punkfolkrocker wrote: ..and my 'not state of the art' smart phones and tablets just give up,
and refuse to load it at all...

Under the 'Messages' heading, where the number of replies is given, long threads have a letter 'd' after the number. Click on the letter 'd' and you get just one page of the latest replies. So far this thread has 60 pages so loading just one page will be a lot quicker.

The downside is that the latest post is at the top so you have to find the last post you read and then scroll up. When I used to do it I always acrolled in the wrong direction. There may be a way to turn in upside down but I don't know it.