Redhorn Photo -Carole Snook, Urchfont A magazine forthecommunities of Chirton, Conock,Lydeway, Marden, Patney, Stert,Urchfont, Wedhampton JUNE2 020 and Wilsford £1 1 Let’s all be nonagenarians My maternal grandmother died it on you could get yourself a drink when I was 3½ years old, so we are in the �me it took to warm up. talking more than half a century ago now. She had been ill for a li�le Well if I though we were posh while and I have very clear when we got a telephone I knew we memories of her and going and were posh when we got a television seeing my grandparents who lived it had a massive 14” black and on the East side of Reading about white screen and, like radio, it 60 miles from my parental home, a worked off VHF and had 405 lines to big journey in those days. make up its picture; it was magic. My earliest memory of what I During my grandmother’s illness watched were Churchill’s funeral. I remember my parents inves�ng in Later momentous events I two items of technology to make remember were the Mexico things easier. Firstly we got a phone Olympics in 1968 and of course Neil installed. We had a party line, Armstrong walking on the moon remember those, so you had to pick live, I wrote about that last year. Spectrum which was the most the phone up carefully as there powerful computer I had access to, might be someone already on the The television was purchased outperforming the computers we line. The phone was there so that in from “Smith’s Radio” the Radio and had access to in the Physics an emergency my grandfather TV shop in the village, can you department. I wrote the so�ware could contact us. He also phoned imagine a Television shop in one of for my 3rd year project on that when there wasn’t an emergency our villages now a days? Mr Smith computer, so it wasn’t just a toy! but he didn’t have a phone himself. was part of a family who had owned businesses in the village for I feel very fortunate to have had To make a call my grandfather a number of genera�ons and we access to this technology and the would go to the house next door got to know him very well as main point is that I was also very but one, that became a well-known changing electrical valves in our TV aware that I was in a minority of phrase of my early childhood “next became a regular event. Mr Smith people who had such access in door but one”, the house two doors had a good business in those days. those early years. It wasn’t that my down. My grandfather would then parents were rich, we never went phone from there and I presume we So,because of my grandmother’s on foreign holidays for example, it would then phone him back to that illness, we ended up on what felt was really my grandmother who the neighbours bill wasn’t impacted like the cu�ng edge of technology. prompted my parents to make the too badly. We had a telephone (yes with a party line but a telephone) and we decision to adopt these When we wanted to phone my had a huge 14” black and white technologies sooner than later. grandfather my parents would television. Admi�edly by the �me I Even quite recently we used to phone “next door but one” the le� primary school about half the ask people if they had a telephone people there (I must ask my mother children came from families with number expec�ng many to say no. what their names where, I used to television and one family even had Now a days we just ask “what’s know them but I’ve forgo�en) colour. Having a telephone was your number?” and I cannot would then go and get my becoming fairly common too. remember a couple talking to me grandfather. We would put the about a wedding or a bap�sm who phone down and call back 10 Even when I had le� university have not given me a mobile number minutes later giving him �me to get most of my friends didn’t have a in response to that ques�on in the to the phone. personal phone line for a few years a�er we graduated. I didn’t get a last 10 years. We’ve nearly got to Well that was posh enough, phone un�l I’d been out of the same situa�on with e-mail, having our own phone at home, but university for nearly 5 years and soon we will just ask people what when my grandmother came to that was in the late 1980’s. I had their e-mail address is and be stay that was the excuse to get the bought a black and white portable surprised if they don’t have one. second bit of high tech, a television. television in the upper sixth at I’m very aware that over the last My uncle had a television and I school but the excuse for that was months we have become even could remember marvelling at it, it that I needed it as a monitor for my more dependent on the Internet. was like the radio but with pictures. Sinclair ZX81 and then when I went This hasn’t been a sudden change, It had an amazing 4” black and to university I upgraded to a Sinclair over a number of years services white screen and when you turned have moved online and it has 2 become more and more difficult to and other informa�on and pushed We are at one of those points of do some things other than via the those through people’s doors who massive change and we move into a Internet. Taxing a car, submi�ng don’t have Internet access so they new way of doing things that we our Tax returns, doing our banking can at least be kept in the know. won’t fully understand un�l we get and many many other aspects of there but as things change we will, daily life are moving online. The last When I was a child it was cost as has happened in the past, leave couple of months have just that prevented people having a some behind and we should be accelerated that. phone (does my mum really believe aware of this and also aware that me when I tell her that on her new it’s okay to decide not to adopt I’ve had many mee�ngs online contract she has infinite phone calls and few days go by without me and text messages? It’s not so long something new. being part of a video call or ago that she kept phone calls to just Everyone who I have ever know conference and I’m fully expec�ng a few minutes because of the who was 90 years old or older (and that a good number of mee�ngs perceived cost). Now few people at one point I knew 6 people over that I’ve been used to going to have don’t have a phone and it’s amusing 100) have had one thing in common effec�vely permanently moved on that mobile phone calls are cheaper and that has been their a�tude to line. I’ve had at least three mee�ngs than land line calls for most people. technology. They’d looked at it and online that would have taken me a Most people only keep a physical asked themselves if they wanted to whole day or more. One was due to line for Internet access. be bothered. If they have, they have be in Salisbury, one in London and But there are people who don’t taken it on-board and made the another was to be a 24 hour most of it; I’ve known many people residen�al mee�ng in Yorkshire. The have access to the Internet and it’s not likely to be cost that is the issue in their 90’s who thought their first took 3 hours the second and smartphone was just brilliant and third took 2 hours and the last one but that it’s just one more thing to learn to do. I quite understand this. were up with all the latest Apps. saved the organisa�on £1800 in Others have decided they were not costs. I’m certain that my grandparents wouldn’t have bothered with the going to be bothered with it and What is obvious is that we are phone in the early 1960’s if it hadn’t they’ve not worried about it and let not heading to ‘going back to been for keeping in touch with a it go. normal’ we are moving to a new family that was spread over quite a It tends to be the young who way of doing so many things in our distance. I grew up in a community worry about new technology and in daily lives. Over the last months where no one I knew had rela�ves this context a young person is Joanna and I have been saying living within 40 miles. anyone in their 80’s or younger. morning prayer, joined by others The Church has always used the Perhaps we need to learn from each day, via video conferencing.