to step out of the corporate world and wanted to do something gentler”.
There’s more info at http://www.nonnavoce.com
by DAVID BELL
Perth Voice Interactive 
Leave a comment