It's not all bad...

A lot of the time when you hear people talking about Social Media - Twitter, Facebook etc - it's the negative stuff you hear. Twitter is "just about people saying they are on the bus, or what they're having for dinner" while Facebook "encourages users to replace words to describe emotions, with emoticons". Back in August an Economist Online article said "Past investigations have found that using Facebook is associated with jealousy, social tension, isolation and depression." and there are any number of similar articles out there on the net. On Saturday though, a different side of social media was seen by many...

Source: BBC News Website

This is Harold Jellicoe Percival - a former RAF Serviceman who during World War II served on Groundcrew with 617 Squadron maintaining the Lancaster bombers that were used on the famous "Dambusters" raid. He died recently, and the Funeral Directors looking after his funeral - which was set for, rather appropriately, 11am on Monday morning - were concerned that as he had no family that they were aware of, there would be nobody to attend the funeral. As a result they placed an advert in the local press asking for Service personnel to attend.

By Saturday morning, the story was doing the rounds on Twitter...

RT - 99 year-old war hero #Lytham has nobody to go his funeral on Monday. Any service folk available? via @SgtClem) pic.twitter.com/VfizlhwNYT”
— Lee Rowlands (@leerowlands81) November 9, 2013

...and by the middle of the day it had been picked up on FaceBook also - by several celebrities including Jason Manford - and with over 482,000 "likes" on his Facebook page, this is always going to get to people's attention even faster.

On Monday morning it is believed that anything up to 1,000 people attended the funeral service at Lytham Crematoriam. RAF Scampton, "Coe's" wartime base, was represented, as was the RAF Association. As well as military veterans and current serving personnel, many ordinary members of the public also attended.

If you need something to restore your faith in the power for good of Social media, then this is surely it?


Robyn        

** In Memory of Harold Jellicoe Percival **

1914 - 2013