upworthy

bbc

A woman can't believe who just texted her.

It’s funny to think that text messaging has only been a common form of communication for about 25 years. It began to take hold in the late 1990s, but most phones didn’t have full keyboards. You had to multi-tap a number on the handset to get to the correct letter. Needless to say, it took a long time just to get your thoughts out. It could also be expensive. Unlimited text wasn’t a thing back then, so you got dinged for 10 to 20 cents for every message you sent.

In 1998, Donovan Shears of Coventry, England, was so excited to get his first mobile phone for his 18th birthday that he texted a bunch of random numbers while hanging out at a pub where he worked. "I started sending out random text messages, showing off to my friends. I picked the first four digits the same as mine, then the last three digits randomly—it was probably about five or six different numbers—and then didn't think anything of it,” he said, according to the BBC.

But one person responded to his text, an 18-year-old girl named Kirsty in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, 100 miles away, who wrote, “Who’s this?” Donovan responded with a simple “Don.” Kirsty had just got a mobile phone, so she figured the text was from someone she had recently given her phone number to. Remember, those were the wonderful days when you didn’t get spam texts randomly saying, “Hi, how are you?” Today, Donovan’s text probably would have been blocked and marked as SPAM.

Donovan and Kirsty then began a conversation that has continued ever since. "That single moment led to over 20 years of love, laughter, and partnership," they said. They began texting each other daily, but after getting £250 ($311) phone bills, they started calling one another. Donovan immediately fell in love with Kirsty's Scottish accent.

Six months after the first text, Kirsty drove to Coventry to meet Donovan in person. "I said to my stepsister, I've got to go and meet this guy, and she was like, 'He could be anyone,' and I was like, 'Yes, I know,' but I was 18 and didn't really think about consequences. I just got on a train and came to Coventry."

The couple danced the night away at a club and then, in pure English tradition, capped the night off with a kebab. "I remember coming back from our first night out, and we just cuddled up; it was kind of magical in a way,” Donovan said, according to Grimsby Live.

The couple married four years later and have two children, Alora, 6, and Stirling, 9. Donovan has nothing but praise for Kirsty: "She is an amazing woman. She's so intelligent, and we know each other so well. She's my best friend as well as my wife."

The story is an incredible example of how the most important relationships in our lives sometimes come together just out of random chance. A meeting at a bar or an interaction at the supermarket can change our lives forever. It’s also a touching example of how the excitement over the ability to send a text message in 1998 brought together two people who never would have met without it. For all the pain that technology brings us in the modern world, there are still many reasons to love its ability to bring people together.

People with disabilities are often victims of crime.

Sean Dilley, a blind news reporter and project lead for the BBC’s Reframing Disability Programme, was taking a break from work in the early morning hours on Tuesday, December 27, when a robber rode by on a bicycle and snatched his iPhone 14.

However, the thief didn’t know who he was messing with and Dilley was able to get his phone back.

"A man on a bike just SNATCHED and stole my iPhone from my hand, wrong blind person, wrong day. Jumped on him, safely detained and got my phone back. Quite a few cuts and bruises,” Dilley wrote on Twitter.

"I took a running jump and dive on the thief and knocked him off his bike and onto the floor I recover my phone, advised him that he was detained and called @ metpoliceuk on 999,” he continued. “I did let him go after a few minutes, but only when others arrive to help me. I absolutely could have continued to detain the gentleman, but I got my phone back and I actually didn’t want to risk injuring him I had him safely, detained on the floor, with my body weight across his legs and his wrists held to the floor."


After Dilley let him go, the robber fled the scene of the crime. “The suspect left the scene in the direction of Greenwell Street. Enquiries are ongoing to locate them,” the Met Police said in a statement.

Although we should never underestimate people with disabilities, it is pretty incredible for someone born with congenital blindness and uses a guide dog to be able to take down a mugger and get his phone back.

After the incident, Dilley admitted that it was “stupid” for him to have put himself in harm’s way, but he was still proud of himself for getting his phone back.

Dilley was able to locate the thief using his hearing.

People were concerned that Dilley was hurt. But apart from minor scrapes, he was fine.

Dilley’s story shows we should never underestimate how tough people with disabilities can be but it also highlights an issue that needs more attention. Disabled people are more likely to be victims of crime.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Persons with disabilities were victims of 26% of all nonfatal violent crime while accounting for about 12% of the population” from 2009 to 2019. The study also states that one in three people who are victims of robbery has at least one disability and the rate of violent victimization for people with disabilities is almost four times that of those without.

The highest rates of victimization are among people with cognitive disabilities. They are about 7 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than people without disabilities.

Dilley was brave to go after his assailant to get his phone back and is a wonderful example of courage. Let’s hope that his bravery dissuades other criminals from victimizing people with disabilities.

The "unsinkable" Titanic sunk on April 14, 1912.

The sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912, is one of the most talked-about tragedies in modern history, and not only because of the James Cameron film. When a ship that's been marketed as "unsinkable" literally sinks on its maiden voyage, it's automatically a riveting story, even without any other details.

But the details matter. Each life lost and each life saved on that fateful night was a unique human whose story impacted everyone connected to them.

We don't need a Jack and Rose romance to be transfixed by stories from the Titanic. One thing Cameron's film did well was show what it must have been like as the ship hit the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. and sank in slow, dramatic fashion for the next two and a half hours, but hearing an account from someone who lived it brings that event to life in on a whole other level. When we're watching a movie, even about a true historical event, our brains can easily pretend it's not real. Hearing it described by someone who lived it doesn't allow for that sort of mental game.


There are no living survivors of the Titanic left to share their stories anymore, but we do have recordings of them. One of those recordings came from a 1979 interview with Frank Prentice, the ship's assistant purser.

The film footage from the BBC archive shows Prentice describing the moment the ship hit the iceberg—how it felt like slamming on the brakes in a car—and the part he played in helping people get onto the lifeboats. (There was space for 800 people on the lifeboats, but only 500 made it into them in the chaos and confusion. Even if they'd filled every space, that would have barely saved a third of the 2,240 passengers and crew on the ship.)

Prentice's delivery sounds so calm, belying the traumatic experience he's describing from 67 years prior. But at the end of the segment, the interviewer asked if it bothered him to talk about it. "I should probably dream about it tonight," he replied. "Have another nightmare. You'd think I'm too old for that but you'd be amazed."

Anyone who knows the full story of the Titanic likely wouldn't be surprised that reliving that horror would have an impact no matter how much time had passed. Only 705 people total survived the sinking, either being lucky enough to snag a space on a lifeboat or rescued from the water in time. More than 1,500 perished. Those who survived were fortunate, but they had to experience and witness so much fear and loss.

Even close to seven decades after the fact, we get a glimpse of that pain in Frank Prentice's interview.

Science

David Attenborough's remarks after receiving lifetime Champion of the Earth award are a must-watch

Sir David Attenborough says we must see ourselves as citizens of one planet in order to solve our problems.

David Attenborough is an international treasure.

There are few absolutes in this world, but here's one of them: Sir David Attenborough is a priceless human treasure and anyone who disagrees is tragically wrong.

The 95-year-old broadcaster, writer and environmentalist has been educating and entertaining us by producing and narrating documentaries for decades, his soothing voice and gentlemanly British accent creating conservation champions the world over. David Attenborough loves the natural world and he makes others love it too by sharing its wonders and its beauty, in addition to its vulnerabilities due to human activity. His passion makes it nearly impossible to walk away from an Attenborough documentary without a deep desire to do something to protect our planet.

His long life of passionate dedication to conservation is why the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has honored Attenborough with the prestigious Champions of the Earth Lifetime Achievement award. Having co-created well over 100 documentaries in his life, including recent groundbreaking series such as "Planet Earth," Attenborough has continued his illustrious career well into his 90s. And as the world has careened toward the damaging impacts of climate change, he hasn't let up in his push for humanity to alter our path before too much of that damage becomes irreversible.

“Sir David Attenborough has devoted his life to documenting the love story between humans and nature, and broadcasting it to the world,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.

“If we stand a chance of averting climate and biodiversity breakdowns and cleaning up polluted ecosystems, it’s because millions of us fell in love with the planet that he showed us on television.”


In an interview with Andersen, Attenborough explained that we will never solve the environmental crisis without the recognition that the world must work together as a unified body.

"We are living in a new era in which nationalism is simply not enough," he said. "We must wave goodbye to it. We must feel that we are all citizens of this one planet, because unless we do we won't solve the problems."

"We know what the problems are and we know how to solve them—all we lack is unified action," he said. "These problems cannot be solved by one nation, no matter how big that single nation is."

Andersen asked how we can get that message across to people. Attenborough excels at going beyond the scientific facts and speaking to people's hearts, and he explained how to capture people's attention and help them see why conservation is important.

"The most evocative pictures you can present are pictures of animals," he said. "They are understood around the world. A picture of a gorilla with its baby moves the hearts of every single human being on this planet. And we now have the technical devices in which we can present these things so that people can see what fantastic riches the world has. And you can explain how we depend upon them, how we are part of them, and that when we are saving them, we are saving ourselves."

Attenborough explained that we've seen great success with whale populations, which had dwindled to near extinction 50 or 60 years ago. People and seagoing nations around the world got together and decided to put a stop to practices that were killing off the whales.

"And we did," he said. "And now there are more whales in the sea than anybody alive as human beings have ever seen before. It's a wonderful success story."

Andersen asked Attenborough what message he wants to send to young people.

"The message is that it can be done. The message is that it is possible. The message is that the natural world has more resources than we can possibly imagine. We've worked out how to kill them. Now we could give them a chance for them to come back and save themselves and save us."

Attenborough closed out his interview with praise for the organization honoring him with the Champions of the Earth award.

"United Nations—two of the most important words in any language," he said. "And more important now than they have ever been.

Watch the interview: