Last Saturday I was slightly disappointed to see that the seat I favour on the bus at times when it is likely to get full was already occupied.
It is the one next to what is affectionately called the ironing board, in fact the back rest for wheelchair users, which provides a useful cushion against the lurches imparted by the very inadequate suspension in the new buses, & gives plenty of leg room.
However the seat was being used for its intended purpose by a young woman who is a regular passenger, though I was surprised to see that she wasn’t with her usual lively group of friends – not that she needs their support to get around: her wheelchair is electric, large & comfortable but very manoeuvrable, & she is bubbly & outgoing, not afraid to ask for help if needed, or shy of making her requirements known.
Two older women boarded in the village, sat in the adjoining seat & were almost immediately in conversation with her. Talk turned to The King’s Speech which the girl had already seen & which the older women were hoping to see soon.
I cannot remember the last film which everybody was talking about this way – but I suppose it has everything really, at least for an English audience: Mr Darcy, the Queen Mum & posh misery memoir.
The girl offered to check the internet for local screening times – even I assumed she must mean later, when she got back home. The two ladies demurred – Oh no, we couldn’t ask you to do that - but within moments she was announcing that there was a screening at 3 o’clock & another at twenty to six. She explained that, on the advice of her friends, she had taken out a phone contract which offered her free internet, which was more than proving its value.
I expect the two ladies, & many of their friends, will soon be getting such phone contracts too. Older people in general were slow to take to the mobile – I think that, like me, they probably thought they would never manage to dial with their thumb – but now you just take it for granted that everybody has one, whatever their age. And nobody jeers or points at the sight of someone dialling by stabbing their finger.
One of its great advantages for older people is the freedom it brings – to be able to pop out to the shops while still keeping check on your increasingly frail partner at home, or by providing the perfect answer to grown up children who really would prefer for you to wait until they can take you out – We don’t like to think of something happening to you Mum.
Don’t be silly – if I need you I will call.
And since just about everybody is now comfortable with a mobile phone, the government might do better to encourage those still without internet access, especially those who may be afaid of computers, to get themselves on line via a phone rather than by a cheap laptop with cheap software & all the accompanying need for IT services.
