After 25 years, I’m still deeply in love (And I’m quite fond of the wife, too).

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“OK people,” intoned the trainer, “we are about to show you that computers are the future…”

“God help us, it’s going to be a long afternoon,” I whispered to my fellow cynic, seated beside me in row z. We exchanged weary glances and I continued doodling.

But then, there she was beside us, this trainer, beaming from on high: “And what subject have you two chosen?” Like a naughty schoolboy I covered up my doodle and stammered.

“Ladies’ underwear,” offered my neighbour.

The trainer scuttled back to the front, and I looked quizzically at Patrick, who just shrugged. “I guess we should start paying attention – see what we’re supposed to be doing.”

Along with the rest of the school’s staff, we were attending a compulsory in-service course at our local computer centre, and making it quite obvious that we didn’t want to be there.

If we’d been paying attention, we would have known that the whole group had been asked to work in pairs, making up a crossword puzzle on a topic from our own teaching subject, and then getting it to appear in green on the black computer screen in front of us. Oops – wakey wakey.

We decided we’d stick to our nominated subject matter anyhow, and spent the next hour or so attempting to squeeze ‘corselette, camiknickers, garters’ etc into an ‘across’ and ‘down’ grid. By the end of the session our shared cynicism about computers was ever more entrenched.

As we made our way out of the venue I announced to no-one in particular: “I hate computers.” I was immediately accosted by one of the centre’s employees. “You hate computers?’ she asked. I shrugged. “Come and look at this.”

I followed reluctantly as she led us to a desk, on which was quite a small beige box with a tiny screen in it.

What happened next made me think I’d been zapped straight into an episode of ‘Bewitched.’ This girl whizzed an arrow around the small screen; grabbing tools, drawing things, cutting them up, cutting them out, duplicating them, pasting them, shading them in… I was astonished. What sort of a toy this was! A doodler’s paradise!

I remember drifting out of the venue in a daze. I was captivated, totally, and in love – with a machine. I wanted a Macintosh. I needed a Macintosh. I HAD to have a Macintosh, immediately. Yes. Yes, yes yes – computers were the future, of course they were.

That was 1985. A few months after my epiphany, I took a brand new Mac Plus up the mountain to show my dad. (He’d been on at me for ages: “When are you going to get a computer? They’re the future. You can pick up a Commodore or an Amstrad quite cheaply.”)

And now, well, amazingly, I had one – an Apple. Dad took a break from his MD-Dossing and came out of his office to check out my weird-looking object.

“A white screen, um? Huh – tiny. And what’s this thing,” he growled. “Eh? What? Mouse? Hah. Never heard of it. Stupid idea. This thing’s just a toy. Bloody expensive one at that.” I couldn’t argue. It was a toy right enough, and I soon found many new applications for its magic. And yes, some of these were actually to do with work.

So there was me, espoused luddite, on the computer bandwagon, well and truly. A couple of years later I upgraded to a 30 meg MacSE – a machine which I still keep in a cupboard, and which my tech-savvy, 21st century kids actually love using!

I’ve owned a welter of Apple products since then: iMacs, Newtons, iPads. Like many an Apple devotee, I’ve ridden the company’s sine curve – to the depths of the mid-90s and all the way up again. (It won’t surprise you to know that I was one of those sad gits queuing up for hours for one of the first ever iPhones).

Last Saturday my kids and I went in to fight the crowds in the Brent Cross Apple Store. And, you know, in amongst that tumult, playing with the products and watching all those blue-shirted young ‘geniuses’ hurtling about, I got a burst of the magic – all over again.

Doug

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