I was chatting to my Dad on the phone over the weekend. I told him about the work I've been doing in London and he mentioned that my great-grandmother was born in London and moved to New Zealand in 1919 as, what was known as, a "war bride". I've only just now, as I type this, realised that my her husband, my great grandfather, must have travelled from New Zealand to Britain to fight in WW1. I didn't know that.
We talked about how much easier it was to travel across the world then suddenly he said that Mum and him both want to get a computer so that they can do skype video calls. He's a farmer, almost retired, she, according to their marriage certificate is a "farmers wife"; they've never used computers before but they now they want to get one so that they can see their 2 grand-daughters. They flew to Scotland earlier this year and met our youngest daughter (Alice the 3 year old) for the first time, and our eldest (Aisling the almost 6 year old with a wonky tooth) for the second time so photos and DVDs no longer cut it.
So Dad mentioned this the other night and then he mentioned that my (computing newbie) brother had just bought a computer. Next thing I know he has called my brother up using his cellphone and then, with one phone to each ear, I'm talking my brother through setting up skype. It took about 5 minutes. I could have talked to my brother directly, but Dad seemed to enjoy it. He's about to retire but I reckon now has enough tech support experience to work on a help desk.
Now here's the crazy thing. I called my brother on skype the conference called my Dad in and, for the first time in 5 years, we had a 3 way conversation. Five minutes later I kicked Dad off the call and my brother and I had a good video chat, but before we hang up, Dad tells us both that my great-grandmonth travelled back to visit her family in London (for the last time) in 1929. He didn't know how long the journey was but it must have been months. The interesting thing, he said, was that stock market crashed shortly after she arrived, the Great Depression started, and she very nearly got stranded in London because the shipping line couldn't or wouldn't honour her return ticket.
Dad didn't know how or when she made it back, but to New Zeland, but she did. She died in 1984, I think, and although I knew her quite well, I never realized she was british. I suspect that as a kid, many of the older folk had a similiar accent because they'd been born in Britian, and I thought they sounded the same because they were old, not because they were foreigners ....
Perhaps I'm a slow learner, but isn't it amazing that 90 years after leaving her parents home in London to sail to New Zealand, where she would live for over 60 years more, my Dad, her grandson could buy a "thing" which he could use to talk to and watch her british-born great, great grandchildren without anyone even needing to leave their living room.
[And yet, what's more amazing, after living on the opposite sides of the world for nearly a dozen years now, no matter what time of day I ring my Mum and Dad, they still, without fail, ask me if it's morning or night here. Every bloody time. And - more seriously - if they ring me, I'm always worried that whoever hasn't dialed has died.]
