Ivy Bean (8 November 1905 – 28 July 2010)

It was with great sadness that I learned yesterday of the peaceful passing of Ivy Bean aged 104 …… but I smiled as I recounted how I first met Ivy online and we struck up a conversation that normally ended with what she was having for tea that evening (She loved her Fish and Chips on a Friday  !!) or how much she enjoyed Noel Edmonds in “Deal or No Deal”.

Her online presence is all the more remarkable when you realise that it was only in 2007 she first accessed the internet via a computer given by social services to her care home.

At the age of 102, Bean joined Facebook in 2008, making her one of the oldest people ever on Facebook.

Some time after creating her Facebook page, Ivy also joined Twitter.

When I looked yesterday she had 4,962 friends on Facebook and more than 56,000 followers on Twitter which is extraordinary. An inspiration to other bloggers, social media guru’s and general social network users she quickly became more widely known and several fan pages were made in her honour.

She visited former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Downing Street early in 2010 after which she Tweeted that she had used the private toilet in Gordon Brown’s study.  She was also delighted to meet Peter Andre, who planted a kiss on her head, and counted DJ Chris Evans and Calum Best among her followers.

When Ivy was born in 1905, the quickest method of communication was the telegram, and it was not until seven years later that the first national telephone work was established.

One of eight children, Ivy Asquith worked in a mill from the age of 14 and then married Harold Bean, a soldier in the British Royal Army Service Corps. After the Second World War they worked in service for the Lord and Lady Guinness at Greens Norton Hall in Northampton.

Ivy retired at 73, a few years after her husband passed away, aged 75. She is living at Hillside Manor care home in Bradford which she moved to at the grand age of 101 after her last care home closed down.

Ivy was such an inspiration to me. she is proof, that you can keep on learning and embracing new things and how she didn’t let her age, or any thing keep her down.

RIP Ivy, we’ll miss your tweets and photos.

My condolences to Ivy’s family, she was a lovely lady

God bless you Ivy.