It was a Christmas round-robin letter from Tim Little that set me thinking. In case you’re wondering who Tim Little might be, he’s a cobbler who makes fabulous loafers, Oxfords and brogues, not to mention his signature Chukka boot, for well-heeled men around town — and around fields and muddy lanes. (He’s to be found at 560 Kings Road, London SW6; 020-7736 1999 and timlittle.com.)

His chatty little letter was of more than usual interest: instead of an array of stunning accomplishments from all the little Littles (the staple stuff of most round robins) he offered up some of the things that had given him the most pleasure throughout the year.

So Tim, I hope you don’t mind if I share them with a wider world. First, “the missus” as, he calls her, had organised a book of his life. She had contacted Jeannine Saba, of Lost For Words (sabadesigns.co.uk and 020-7262 2292), who offers a “personalised storytelling service”; it’s called Lost For Words because that’s how most people react when they’re presented with one. Jeannine takes a lot of time to listen to the story the giver wants to tell, and she needs lots of clues — newspaper clippings, theatre tickets, opera programmes, photographs, drawings, paintings — all of which she puts together to create a personal memory book. She creates a rough draft to get approval before going ahead.

She does these usually for very special birthdays, for anniversaries, for corporate events and even for funerals (a wonderful thing, it seems to me, for grandchildren after a grandparent dies).

She recently did a memory book to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of Gina Shoes. Jeannine recalls: “I looked in the safe and found wonderful old drawings of the early shoes.” Albums with 60 or 70 bits of memorabilia cost from about £450, but she can do little gift booklets for £350 for the minimum order of ten that would be wonderful to hand out at special parties, or party crackers, each of which contains a teeny personalised booklet (£175 for a set of four).

Tim’s reaction to his present? “It was really beautifully done and great to keep,” he says. “Trouble is, ten minutes later I was totally depressed and wishing I was 18 again and behind the wheel of my Ford Fiesta with the Starsky and Hutch stripe down the side.”

His “missus” had also dug out many of his old music albums from the attic and had the best of them framed. Many of them he hadn’t seen for 15 years or so but, as he puts it: “They do kind of chart your life and they look fantastic.” He now has Look Sharp! by Joe Jackson above his desk in the factory.

Meanwhile, a friend of Tim’s runs a company called Gillman and Soame that takes school photographs — and has an archive that may contain you and your schoolmates. E-mail them with your school and year and, where possible, they’ll send you a copy of your school photograph (www. gillmanandsoame.co.uk).

Finally, some of you obviously have the whole iPod thing buttoned up, but many of us find it bewildering. I really, really want somebody to compile a brilliant compendium of music for the iPod that I haven’t yet bought but intend to get any day now.

It was seeing Tom Stoppard’s play Rock ’n’ Roll that made me realise how much I was missing out, so what I’d like is a service that would sort for me the best from the dross. Well, for £130, audiosushi.net will devise an 80-minute playlist and put the music on your iPod or MP3 player. And for £75, they’ll provide a one-hour personal tutorial on how to download and manage your own selections.

Perfect!

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