Reality Check
Sometimes real life intrudes horribly into this digital playground that we call the internet. It happened to me this morning when I got some very sad news from a person I've never met.
It was from someone whose name I had spotted on ...a young man in London who shared the same surname as my Mother before she was married.
It's not a common name, so I was keen to know if we had some kind of family link. I e-mailed him, we exchanged a few questions and answers and soon we established he was the grandson of my Mother's young brother - my Uncle Robert was his Grandfather. I was so excited. Hey, isn't the internet great for that kind of stuff!
I hadn't seen Robert for more than twenty years. When my Mother died, her side of the family tended to drift away- or perhaps we drifted from them - but I had fond memories of my Uncle. He was a kind and gentle soul and, whenever I visited his house in Glasgow, he would give me chocolate biscuits and let me play with his Viewmaster - one of those plastic toys that let you see still images in 3D.
I also enjoyed hearing stories of how he and my Mum had played childhood games in Tollcross Park and had gone to see Shirley Temple matinees at the Black Cat picture house. The stories conjured up vivid images of Glasgow before the Second World War. More vivid than a Viewmaster.
Then the bad news: Uncle Robert died last year. Today, via a Facebook contact on the internet, was the first I'd heard that news. Tonight I called my Dad in Glasgow and told him too.
He's eighty-seven, doesn't hear too well and I had some difficulty explaining to him how I'd heard the news. Computers, internet, Facebook - I might as well have been speaking a foreign language.
In my Mother's day, bad news came by telegram, hours or days after the event.
But this is the digital age. The news can travel faster, but somehow the distances between families seem greater.
