By Matthew Davis BBC News Online

Charities gearing up for campaigns to battle Christmas loneliness have not ignored how useful the internet can be for reconnecting people to the outside world. Larry the Mouse is opening up a new world for a group of care home residents in Rotherham - guiding them through their first tentative encounter with a computer.

From the humble step of learning that picking up Larry won't make him work, they will graduate to logging on to the internet, ordering their groceries, tracing their family trees and even sending out virtual Christmas cards.

Christmas can be a hard time for isolated people

The IT2Eat scheme - overall winner of the 2002 Community Care awards - helps its members obtain anything from chunky keyboards for arthritic fingers, trackballs to replace a fiddly mouse, to screen-reading software that aids the partially-sighted.

Project co-ordinator Elaine Ross said many of the scheme's users found the training a "life-changing experience".

One couple told organisers: "We feel, once again, the world is our oyster. We are in constant touch by e-mail with our two children, grandchildren and friends in Canada."

More than a million older people in the UK are acutely isolated and feel trapped in their own homes. While the problem is not confined to the over-60s, they often face the greatest challenges.

Staff and volunteers at charity Help the Aged are busily fundraising for their annual "Alone at Christmas" campaign.

Anything that can bring people together in these troubled times has got to be worth supporting David Vernon

As well as the home visits, lunch clubs and trips to the pantomime, taster sessions that introduce people to the internet are a major target for the charity's funding.

At Age Concern, director general Gordon Lishman says the internet is becoming a key communication tool for the elderly.

"Older users are enjoying the whole internet experience... communicating with friends and making new ones, developing improved relations with family, shopping, exploring hobbies and chatting with their grandchildren. It's a medium that they are happy and confident with."

Most older people who use the internet believe it has strengthened family ties and friendships rather than added to social exclusion, Age Concern says.

Long-lost friends

John Lynch, 67, set up the Seniors Network just over a year ago as a hobby and says he now has more than 2,000 users of his service - a hub for all sorts of information and services aimed at older people.

"The ethos of the web site is to get more older people interested on the internet and then to keep in touch - with each other and with their families and with the new contacts they make on line.

Many people would love to email grandchildren

"At the moment I am 'handholding' a group to help them to buy a domain and have it hosted - after a number of tries they are near to deciding on a name!

"I send out a newsletter online with a special message to encourage the sending of emails or email cards and also to encourage the visiting of an older neighbour at Christmas."

Older surfers are the most rapidly growing segment of net users, with their numbers swelling by more than 40% in the past year.

People aged over 55 now make up 17% of the UK internet population, a survey for consumer magazine Which? Online found.

The internet is also supplanting the "golden memories" sections of local newspapers as the best place to appeal for old school, sports or army pals.

Instead of sending in faded black and white pictures of long-lost friends, a growing number of silver surfers are turning to sites like Friends Reunited to track down old acquaintances.

Barbara Cooper tells the site how she and the "Old girls" of Saltley Grammar in Birmingham celebrated their 60th birthdays with a reunion of friends from all over the world who got back in touch via the internet.

And ex-pat David Vernon writes that his surfing had put him in touch with people he hadn't seen for 40 years.

"Anything that can bring people together in these troubled times has got to be worth supporting," he said.