1956.
There were 40 of us squashed into a tiny classroom, all clutching our fat pencils in grubby, playground hands. Our teacher, Mrs Gorvin, stood at the front and formed a large round ‘a’ on the blackboard. As she turned and enunciated ‘a’ in a loud, clear voice I remember thinking it was the same shape as she was. We all drew ‘a’ in our rough books. I wasn’t happy with mine and tried to rub it out with my finger. The spit didn’t help. My finger made a messy hole in the paper, and in a panic I quickly turned the page and drew another.
Mrs Gorvin turned back to the board and formed a big fat, ‘b’. ‘B’ she said loudly, as the chalk squeaked on the downward stroke. We all poked our tongues to the corners of our mouths in concentration, and pressed hard with our pencils on that thin, rough paper to try to replicate the letter before us.
My First Rough Book
It looks like I was already putting my own stamp on the letter, r
When I taught handwriting to 5 year olds some 40 years later, everything had changed. Oh the letters were the same of course, but the teaching was quite different. Lots of play, making shapes in sand with sticks, tracing dotted lines in books and generally getting the feel for straight lines, curves and circles. Then we made a start. No alphabetical order, instead groups of similarly formed letters would be produced until all 26 were covered.
I’d always been fascinated by letters, their shapes, how they got together to make words, and how the words themselves formed yet more shapes. And you could actually read those shapes - they said something, they meant something. It was magic.
When children first learn to write freely, they are often so engrossed in what they want to say that the words become squashed together, without a finger space to be seen. Long sentences all in one word. When I moved from Y6 to Y1 I spent many puzzled hours trying to decipher these endless, spaceless meanderings until I worked out that reading the whole thing aloud, phonetically, was the answer to the problem. I’ll never forget Nicola writing about her dolly who had ‘anewperovrubernikers’* Amazingly, there were spaces between all the other words in the sentence but this was obviously just one complete item.
Throughout childhood and adolescence my handwriting changed constantly. When I started High School it began to enjoy regular changes in size, shape, often with questionable legibility. I’ve always kept diaries and notebooks and I remember two strange displays of affectation. I was about fourteen or fifteen. The first was joining two words together if they had a common letter at the end of the first and the beginning of the second. For example, ‘that tent.....’ became ‘thatent’ and so on. Ridiculous with hindsight but it obviously kept me amused and saved on paper. The other phase I went through was dotting odd words in French throughout the diary entry, probably for the very same reason as above.
1969, my final year at school
1974 How could I write this, never mind read it??
Inevitably, in 2021, beautiful handwriting is becoming a thing of the past. Letter writing has naturally waned, due to the ubiquitous use of computers, tablets and phones. Emails, text and messages are all relayed instantly - no need to wait for the post - and one’s reply is back with the sender in seconds. Much as I love these digital connections I can’t help feeling a stab of regret that I’ll probably never sit down again and read a long awaited hand written letter from a friend or relative. I have a drawer containing old letters all of which mean something to me. Each envelope is distinguishable by its unique handwriting: my dad, who wrote infrequently but always in times of trouble (mine), with his small neatly formed script. Inside would be well thought out words of wisdom and hope, offers of help, usually financial; mom with a larger, more generous script, an envelope full of promise, the letter bursting with news from home, enquiries as to my health and well being, and lots of love; the careful print, squashed within the tiny space on the bluey from an RAF camp somewhere in Afghanistan. How the sight of that writing reassured me. I didn’t care what was written inside (usually not a lot). My boy was still alive; then my husband, when we were apart for a few months before we married, a scribble at best, a sense of urgency, and inside, a letter full of more frantic writing, and however loving and intimate, always finishing with a flourish: ‘Up the Rovers’; and, it goes without saying, the best handwriting appears on the funny, poignant little notes and letters, left on my pillow or posted around the kitchen door by the children when they were little.
That sound of the letterbox closing and a thud on the doormat. What a happy memory. Now that has to be preferable to the constant pinging of a noisy mobile….
*A new pair of rubber knickers.
Handwriting Practice (with apologies to Joyce Grenfell) by Jill Reidy
Children
Pick up your pencils
And hold them like this -
No, Emily, like this -
See, thumb here, finger there
That’s good
But with the point towards the paper
Start on the line and draw -
Jack! Don’t do that with the pencil!
We’ll never find it again
Start on the line and slowly
Up to the line above
Yes, that’s it Milly, brilliant!
No no no stop STOP!
Stop at the line above
You’ve drawn on the desk now
It’s all right, never mind
Don’t cry, Milly, it was a first attempt
You wanted a LONG line?
We can clean it off the desk
Now
Come down the line
Slowly, slowly, take your time
That’s it
Very good everybody
Oh Ollie, what’s this?
A plane? A PLANE?
We’re not DRAWING today
Are we Ollie?
No, we’re doing our HANDWRITING
Arent we?
Yes yes we are Ollie
I know planes make lines in the sky
Yes Ollie chemtrails -
But we’re making lines on paper, Ollie
No, there’s no need to rub it out
Put the rubber down, Ollie
On the desk
Away from your book
Start on the next -
Jamie!
What is that you’re waving about?
I know it’s your pencil
What’s that on the end of it?
Ugh
That’s not very nice
your pencil doesn’t need to go
Anywhere near your nostril
No
Now, pencils ready?
What, Jamie?
Wipe it on a paper towel
Careful! Katie’s jumper?
It’s OK Katie, it’s only -
That’s it, you get a paper towel too.
Right, ready?
Now you need a big fat -
Cece?
Yes I did tell you all not to call each other fat but -
No, nobody’s fat in this class but -
CECE! Its a letter, a LETTER that’s fat
Yes, letters can be fat
Wipe your eyes, Cece
We haven’t hurt the letter’s feelings
And - everybody - draw a big fa- round circle
To make the letter b
Well done children!
Some lovely b’s in these books
Who can give me a word that starts with b?
Max? Oh no, we don’t say that do we?
Where have you heard that?
Yes, I know what it means but -
Yes, I know all the boys have them
Max, you don’t need to point to -
Right, everybody, coat’s on
Lovely work, early playtime….
Thanks for reading.........Jill
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