No group has been more left out of the internet world - or could benefit more from increased contact through IT with the outside world - than older people.

The first phase of the internet age has thrown up very little to bring them on board - until now. For them, however, the hurdles can be huge - many have never touched a keyboard. One of the biggest difficulties is the utter worthlessness of most computer manuals for the raw beginner. But where can older people go to get on the first rung? Betty gets going.. March 15th: In the run-up to the London Book Fair, I discover octogenarian Dr Kenneth Mole, a former Royal Navy submarine commander who sank Japanese ships during World War Two. He recently bought a PC and was maddened by his experience in attempting to follow computer manuals - so he wrote his own. Entitled Easy PC, it takes the complete novice through tasks such as single clicking, double clicking, dragging and highlighting - essential ground-level skills.

"Experts have forgotten what it was like to be beginners," he growls. At just £3.99 in the UK, the book can be bought online at www.right-way.co.uk. March 20: Visit my 82-year old mother in Wiltshire. As feisty as ever, she refuses to read any book on computing, but might consider it if someone friendly visited her home and provided one-to-one tuition - the old-fashioned British training principle known as "Sitting next to Nellie". This doesn't exist for PC training, surely?

Oh yes, it does. Betty finds the answer, and it surprises me. Go to www.hairnet.org, a company founded five years ago by two young women entrepreneurs on the back of a £5,000 loan from the Prince of Wales Business Youth Trust. Since then, more than 8,000 people aged 50 and above have been trained in basic computer skills.

Better still, most of the cost of the training can be picked up by the Government - if a client starts one of its New Deal-style Individual Learning Accounts. "Nobody else does this," says co-founder Caroline Lambie. "We've trained One Foot in The Grave star Annette Crosby, and even Harry Enfield's dad." April 5: On a desperately slow, post-Hatfield train to York I sit down opposite an older lady with bright blue eyes and strike up an extraordinary conversation. "I've turned off the goggle box," she declares, "and now possess my son's old laptop. I call it my 'Google Box'."

Remarkably, she adds, "I do comparatively little routine shopping nowadays". And why? Because, it turns out, as one of Tesco's 200,000 online/home delivery customers aged over 50, she receives groceries ordered for her by her children. Subsequently, a call to Tesco confirms this. "Some of the children live in places as distant as Canada and Mexico," says a spokeswoman.

And where does my fellow passenger travel online? "Try Hellsgeriatrics.co.uk, or a community site called seniority.co.uk," she advises, and gets off at Doncaster without leaving a name.

For retired people who are seriously angry at the way society's institutions have let them down, Hellsgeriatrics.co.uk is an ideal, often hilarious venue. Maintained by a pair of delightfully combative older folk, the sites mauls the the UK's state National Health Service, treatment in old people's homes, and highlights a service that allows the elderly to have operations done in continental Europe for less than going private in the UK. April 17: Oh dear, Mother sits on her reading glasses, the frames of which were made when Harold Wilson was in power.

Rather digruntled, she seeks help. Modern frames don't suit. "I don't want to look like a parking attendant, or a ticket inspector on SouthWest Trains like that Mr Blair," she states. After a short trawl through the internet, Betty discovers www.retrospecs.co.uk, and the style issue is solved.

Not having glasses is not the only impediment to normal life. Doctors often state that the elderly retreat from socialising, especially restaurants, because their tummies rumble and gurgle, causing red faces all round. Rather than turning up the radio louder, some have turned to www.embarrassingproblems.co.uk, which provides excellent explanations and advice on those and other symptoms, acoustic or otherwise, and their possible solutions. April 25: Being isolated and mistrustful of the outside world often stops the elderly from making a will - thereby handing chancellor Gordon Brown tens of millions of pounds a year in revenue. For many, the very subject of pre-funeral planning is taboo.

Luckily, an unusually innovative and far-sighted undertaker in Bradford, Robert Morphet, of Joseph A. Hey & Son, has designed a website specifically to meet their needs.

His site, www.funeralassist.co.uk offers large, nationwide databases of local solicitors, undertakers, accountants, masons and florists. It also tells relatives what they need to do when a death occurs, and a mass of other information sensitively and plainly presented.

It is an example of what the web sometimes does best - helping people solve private and personal matters that they would prefer not to disclose, even with their nearest and dearest. May 8: And to which helpful institution can the elderly usefully leave some money? A visit to Alan Newell, head of Dundee University's Department of Applied Computing - www.computing.dundee.ac.uk - provides one answer.

It recently founded a £10m research unit aimed at pioneering new ways in which IT can help the elderly, one of very few such centres in the world. Known as the Queen Mother Centenary Research Centre, it could benefit greatly from donations. "Our research is a greatly neglected area," says Prof Newell. "In seven years time, pensioners will outnumber children."