FOUR volunteers with a Petersfield charity are celebrating 21-years of helping those over 50-years-old learn new computer skills.
Between them, the Age Concern Petersfield volunteers have spent 42 years coaching computer novices in Winton House on the High Street.
For 21-years Ken Jones has been showing people how to email, edit and manage photographs, and more recently, shop online and Skype relatives and friends abroad.
The former IBM employee said: “When I started in 1997 we had four huge desk top computers we wheeled in on trollies, and it was mainly about word processing.
“But there’s been dramatic changes, now people bring their own hand-held devic-es, and it’s all about online shopping, photo-shopping pictures, and skyping.”
During the 21 years, the so-called four ‘mouseketeers’ have helped more than 1,500 people learn new IT skills.
Former Rake primary school head teacher John Arnold said: “It’s mainly one to one individual sessions tailored to what people want to learn.”
John Ide added: “It’s been exciting, and scary, one lady in her eighties has just started a course, and the oldest student was 93-years-old.
“Recently one of the most popular requests is to learn about catch up TV on I-player.”
Each course consists of six one hour sessions on Thursday mornings, and costs £25. For more information contact Ken Jones on 02392632740, or contact the charity at Winton House on 01730266046.