The older I get and the less I am able to see, the more illegible my handwriting has become. I feel sad about this. Somehow or other, I feel that my writing is part of my identity and now it is disappearing.
I have good memories of seeing the handwriting of several people in my life. My grandmother had a lovely cursive script. I imagine that in her youth she likely used a fountain pen. My mother’s writing was clear and obviously a bit more hurried. When I first moved to Canada, by mother and grandmother wrote to me regularly. I loved those aerogramme letters with so much crammed into the small space that was available.
Recently while I was doing some de-cluttering, I came across a letter written to my father by an old friend of his. The writing was thin and spidery. It brought back memories of the man himself – a small wiry seafaring man. Even the content had a touch of nostalgia as it began with the greeting “Hello old chum”. My father and Ted were good mates who often shared a pint or two whenever they got together.
These days, in many schools throughout the country, writing by hand isn’t taught any more. I know that our grandchildren look at words written in cursive as almost a foreign language. The print on a keyboard has taken over. Indeed, that is how I am writing right now. There are very few occasions when I need to sign my name and even fewer when I would need to write more than just a few words.
There are some benefits to the print produced by a keyboard. There is a consistency to the script and in most cases it is easier to decipher. Nevertheless, I miss the personality of hand writing. Writing by hand has become much of a lost art.
