In 2022, I thought a lot about my Mum, the internet and a cashless society
Published on 2 December 2022
My Mum is 84 and she doesn’t have a digital footprint. In fact she is one of the 4.2 million people in the UK aged 65+ who have never used the internet, and she never will.
If I say the word “digital'' to Mum, she replies, “watch.” She refers to computers and technology in general as “machines.” Her mate Lil is on Facebook, but that’s not something my Mum understands, or maybe she just isn’t interested – preferring face-to-face communication or a phone call.
She does own an old skool flip phone, like a burner phone, but she no longer charges or uses it after the incident when she pocket dialled several of her children whilst out with her posse in Wilko’s. It rinsed all her pay-as-you-go credit. That was the end of her brief furore with mobile phones.
“During the pandemic, I sent her online groceries in an attempt to keep her safe at home. I also paid her rent electronically – the council didn’t understand that she couldn’t pay it herself online and sent her threatening demands that made her cry.”
I remember listening to Woman’s Hour at the start of the pandemic with anecdotes of middle class women who – due to lockdown rules – had started to Facetime Mummy or Granny regularly. That wasn’t an option for me and Mum. I sent her online groceries in an attempt to keep her safe at home. I also paid her rent electronically – the council didn’t understand that she couldn’t pay it herself online so sent her threatening demands that made her cry.
Tech is not Mum’s friend. I’ve previously bought her 2 portable CD players to try to help alleviate her tinnitus. She broke the first – did some damage to the laser. When I gave her the second, I experienced a revelation. She thinks a CD must play in its entirety, like a record. No skip forward or back. So imagine Jailhouse Rock at full pelt at 10pm serving as her lullaby because she doesn't know to skip to Suspicious Minds and Lonely Man.
“She thinks a CD must play in its entirety, like a record. No skip forward or back. So imagine Jailhouse Rock at full pelt at 10pm serving as her lullaby because she doesn’t know to skip to Suspicious Minds and Lonely Man.”
Mum does own a bank card that was enforced on her. But she’s never used a hole in the wall. Never had a credit card. Used cheques loyally until instructed not to any more. She deals in cold, hard cash. She likes to pay her rent weekly, and in person. It’s a social event, gets her out of the flat, and an excuse to cause beautiful chaos in the town centre with her mates.
Whilst Mum was part of the workforce she always received a pay packet that contained cash. I remember the brown envelopes with windows, manually typed name and employer details. That happened throughout her working life, starting at a fur coat factory as a school leaver aged 15, then Woolworth’s before she had children, and finally at the pit canteen.
Christmases and birthdays were all around cash in cards or envelopes. She paid her weekly catalogue subs in cash, paid for boxes of broken biscuits off the market in cash. Our home electric meter consumed 50 pence pieces.
The drive to a cashless society is excluding citizens like Mum and her posse.
There is now just one remaining bank in her town. Statistics show the total number of bank and building society branches in the UK fell from 13,345 in 2012 to 8,810 in 2021, a fall of 34%. Similarly the number of ATMs in her region has decreased by 22% – the largest fall outside of London and the South East.
As businesses drag themselves into a state of tech savviness, people like Mum are being left behind. Or perhaps, they are being blatantly overlooked. She was traumatised when her landline provider sold out to a bigger conglomerate. Letters started arriving with words such as ‘package’ and ‘broadband’ and collections of letters that meant nothing to her like ‘MBPS’. I gave them a call to try and explain the situation through the lens of a worried pensioner:
“Doesn’t she want broadband?”
“No, she doesn’t have any connectivity. She doesn’t want it.”
“Oh, well we can’t change anything, this is the standard package.”
Every time a bill arrives I coax her to just look at the total sign rather than the 3 pages of jargon that A/ creates anxiety and B/ she’ll never translate. Why should she have to?
Mum’s 84 but she’s as sharp as a tack. It should be her choice whether to embrace the digital era or not. And society should respect that.
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My mum died unexpectedly on Monday. She never used the internet.
This is for Mum’s posse.