A mum reveals she takes comfort in 'visiting' her late grandad virtually - after discovering he was immortalised on Google Maps standing outside his bungalow. An emotional mum has revealed she copes with her grandad's death by virtually visiting his bungalow on Google Maps - where he stares 'angrily' at the firm's photo car for driving down his street.
'Grandad's girl' Michala Burrluck was devastated when 84-year-old Victor Austin passed away from Alzheimer's in 2014. Grieving for her beloved grandad, Michala decided to take a trip down memory lane and look up his house, just one street over from where she grew up on Google Maps.
The 43-year-old was delighted when she spotted him, wearing an all-brown ensemble, with his hands on his hips gazing angrily into the Google Maps van's camera lens. Michala said he looked unimpressed by the car's presence, as if to question why it had driven down his quiet road - something that she says regularly annoyed him when he was alive.
In other sweet images, Victor can be seen waving to someone and then gazing into the camera. The mum-of-two reveals she makes the virtual visit on the anniversary of her finding the image in 2013 when she's reminded by Facebook on July 30th each year.
Michala, who only shared her virtual tradition on social media earlier this month, says the discovery from February 2009 made her 'shed a tear' shortly after his death. But it now gives the HR worker comfort in knowing there's a 'part of the internet where he's still outside his house'.
She shared the sweet tradition on Facebook where it's racked up more than 4,000 reactions from touched users. Michala, from Eccles, Kent, said: "I drive down the road on Google Street View a few times a year and it's really comforting, it's a bit emotional talking about it.
"I like it when you can see him in the background, then you get closer and closer and see him standing there. You think 'ah grandad's still there, he's outside his bungalow'. He's there with his arms on his hips, angry at the car driving down his road.
"The look on his face shows he's wondering what it is and what it is doing down his street. The first time I looked at it after he died I remember shedding a tear and thinking 'ah, he's still there'.
"I was a real grandad's girl, we were always really close. He'd play practical jokes on us and he was quite the character, everybody knew him. I first noticed him when I was looking at our house and then found his, and there he was. We all had a laugh about it at the time.
"Every year it comes back up on my Facebook memories and I'll check if he's still there. Sometimes when I'm just on Google street view I'll just have a check too. It's nice to know there's part of the internet with him still on there."
Victor, who lived a street away from Michala for 30 years, used to take her to parks and garden centres as a kid and even de-iced her car in the morning when she got older. The octogenarian's dislike of large vehicles driving through his village hit the headlines in 2006 when he protested against lorries accessing sewage works.
He lived with wife Doris Austin at the bungalow until she died in 2001 aged 70 and he then moved into a care home in 2012 as his Alzheimer's worsened. Michala hopes kids Elsie and Alice Burrluck, both eight, will be able to see their grandad, who died before they were one, on the internet for years to come.
She's been stunned by the reaction to her tradition on Facebook, with hundreds of comments expressing just how touching it is. Michala's post reads: "My grandad is still outside his house. He died about eight years ago and was in a home two years prior to this, but it is lovely to just virtually drive down his road and see him."
