"I'll have to buy my daughter a webcam for Christmas"

At my Get Digital scheme in Longhoughton the scheme manager has been very keen for me to demonstrate Skype. A number of residents have family who live far away including a 97 year-old who has a daughter in Canada.

One of the learners who lives nearby is already a Skype user. With lots of encouragement from her son she now regularly Skypes him at his home in Florida. So she's already an expert.

Yesterday afternoon with a spare hour I asked J, our expert, if she'd kindly wait by her laptop at home for us to call her. The rest of the learners gathered in the computer room and G pressed the "video call" button. As the phone rang at the other end we could see ourselves on the screen. M said "there's a lady with a coat like mine. Oh, it's me!"

Then J answered the call and we could see her too. And hear her and chat about how much we're all enjoying the new computers. J explained how often she calls her son and how she attended a party in Florida last week - via Skype.

We made so much noise that one of the other residents came to see what all the fuss was about it. "Oh", he says, "that's a good idea."

After we finished the call we chatted about how easy it had been and all their friends and family need to do is get Skype on their computers. Our youthful 97 year-old was very interested in the webcam, "my daughter doesn't have one of those on her computer. Perhaps I'll get her one for Christmas".