The RSPCC
When Florence Ramsbottom
opened her front door, she was surprised to see
an official looking man and woman standing on her
doorstep.
Her visitors were wearing
smart, freshly pressed, blue trousers, and the
letters RSPCC were embroidered in gold thread
upon the breast pockets of their matching, blue
shirts. To complete their appearance of
officialdom, they both wore peaked caps –
also embellished with the golden letters, RSPCC.
‘Mrs Ramsbottom,’
said the woman in a questioning but friendly tone.
‘Yes,’ Florence
replied.
‘My name’s Joyce,’
the woman continued as she held up an ID card for
Florence to inspect, ‘and this is my
colleague, Nigel.’ The woman pointed to the
man. ‘We’re from the Royal Society for
the Prevention of Cruelty to Computers. Can we
come in and have a few words with you?’
‘There’s nothing
to worry about,’ said Nigel reassuringly
when, five minutes later, they were all seated in
the front room of Florence’s bungalow.
‘It’s just that we’ve had reports
that you own a computer and that you’re
having a bit of trouble looking after it.’
‘My son helps me with
it,’ Florence cautiously admitted.
‘We gather that you’ve
had to ask him ten times in the past month how to
cut and paste text, and that you’ve never
succeeded in updating a file in Dropbox,’
Nigel responded, consulting his notebook.
‘This modern
technology’s very complicated for us old
folk,’ Florence replied in her own defence.
‘I don’t think that’s
an excuse, Florence,’ Joyce responded with a
touch more assertiveness. ‘You’re an
intelligent woman, and you had a responsible and
complex job before you retired. Lots of people
who are many years older than you are managing
their computers perfectly well. Lots of young
people can understand computers too –
despite modern standards of education.’
Florence looked anxiously
at the computer on the table by the window.
‘I love my computer,’ she said, tears
forming in her eyes. ‘You’re not going
to take it away from me … are you?’
‘What would you think,’
Nigel responded to Florence’s obvious
anxiety, ‘if your neighbour owned a dog but
seldom fed it. Suppose that neighbour said she
found it too complicated to open tins of dog food
unless her son explained, every single time, how
to operate the tin opener.’
‘I’d think that
she wasn’t the right person to own a dog,’
Florence replied.
‘That’s right,’
said Joyce – once more in a kind and
sympathetic tone. ‘It wouldn’t mean
that your neighbour was a bad person, or that she
didn’t love her dog, but the RSPCA would
have no choice but to take the animal away and
rehome it.’
‘So you think I’m
not a suitable person to own a computer,’
said Florence.
‘We’ve had
another report from your nephew,’ Nigel
explained further. ‘He says that you’ve
rarely succeeded in adding or removing an
attachment from an email – even though he’s
showed you how to do so, time and time again.
Also, if by chance you’ve removed an
attachment, you can’t find where you’ve
put it within the computer’s filing system.’
Nigel paused. ‘That’s just the same,’
he leaned towards Florence, gently took her hand
and then continued speaking in a quiet, kindly
tone, ‘as if your neighbour never took her
poor doggie for a walk because she couldn’t
work out how to put on or take off its lead.’
Florence was silent for
many seconds. ‘Now you put it that way,’
she said with tears trickling down her cheeks,
‘perhaps you should take it,’ she
glanced fondly at the machine, ‘and find it
a good home. … Will I be able to
visit?’ she added.
‘We’ll try to
make arrangements for you to stay in touch,’
said Joyce. ‘In any case, I’m sure you’re
making the right decision.’
‘Will I get into
trouble about this?’ asked Florence
anxiously.
‘We want to protect
poorly treated computers and the long-suffering
people their owners ask for assistance,’
Joyce replied reassuringly. ‘We don’t
want to harass the sad individuals who aren’t
coping with their machines.’
‘Sometimes people are
prosecuted for “gross digital incompetence”,
as the law calls it,’ Nigel added. ‘They
can be fined and banned from keeping
computers. As you’ve been so cooperative,
however, I doubt that any further action will be
taken.’
‘Miss Roberts from
Rawlings Towers, was banned for ten years from
owning any digital equipment,’ noted
Florence. ‘I read about it in the paper.’
‘That was an
exceptional case,’ Nigel replied. ‘She’d
homed any discarded computer that she’d
found – she finally had eighteen living with
her. She clearly loved them all, but, sadly, she
didn’t understand their needs. When the
police broke in to her flat they also found the
floors littered with old CDs, usb sticks, HDMI
cables and other discarded computer peripherals.’
‘When her computers
were examined by our IT expert before they were
taken away for rehoming,’ Joyce took up the
story, ‘she found that Miss Roberts had
regularly forgotten her Skype password, had no
idea where any of her documents were stored
within the computers’ filing systems, and
had never managed to print a Gmail to fit an A4
sheet of paper.
‘A trainee RSPCC
officer who was involved in that visit was
physically sick after he left the flat,’
Joyce revealed, shaking her head. ‘Thankfully,
cases like that are very rare.’
As Florence watched Nigel
carry her computer from the bungalow she felt sad
but also, in a strange way, relieved. Deep down,
she had known she was not treating the machine
properly – and at least now it would be safe.
Florence resolved that,
first thing in the morning, she would go to the
local shops and buy a pad of paper and a pen.
That technology had been good enough for her
mother and her grandmother. She now understood
that it was also the right thing for her.
|
