Until now my stubborn 65-year-old mother has been a firm iPhone denier. To my digital native she is a total digital immigrant — she didn’t have an email address and had been using a Nokia brick-style burner phone (with actual number keys).

But having nearly lost her for good on the national rail network between Yorkshire and Birmingham — don’t ask — my siblings and I staged a family intervention. Now Kathleen is in what I like to call OA(i)Phone bootcamp with her brand spanking new midnight blue iPhone 14.

Stage one of the technophobe programme consists of basic scrolling lessons, seminars on making and taking calls, iMessage and navigating WhatsApp.

Stage two (which is possibly a month or so away) will cover photo-taking, FaceTime and how to work the Times, Trainline and Gmail apps. Stage three, which will likely occur in Q3, is a foray into — brace yourself — online banking, Amazon, Spotify, Instagram and, dare I even say it, Ourtime (a “mature” dating app).

When Mum asked what an “app” was we thought the stages might need a rethink. But day one started enthusiastically with a how-to session on unlocking the phone with a password (which we write down) and facial recognition. Much to our surprise, Kathleen is naturally adept at navigating a touchscreen — a totally alien concept until now — and effortlessly accesses her apps.

“I can’t believe how much scrolling you have to do. It’s endless but quite fun once you get going,” she says. “Swipe up, swipe down, swipe it all around — no wonder you’re all always tired.”

Progression is faster than we thought and a short while later I receive a “practice call” from her: “Don’t worry, love, I’m just having a go at ringing people. Wait, how do I end the call? Have I done it? Can you still hear me?”

It went on like this for some time.

Hours later and WhatsApp has become her new obsession after experiencing the dopamine hit your brain gets from receiving notifications. Bear in mind that before now she had never texted me back — I would send a message and she would simply call me because she’d rather “hear the sound of my voice”.

Now the girl can’t stop. Her first message to me simply reads, “I am on WhatsApp.” It said “typing” for approximately ten minutes before I received this as she navigated the touch keyboard, but I felt a pang of pride.

Group chats soon become a new thrill for Mum too. She has never spoken to multiple people all at once and is excited by such a novelty, especially because she can view live pictures of her grandson on the Team Skelley thread.

But her favourite new-found toy is the voice note feature. My peers and I use these as an open stream of consciousness when we don’t have free hands to type — a personal podcast, if you will. Kathleen starts and ends hers as if she’s leaving a voicemail on a landline. I tell her she doesn’t have to note the date or time because my phone will tell me that anyway. And the last 20 seconds sound as though she’s put the phone in the dishwasher as she fumbles with it while trying to stop the recording.

I thought there were few things that could rattle my formidable mum, but it turns out this tech journey may shake up her world.

“You might laugh at me but it’s actually really daunting,” she says. “I can’t believe I have the internet, a camera, a tracking device, my debit cards, maps, music and train tickets all in one place. I’m really nervous I am going to do something wrong.”

I remind her there’s always the undo button and that she isn’t going to end up in a “honeytrap” scandal with William Wragg on WhatsApp any time soon.

But Mum was quick to point out having the world in your pocket wasn’t part of her upbringing. “When I started university in 1976 there were only two payphones on the Nottingham campus and they were always broken. I would write to my parents to let them know I was safe, but otherwise they had no idea. We had such freedom — these days everyone knows where everyone is at all times.”

Luckily, now she has the Find My Friends app, we won’t have to check if she’s been handed in at Birmingham New Street’s lost property ever again.