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In your work be neat and careful

This week I received a letter from my 99-year-old Aunt, in reply to the handwritten note I sent her recently.  Her closing comment made me laugh out loud.

“Yes Joan your writing isn’t so neat you better visit me again so I can teach you.”  (No chance of that with Queensland still locked off to we diseased southerners).


Anyway, that set me thinking about learning to write so I dug into the boxes where I knew my old school books were to be found. Among these ancient treasures I found my Grade 4 copy book. 

I was 8 years old and those were the days when pen and ink were still used.  Being left-handed, I was not good at writing.  Left-handed writing smudges the not-yet-dry ink, and it is also difficult to get the right leaning slope. The only choice a left hander has is to use a hooked wrist so as to come at the script from above, or to twist the book so it is near vertical to the desk (I chose the latter because my Mum would not have me looking awkward when I wrote, though I am sure writing that way also looked somewhat awkward).



My copy book has all sorts of admonitions – “This is a little scratchy”; “Don’t lift your pen!!”; “Don’t write with the back of your pen!”; “Look above”; “Are you holding your pen correctly?”; “This is very careless work” and words written in red showing I have the slope wrong.

When we got to Grade 6 we could transition to biro or fountain pen. And the copy book gave way to the dreaded weekly “Exercise” where we were set a writing task which had to be embellished with Old English Lettering and have an illustrated facing page.

My artwork turned out to be worse than my writing but Mum came to the rescue.  She found an old colouring book with pictures of flowers and taught me how to draw a grid so I could copy the image to the perfect size for the page.  I then outlined it with Indian ink and coloured it in.  I remember consulting her each week as to what colour would be right for the flower since many of them were cold climate varieties not seen in tropical Queensland.

I chose this particular spread in honour of Remembrance Day this week. 

I used a fountain pen and throughout this exercise book my writing is not too bad – lots of merit stamps.  The main complaint is, “Your writing it too big”; “Writing is still too large”

I wonder – do they care much about the quality of a child’s handwriting anymore?  Mine has deteriorated drastically with 40 years of writing via keyboard.



Comments

  1. Your Aunt must be clever and very, very cute!
    But that teacher was truly insensitive! Glad these days people can write with the hand that suits them.
    That book sure is a treasure, I only have old school reports.

    Yes, sometimes I think I must be a doctor, LOL - but since I make notes in my calendar it became better, that handwriting.
    YOur Mum sure was a big help, nice!

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    1. I was one of the better students ... I can't imagine what other kids got on their books. But I don't remember feeling particularly hurt from the comments, just annoyed at only getting 7 out of 10 and no merit stamp.

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  2. Not sure but I don't think there's much emphasis on writing block letters let alone script writing nowadays.

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    1. So long a people can write well enough for other people to read I don't think we need to fuss too much.

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  3. Such a coincidence. A group of my friends and I were having coffee together, Friday. Copy and excercise books were a part of our discussion. How lovely to see yours, even if the comments were not encouraging.
    Liz has a 14 year old son who is very clever with technology but has extremely poor handwriting. Apparently Qld is introducing that all exams must now be hand written. Such a large percentage of students will have lost [if they had] the ability to write quickly and also neatly in these intervening years.

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    1. I was thinking when I was posting this, how on earth would I get on doing a university exam these days.

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  4. That brings back memories. My eldest granddaughter has the most beautiful handwriting at 11 years of age. Mine is shocking these days too due to using a keyboard much of the time.

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    1. These books would bring back memories to Queenslanders I am sure.

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  5. Amazing that you have your books from those times Joan. It must be wonderful to go through them like that.
    I love how your Mum encouraged you with your art - the flower is beautiful and you have those memories of you both collaborating on those drawings xx

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    1. My Mum never threw out much so when I was cleaning up the house after she died I found these and kept them.

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  6. I still prefer handwriting appointments etc on a real calendar than putting them in my phone calendar. How lovely to have these reminders of your school life Joan Elizabeth, I have many of my children's books, must remember to show them if they get here for Christmas 😉

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    1. I hope your family is able to make it into WA for Christmas without lengthy quarantine.

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  7. What a lovely reminder of school life. I have atrocious handwriting now but it used to be quite normal when I was young. I attribute it to having to write fast at work and of course I now prefer to type everything on the computer.

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    1. My writing was normal once too (if writing left handed is ever considered normal).

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  8. I don't remember having any of those handwriting copy books at my school in Sydney. Maybe it was a Queensland thing. I have always enjoyed handwriting and still continue to keep a handwritten journal every day.

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    1. Yes probably a Queensland thing. I remember being quite disdainful of kids in NSW. They seemed to print forever and then when they eventually got to running writing they just joined up the printed letters. They also did a weird thing with the Ps when they eventually got to cursive script ... the p looked like a n with a long leg.

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