More a titter than a Twitter My legendary mate Chris was right about internet

FLEET Street legend Chris Buckland laughed his way through life – and was laughing right up to his death at 73 last week.

Chris preceded me as political editor of the Sunday People and his column occupied the space this one now does.

He was a dear friend for nearly 40 years who could find fun in anything – from the earthquake that could have done for both of us in Central America to the cancer that finally killed him.

Chris once amused the Queen while telling her of his visit to a slaughterhouse.

She told him: “I’m so glad, Mr Buckland, I don’t work in an abattoir.” He replied: “Unlikely you ever will, Ma’am.”

As a reporter in Belfast he was phoned by the IRA after being overheard cracking a joke about them.

Warned

He was warned his health would deteriorate if he repeated it.

To show how closely they watched him, the Provo added: “Get the third step down on your fire escape fixed. You might hurt yourself.”

Chris had never set foot on his fire escape. But when he did he found that step was indeed loose.

He shunned social media. So he would have found it ironic that I first heard of his death from Twitter.

He’d have thought papyrus, parchment or paper lasting thousands of years to be more appropriate for such an announcement.

And I see his point. The more information is digitalised the more will be lost to future generations. The popular Friends Reunited website launched in 2000 but closed last year. Much of its content disappeared with it. Floppy discs were the 1990s filing system. Today’s laptops don’t have the drives to read them.

The National Archives now has a statutory obligation to keep electronic government records.

But work emails are also routinely used for personal stuff, making them a nightmare to disentangle for future historians. Theresa May’s invite to Donald Trump to visit will get mixed up with one asking a plumber to mend the lav at No10.

There are 564 MPs on Twitter. A comedy of errors, Chris called it. And Trump using it to announce policy could end in tears.

Which would give Chris the last laugh.