I might be 107, but I can still reach for the Skype

WHEN Helen Dufton was young, the extent of household technology was a wireless radio in the living room and a stack of Bing Crosby records next to the gramophone.

But now at the grand old age of 107, she has a greater mastery of the internet than someone half her years, even taking part in a masterclass about internet telephone service Skype.

From the comfort of her home at Rossefield Manor in Bramley, Leeds, she chatted screen-to-screen yesterday with fellow Hanover Housing Association resident Bill Frost in Dagenham, Essex.

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And now Helen, who puts her longevity down to copious portions of bread and dripping when she was younger, is hoping for the year’s must-have gadget this Christmas – a Kindle book reader.

Her lesson in how to use Skype was part of a programme run by Age UK and Hanover to get their residents online, with advice also offered on catching up with the week’s television on BBC iPlayer, selling unwanted items on eBay and snapping up bargains from online shops.

Hanover is currently campaigning to get all its nursing homes across the country fitted with wireless internet, so all their residents can be silver surfers.

They’ve even set up Hanover World, a social networking site similar to Facebook, so tenants can swap photos, videos and messages.

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They can add “friends”, join “groups” and discuss the issues of the day on forums, just like the popular Facebook, which has nearly a billion users worldwide.

Helen, a great-great-grandmother and one of the oldest people in Yorkshire, soon got to grips with Skype and said it was much better than a normal telephone call because you could see the person on the other end face-to-face thanks to a webcam.

Margaret Goodwin, a National Internet Champion for Age UK who showed Helen how to use the software, said more and more older people were seeing the benefits.

“Skype is just so easy to use,” she said. “You can ring anyone, it’s free and you can see them on the screen. I’ve done demonstrations on the radio and you can still understand how straightforward it is.”

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More and more older people are using the call service to chat with grandchildren and great-grandchildren anywhere in the world.

It’s all part of a big rise in the silver surfer. Figures released earlier this year by ComScore showed that over-65s are just as savvy with social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and sending emails, as their grandchildren.

Nine out of ten over-65s use email, compared to just 12 per cent of under 17s. And if you think email has gone out of fashion, 12.7 per cent of over-55s use Facebook, compared to 12 per cent of under 17s.

“We are so keen to get older people online.

“One of the main reasons is that they can save loads of money – after all, you can find the best bargains online,” said Ms Goodwin.

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“Sometimes when you move into a home, you have to downsize and get rid of some things, so we can show people how to sell on eBay.

“And if you’ve missed your favourite TV programme, there’s things like iPlayer now to catch-up.

“Older people can quickly get a taste for it and even if they don’t have a computer of their own, many homes have a communal area with computers.

“I think Helen was quite keen to show some of the other residents how to use them.

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“There’s also free tuition available at local libraries, Age UK drop-in centres and day care centres, even if you’re a complete novice and just want to know how to turn a computer on.”

Helen, who is believed to be the 89th oldest person in Britain, was born on April 19, 1904, just over a year after music legend Crosby.

It was the year of the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France, the foundation of football’s governing body Fifa and the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway.

She can vividly recall the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 and waving off the men of Leeds to fight in the trenches of France and Belgium in 1914.

But the 107-year-old who stayed healthy by eating bread and dripping has now joined thousands of older people across the country saving dough by logging on to the internet.

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