-
Click here to visit the Scotland home page for the latest news and sport
One of the most inspiring TV advertisements ever created was about an older gentleman looking for a long-out-of-print book on fly fishing.
It was so beloved that you can probably instantly
recall
the name of the imaginary book’s creator.
It was, of course, J.R. Hartley. The ad has the angling enthusiast wandering from bookstore to bookstore in a fruitless search and then, at last, turning to the Yellow Pages for more stockists to try.
He exclaims joyfully into the phone a moment later, ‘Really? You do?!’ ‘Oh, that’s fantastic!’
It’s already an inspiring piece of work even before the emotionally touching conclusion when the elderly person requests to reserve a copy.
My name? Ah yes, it’s J. R. Hartley.
‘Good old Yellow Pages,’ went the tagline. ‘We don’t just help with the nasty things in life like a blocked drain. We’re there for the nice things too.’
Poor old Yellow Pages. A relic from bygone days, rendered obsolete – like so much else – by the electronic devices we carry everywhere.
The kindly daughter who puts the business directory in her father’s hands in the advert would today be telling him: ‘
Google
It’s on your phone, you silly old thing.
However, I’m considering whether that familiar slogan might still have some relevance today. Maybe Google ought to bring it back.
In these times, it’s simple to overlook how the internet isn’t solely about facilitating negative aspects such as phishing schemes, harmful social media content, and extorting impressionable young adults.
It exists not just for difficult moments but also for enjoyable ones — in ways that were beyond our imagination in the previous century.
In 1939, when 11-year-old Jim Dougal’s family left Eyemouth in Berwickshire, he probably didn’t imagine that he would ever see his childhood sweetie, Betty Davidson, again.
Indeed, they once went hand in hand to primary school, yet life marches forward. We are swept along by its current, unable to resist at times.
This marked the tale of Jim and Betty—a camaraderie that lingered solely within the recesses of their recollections as each embarked on separate journeys spanning thousands of miles, continuing well into their nineties.
That is how, in any different era, their tale would undoubtedly have concluded.
And there they stood, these two 96-year-olds, grinning from the pages of yesterday’s Daily Mail, with their arms draped over each other’s shoulders—a mirror image of how they posed together in 1936 when they were just eight years old.
Mr Dougal, who resides in Essex, notes, “She still possesses that gleam in her eye and a hint of the fair hair that I recall.”
What gathers these nonagenarians together for an update on their lives over the past 85 years? It’s the device that took the place of the Yellow Pages and traditional telephone directories. This technology, when used skillfully, has the power to bring immense happiness.
Mr Dougal’s son Alistair conducted the online search when he decided to trace what happened to his father’s former classmates featured in an older class photo from Eyemouth Primary School.
He shared the image in the Eyemouth Past Facebook group, and as expected, another member identified her aunt Betty – who is very much alive and thriving in North Yorkshire.
Sure, the remainder was simple. Before long, his dad and Mrs. Davidson were conversing over the phone and arranging a get-together.
As we age, stories of this kind appear increasingly significant, particularly when we start losing loved ones and recognize that we coexist within overlapping lifespans for merely fleeting moments.
Whenever such ideas flood your mind, the internet becomes an indispensable asset, the ultimate solution in our toolkit that transforms what was once unachievable into something manageable with just a few mouse clicks.
And perhaps it is those of us who experienced a good chunk of life before this resource came in but were still young enough to learn the ropes when it did who appreciate it the most.
It is little surprise that Friends Reunited was one of the early successes of the internet era – or that online dating soon rendered obsolete newspaper personal ads on its way to becoming the standard method by which partners meet today.
At its simplest and best, this incredible apparatus is a finder of the things we seek. It is, naturally, the tool I used to recall the dialogue in that old Yellow Pages ad. I don’t suppose it is the internet’s fault if the things we seek are not always for the best.
But, contrary to popular myth, good intentions online do not normally take us anywhere in the vicinity of hell. It was a magical feeling a few years ago when, out of the blue, I received a message on my phone from a primary school classmate.
He was sending me our class photograph from primary two, perhaps wondering whatever became of the six-year-old in short trousers standing beside him.
My story, you see, is rather similar to Mr Dougal’s. My family moved from Aberdeen when I was 10 and I haven’t seen any of my old school friends from that day to this. The river’s currents carried me elsewhere and, in these days, what was I going to do? Write them letters?
No, we are unsentimental in youth. Much less so in middle age – especially when armed with technology which allows full explorations of memory lane.
Thanks to that message, I’m now in occasional touch with several of my classmates from my earliest schooling days. It’s a joy to see what they’re doing with their lives on Facebook, a comfort to know people I first met when I was four are now just a text message away.
And then, last week, a squeal of delight from the kitchen table. It was my partner, who had just discovered there is a Facebook page run by fans of Molls Myre (CORR), the Glasgow band in which her late father played in the 1970s.
It has pictures of him which she had never seen before. There are reminiscences about him. Soon she got chatting there to the daughter of the band’s only surviving member. She now plans to meet her father’s old bandmate in the coming weeks.
Who knows, maybe he’ll have recordings of their songs — something she has been searching for years — hidden away in the attic.
None of this could occur in another era. The tale of love from the 1930s sweethearts wouldn’t have found its conclusion in the 2020s; my fellow students and I would stay eternally disconnected; Molls Myre would be crushed beneath the footsteps of Glasgow’s musical progression, and the pianist’s offspring would suffer financially as a result.
If you find yourself wondering about the impact of the internet on our lives, revisit that old advertisement on YouTube.
Firstly, marvel at the fact that you can now access your favorite ads effortlessly. In the past, the sole method to catch glimpses of them was by watching numerous television programs and waiting hopefully.
Next, think about the trouble Mr. Hartley experiences trying to find his own published material, despite having the Yellow Pages right there with him.
We have been endowed with the mightiest mass production instrument ever known to humanity right at our fingertips, yet sometimes we choose to use it for purposes beyond Candy Crush Saga and taking selfies.
Read more
