'Emoldjis': Gran's call for older people's lives to be reflected

False teeth and bad back emojis, the brainchild of a frustrated grandmother, could soon be in use after being sent off for official approval.

Diane Hill, from Coventry, felt that existing smiling, sleepy and sad faces did not represent the lives and likes of older people.

The 56-year-old compiled her own "emoldjis" for the over 50s.

An artist sketched her ideas which were sent to off to the Unicode Consortium which regulates emoji updates.

Ms Hill said: "I need something that shows pain because my back hurts, my knees hurt and I need emojis with glasses."

She came up with the idea as part of a BBC outreach project about how the media reflects the people and places around them.

Local artist Chris Oxenbury was commissioned to formally design her suggestions and sketches which have now been sent off for approval.

If successful, smartphone users could see designs such as "older person looking disapproving over glasses", "spending the kids' inheritance", and "no budgie smugglers" just a thumb-swipe away.

"When I first saw them I thought they were fantastic," Ms Hill said.

"I love the 'spending the kids inheritance one'.

"I could send any of these emojis to my friends and they'd know what I mean."

Siobhan Harrison, from the Open Doors project at BBC Coventry & Warwickshire, said: "With new emoji characters only released by Unicode on an annual basis it could be over a year before Diane's emojis hit our screens but at least she has raised some interesting issues about how the media reflect older people's lives and had some fun along the way."

Experts said last year "emoji language" is the fastest growing in the UK with millions of people choosing the digital images over written text.

The word emoji literally means "picture" (e) + "character" (moji) in Japanese and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.