She's only gone and done it!

"Guess what Nelly’s done now. She’s only gone and started using computers… I know, at her age! She popped down the library, and they gave her some sort of taster… yeah, I know, just like it was jam or something!

"Then after they’d given her a quick session round the houses, they sat her in front of a computer, and some woman from the BBC came on the screen and told her how to use all the gubbins – you know, the keyboard and the other thing… What? Yeah, that’s it – the mouse.

Apparently you can look at this woman anytime on the BBC website. Oh come on, you must have heard of the BBC website, they never stop talking about it on the telly.

"The woman told Nelly to press one of the letters on the keyboard, and when she did it right, the woman told her ‘well done!’ How does that work? Gave Nelly a bit of a turn.

"Anyway, Nelly says they went on to numbers and moving the mouse around and before she knew it she was playing games – on the computer! With the BBC woman talking to her all the time, saying ‘terrific’ and ‘great’ and stuff like that. You know what Nelly’s like, she likes being told she’s doing the right thing. The bloke in the library told her she was a natural… Nah, he wasn’t being fresh, he means she’s good at computers. Who’d have thought it?

"Turns out Nelly’s going again tomorrow to learn all about the Internet… yeah, that’s all the websites, ‘www’ this, that and the other. The library bloke will set her off, and then she’ll pick up the rest from somewhere else on the BBC… I know, they’re into everything. Pity they can’t get a bit more football.

"I’ll tell you how Nelly gets on. She reckons she’ll be ‘surfing the Web’ like all the youngsters. She’s a dark horse, my Nelly."

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Computers & the Internet". Computer Tutor and Webwise are both under "Learning resources".)

Picture credit: geert/morguefile.com