Sandi
I've moved this to chat, but it sounds as though we had some similar childhood experiences, though I didn't have the advantage/disadvantage of being left handed. From what I have seen of your handwriting it is legible - but anyone with less than perfect vision may need a magnifying glass to read it!
I first learnt baby "ball and stick" letters using a pencil. At seven years old we graduated to dip and scratch pens (which weren't left or right handed) and at the same time learned cursive joined-up writing. I'm sure I too was an ink bespattered artform at times. A year later I changed schools; everyone at the new school used fountain pens for joined script which at the time seemed like a backwards step to me and I often got red rings around mis-formed letters. "f" was the usual culprit. Then when we were about ten (top juniors) the form master had a thing about handwriting and we were all taught Italic. I remember that he had a range of italic nibs for us to try, including some left handed ones, before we asked our parents to provide the fountain pen.
After having been taught to write four times, the freedom came when I moved on to grammar school and the only requirement was that the writing should be neat and legible. Not sure that I achieved either requirement, but it gave me the chance to experiment - one week it would be cursive and loopy, the next spiky and angular and the next with backwards squiggles everywhere! Eventually it settled down to a fairly nondescript style, but only legible if I'm careful and go slowly!
Brenda
On 7 Dec 2004, at 11:44, Sandi Woods wrote:
*An aside that may be of some amusement, since it causes no end of amusement
to friends and family and anyone unfortunate enough to receive anything
handwritten from me.........my writing is best described as being 'totally
illegible' to all but me - this is a vicious lie.....even I can't always
read it........
.........following on from my childish but legible cursive handwriting, I
changed schools. After six months or so, the new school's headmistress
became enamoured by the fashionable new style of writing......'Italic'. She
insisted that the whole school would thenceforth write in the new style
regardless of whether their handwriting was good, bad or
indifferent.......or even if they were right or left-handed. (Note the last
phrase there! The part about being 'left'-handed.)
Our lunatic Headmistress hadn't even considered there might be a problem for
left-handers, but she had considered that our 'normal' fountain pens
wouldn't be suitable for the new 'Italic' style........so we were issued
with 'dip' pens and inkwells in desks were duly filled (this really does
show my age here - if anyone isn't following this, either ask an ageing
relative or visit a museum!). How kind and thoughtful one might be given to
think, that she even provided us with the tools for the job, but just not
quite thoughtful enough.
Of course, all the pen nibs were for right-handed people - there simply
weren't any for the odd left handers (no-one had realised there was a
difference!). I think there could have been no more than a handful of we,
the 'odd' ones in the whole school! Consequently when I tried to write with
the right-handed nib, using my left hand, the paper became a shredded
artform besplattered with ink - I became a non-shredded artform besplattered
with ink.
Many parental/teacher discussions followed........and after quite some time
I was given a left-handed Italic fountain pen, but by then my 'Left-handed
Italic/Cursive/Get the Work Written Somehow' style, developed out of sheer
desperation, had taken over.............
The moral of the story? Never underestimate the lunacy of people with power!
Brenda http://www.argonet.co.uk/users/paternoster/
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