This paper explores the process of how the life stories of a range of educationalists were turned into a life history in a collaborative, story-telling endeavour to transform private experiences into public issues (Denzin, 1997). It suggests that the researcher and the participants were involved in the creation of their own professional identities as they made sense of the history of their professional lives (Ricoeur, 1980). The process of inter- weaving each lived experiences with one another and with the political and social developments of that time to determine significant influences on their identity formation and their professional culture is described (Goodson & Sikes, 2001). The detection of similar themes used to story each life is discussed, with the desire to make history a recurring cultural theme in the both the researcher's and participants' lives. The "making history" theme is used to analyse the researcher's influence on shaping the life history as it came to be presented in a fictionalised narrative or a symbolic tale. The checks and balances built into the collaborative process are outlined to consider where control was given over to the participants, how participants confirmed the correctness of the analysis, how a plurality of perspectives were gathered and how the researcher's standpoint was bracketed to minimise authorial control without abdicating responsibility for its moral purpose (Hutchison, 1995; Plummer, 2001). This paper contributes to the debate about the necessity of these measures in current enthnographic studies. The desire to provide a persuasive text which sends a message about educationalists' sense of professional purpose was kept in check by the need to create a story with verisimilitude (Reissman, 2002; Winters, 2002). The creation of the fictional piece as a vehicle to assist in this endeavour is described.The paper reviews the effectiveness of this process in creating a trustworthy tale of educationalist's lives. It considers the limitations of research collaboration to produce a fictional moral narrative as well as making suggestions about the ways in which the process could have been improved. It examines critically the curiosity, interests and selectivity of the researcher as she strives to tell a meaningful and evocative story by asking, "Are we making history or simply making it up as we go along?" The paper concludes by defending the collaborative creation of fictionalised narratives as a way to expose issues in the public sphere.Denzin, N.K. (1997). Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. London: Sage.Goodson, I.F. & Sikes, P. (2001). Life History Research in Educational Settings: Learning from Lives. Buckingham: Open University Press.Hutchison, S. (1995). Education and Grounded Theory. In R. R. Sherman & R. B. Webb (Eds.), Qualitative Research in Education: Focus and methods (pp.123-140).Plummer, K. (2001). Documents of life2: An Invitation to a Critical Humanism. London: Sage.Reissman, C.K. (2002). Accidental cases: Extending the concept of positioning in narrative studies. Narrative Inquiry 12(1), 37-42.Ricoeur, P. (1980). Narrative Time. Critical Enquiry, 7(1), 160-180.Winter, R. (2002). Truth or fiction: Problems of validity and authenticity in narratives of action research. Educational Action Research, 10(1), 143-154.