It began with an Amstrad

Computers have played a significant part in my pilgrimage. In 1987 I worked for the RSA as an Administrative Secretary. I used an electronic typewriter for my work until it was decided that I would be given a brand new word processor to manage the database with. Things started well and I got to grips with it, then I undertook some training outside the office, and when I got back I didn't have a clue how to relate the training to my machine. Work began to get too much and after a visit to the doctor I was given anti-depressants. This started me on the road to thinking that there must be more to life than commuting to London everyday.....

Unbeknown to me, my local vicar had been thinking that God perhaps was calling me to something else too and had planned to offer me a job working at my local church. However, when I had told him that the RSA were buying me my very own word processor, costing in those days around £4,000 he thought I would never give up my job in London! How wrong he was, when he invited me to join the team some two months later. I jumped at the chance.

The Vicar had bought himself and the church office an Amstrad computer each, and so I moved from one machine to another. The church office computer became my right arm for two years. Life took me then to Hull to embark on the next episode, and my local church realised how bereft I was at the thought of not having a computer after all this time. Hence their leaving present to me - an Amstrad of my own. Now, twenty one years and five computers later I couldn't imagine myself without one.

In Burkina Faso fewer than one in ten people have access to a computer. I currently have access to 3, along with two mobile phones, so pay £1 today for the privilage.