The internet in loving memory

When the website www.thisistheway.com went offline a few weeks ago, I received a frantic e-mail from one of the webmaster’s friends.

Bill Luther had died of emphysema in April.

When his website seemed lost, so did the last legacy of a man who turned to the internet as a form of communication as his lungs failed him.

Bill had been involved in various educational charities and foundations in the last years of his life, and over the past 18 months had been involved in setting up a UK writer’s site, to help people of all abilities.

I sent his hosting ISP an e-mail asking if I could have access to the site just long enough to download the content - and now I’ve been given that chance, Bill can have his last works displayed in his last project.

I’m already helping the group get a special area set up to preserve his original site, and it remains a sobering thought to think that, in some ways, this is all that remains of single a human life - preserved perhaps indefinitely on the internet.