All our yesterdays

Kenneth Wheeler (aged about 8 years old in 1936) with his mother

Don't ever tell me that technology is only for the young. About four years ago I introduced my Dad to Facebook. Now aged 87, at first he struggled to get to grips with it, just as he had done when we gave him a mobile phone ("It's all gone dead, boy..." - "Yes it will, Dad. You need to make sure you keep recharging the battery").

Yet once he gained an understanding of the concept of social networks - that he could find and connect people he knew, and send them messages and photographs and share links, instantly, no matter where they were in the world - he was in like Flint.

He started out on an old laptop, but then one of the family bought him a mini iPad. Now there is no stopping him. He is prolific, sharing links he discovers, commenting on other people's status updates, and has also been blogging daily on Facebook for the last few months with over 90 posts to date.

If you read his posts, you will feel the sense of wonder he experiences when he uses Facebook. Here is a man who was born and raised between the first and second world wars, in a time where telephones and television were uncommon, and newspapers and radio were the main mediums of public communication. Mail would take days or even weeks to arrive at its destination. He served for 32 years in the armed forces, where being sent to any part of the world would take days or even weeks.

He called me over to his house not so long ago to ask what the '47K' meant below his most recent status update. I took a look at his account. He had replied to a mainstream Facebook discussion, and had received over 47,000 likes in less than 24 hours! (I was secretly jealous of his overnight success). Here's his own account of this:

"....some time ago I saw a story about a couple that had been married for 63 years and died with in a few hours of each other, I happened to say that my Wife and I had also been married for the same amount of time, I had loads of replies I asked my Son Steve, what was the K by the numbers, he told me it meant thousands, and there really was thousands of replies, I had only just started on my computer then, I have to admit I have not improve a great deal since ,still only typing with two fingers so it take a time, but I have plenty of that these days."

He speculates on the future, because his dalliance with technology has made him aware of the many possibilities that are opening up to us all. He is amazed at the progress he has seen and expresses it evocatively:

"I felt such a kick out of hearing from all over the world,that has grown smaller with the internet ,and is in almost every home in the world, this has put the world in easy reach to any one and every one, when I was on my first troop ship it took us 11 days to get to Egypt, now we can get to New Zealand and back again in that time, with a few days rest in between. What is going to happen next?"

Dad with Mum recently at a family wedding

Dad is not a 'silver surfer' in the way that dreadful, condescending term implies. Like many others who are in their mature years, Dad is a walking history book who happens to have discovered another tool for communication.

Those like him who venture into a potentially bewildering high tech world such as social networking, should be considered real treasures of our society. We can all learn a lot from their experiences, their triumphs and failures, their eye witness accounts of history - and when they share their lives online for us, we are greatly enriched.

So, long may Dad, and many others just like him be encouraged to continue sharing their wisdom with us online. Write them a brief comment or simply 'like' their posts when you find them. This is what Dad posted when he came home yesterday and saw the responses to his latest post:

"I have been blown away at the response of people that answered my blog this morning, when I got back from Church I had a quick look and almost fell over in shock, I thought only a few were reading it, but in the end it was over 500 that is fantastic, I am so pleased to have comments and all of it was kind and pleasing to read, I have to say it made me well up for a while, it was so unexpected. And from all over the world too I have already said how I am amazed at the fact I can write a message on FB and get an answer back in a split second, from out of the way places in the world to you all it's the norm, but to me it's unreal and amazing."

I'll leave the last word to Dad with one of his signature stories:

"Because Her Majesty is now the longest serving monarch in the world, here a story that I thought you might like to hear, it was when both the Queen and Princess Margaret were little children in Scotland, and had gone for a walk over the hills ,when they needed a drink, so they went to a croft knocked on the door and asked the lady ,"could they please have a drink of water,"the lady got them the water and asked the question. Who are you? The Queen replied. "We are no body, but our Father is a King." This is so precious, I think..."

 Inset photo by Steve Wheeler
 Main photo source unknown


All our yesterdays by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.