Tech savvy silver surfers
Up to the minute information technology is transforming the lives of the over-65s.
A third of this age group now use the internet every day; 10 per cent use social networking sites and 20 per cent use online banking, according to the office for National Statistics.
And the most thriving centres for these silver surfers are Britain’s retirement developments.
Cliff Hasler, manager at Grove place retirement village in Romsey, Kent, says: ‘Here, 63 per cent of our residents have computers. they are a terrific way of keeping in touch with friends and relatives.’ Audrey Brinkworth found learning computer skills helped break the ice with fellow residents at McCarthy & Stone’s development, Fussells Court, in Weston- superMare, when she moved there from paulton, Somerset.
‘I made a friend and we went to the local library where Age UK taught us how to use laptops,’ says Audrey, 88.
Rose Riley, 68, was an It trainer before she retired and kept up her skills when she moved into Anchor’s development in Woodville Grove, Kent. Naturally sociable, she has won Anchor’s Silver Surfer Award for helping others with their computer problems.
Her computer literacy even resulted in romance. She found terry, 71, on a dating website and they have been seeing one another for eight months.
Although there is a steep learning curve facing elderly people who are unused to computers, many catch up quickly.
Marilyn McGee, 80, recently moved into a two- bedroom apartment in Saga’s new developments in Wadswick Green. ‘I already do all my banking, bill paying and train ticket buying by internet. And I like to shop online,’ says Marilyn.
Nor are the afflictions of old age necessarily a drawback. Joy poolman, 94, a resident at Church- ill Retirement Living’s Royal Lodge, Gillingham, Kent, suffers from macular degeneration, which means she has no central vision. She still manages to email her family in America thanks to her specially adapted computer.
‘You don’t have to have perfect vision to enjoy life,’ says Joy, who served in RAF Bomber Command in World War II, flying over bombed cities to assess the damage.
Alison Vickers, 67, at McCarthy & Stone’s Butter Cross Court in Newport, Shropshire, has multiple sclerosis, which was the main reason she moved into her apartment.
‘I have learned how to Skype my family in Australia, book flights and shop online,’ she says.
the new technology is far more than a useful tool. A team at the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that searching the web stimulates centres in the brain that control decision-making and reasoning, therefore helping to maintain quick thinking.
In Brunel Crescent, Box, near Bath in Wiltshire, Charlie Richards, 69, has taken up film-making, with a little help from the internet.
‘I have interviewed old servicemen from HMS Indefatigable, the first ship to be attacked by kamikaze pilots and spliced them with old pathe news clips,’ says Charlie. ‘It took me two years to finish and now I have donated the film to every member of the HMS Indefatigable Association as a mark of respect.’