Even here in the Cayman Islands, some of our biggest companies totally ignore the elderly and even penalise them.

I am speaking of the increasing number of companies who are insisting all of us convert quickly to Internet and set up accounts with them to receive their bills and also pay them online. Those of us who do not wish or cannot do this are even being penalised by having to pay a fee for the dubious privilege of receiving their bill by way of paper and through the mail and paying by cheque or even cash!

Quite frankly this is appalling and why we have allowed this to happen without any protest is beyond my comprehension.

The latest missive urging us to resort to the Internet is from LIME. They even have the nerve to say they are doing this to save the planet by saving paper. That they are making savings and adding to their profits is not mentioned. If they were passing on to their customers this saving I would be more amenable to it but they are not.

The persons who suffer most are the elderly and infirm.

And few will speak up for them.

I am old and I am not afraid to say enough is enough!!!

Yes I am shouting it out. I am elderly!!

Companies ignore the elderly as if they [or we including me] are a nuisance. No one wants to listen to us. No one wants to benefit from our wealth of knowledge. No one cares if the new technology has mainly passed us by. No one cares if we do not nor cannot use a computer, tablet, smartphone and the like. No one cares if we have no one to help us with this. No one cares if we have pride and do not want to ask. No one cares about the worry that all this has placed on us.

And if you are one day late with paying their bill and some now insist on the three day bank clearing time (that is also a joke or in my book criminal – it is stealing by the banks) being taken into account they penalize you by as much as $25!!

We have airlines squashing the seat rows together that the young may be able to endure but to the elderly it is painful and unbearable. Even animals have rights – they have to have so much space to themselves when they are transported but humans don’t.

We have special parking spaces for the handicapped as there should be but zero for the elderly.

The other Sunday, on the day of the Cayman Marathon, when I drove into town to go to the post office to collect my mail. I was barred by a police officer beside a barrier. The post office was visible. It was not blocked. It was not in the way of anything but I had to park my car and walk to it even though I told the officer I was 71 and had just had a bad fall down six concrete steps. The only concession I got was a few yards nearer otherwise I would have had to park in the First Caribbean Bank car park!

Again no thought was given to any of the elderly attending Elmslie Church on that day either.

We are ignored and we are almost condemned for being old and we are now being penalised for being old.

At least I have my vault waiting for me. It was a present. I suppose someone was not ignoring that I am old.