Day 10 – Handwriting
The Writing on the Wall …
This year has done some strange things to us. We’ve been gardening, baking, what’s next … knitting? 😉
Well, in the same vein, one of the things we’ve really been enjoying this year is journalling. Putting a pen to paper last thing before going to bed is doing wonders for sorting our busy minds! It is calming, reflective and helps us work through the ups and downs of the day. Also, we feel like future Mona and Lisa might be thankful and very curious to get a glimpse into past Mona’s and Lisa’s minds one day!
We still do some of our songwriting with a pen and paper in hand but like many people, the majority of our “writing down” is done on a keyboard or an iPad screen these days. Are you still writing lots by hand? How about your grocery lists? Even those find their way on our phone screens sometime.
We thought it would be an interesting advent calendar post to connect to something that used to be the most common thing in the word but is quickly becoming “old fashioned”. Christmas time to us in many ways means to unplug, to simplify and connect to our roots – and handwriting symbolises that for us. (And yes, we’re very aware that we’re currently typing this on a computer while being connected to the world through high speed internet. But we promise to go out for a little walk later today and get away from technology for a bit 
)
So please, do some digging and show us some old letters, your grandma’s handwritten recipe books, an old library card, a beautifully lettered shop window poster, some scribbles from your time in school or the captions in a photo book, whatever you can think of. Post your pictures in the comments below so we can all see how handwriting looks like all over the world!
Whatever is meaningful to you and whatever you would enjoy sharing here with us.
We love how everyone’s handwriting is as unique to them as their fingerprint and how the way something is written down can add an additional layer of emotion and context to the letters.
DAY 10 – HANDWRITTEN
Task of the Day:
Share a photo of something handwritten.
Achievable Points:
10
Our entry is something that is really special to us.
Many of you might remember Steve from Miami. He was an amazing supporter of our music and journey, who made much of what we could create possible. You might remember our music video for the “This Boy” Beatles Cover in which you can see some gorgeous guitars he had sent us.
One of the very first things we ever got in the mail from him was a print of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas” lyrics which was one of his favourite songs and prized possessions. It’s been up on our wall ever since.
Steve absolutely loved the Christmas time and we were so excited for him to hear our new Christmas album last year. We had sent him a few of the songs before they were officially released. He listened to our version of “Happy Xmas” the day before a medical operation and saved “Walking In The Air” for the day after. He never got to listen to the latter, at least not in physical form.
The lyrics on our studio wall are a beautiful reminder of him, every day, and we are proud to share them with you. It stands for many things very dear to us.
We are looking forward to hearing from you all today and send lots of love,
Mona & Lisa
PS: If you ever feel like writing US a letter – we LOVE receiving them. We have a PO Box:
MonaLisa Twins
Building 7
Wilson Business Park
Monsall Road
Manchester
M40 8WN
Just a random amino acid, because why not
This is my mom’s handwritten recipe for Red Beans with Sausage and Apples. (You might be surprised!) I’ll always remember the first time she made it. She thought she was making a huge pan of it and would have plenty for leftovers. There were no leftovers.
Hi Mona and Lisa
As you enjoy journaling, I thought you might be interested in learning flex writing.
This lost art of calligraphy is coming back these days in the form of some modern fountain pens offering flexible nibs. Not as flexible as some of the vintage flex pens that required a lot of skill to make that no one possess any more, but some of the modern pens, like the Platinum 3776 with a soft fine nib (shown in the youtube video), gives a little flex for occasional flourish. There really are not any modern pens that offer decent flex, but the 3776 is one of the few decent ones out there that is really popular among fountain pen enthusiasts. This video is done using this pen, and the attached picture is from a booklet I have that I learned to write flex with, for a little flourish. With a little practice you could start flexing in a few minutes. You could enjoy some wonderful flexy flourish in your journaling. With a little practice and a proper flex pen it’s not hard to do. 🙂 Since this days Advent is about handwriting, thought of posting this here. The secret is pressing down to flex on the down stroke (dragging the nib), and letting off on the up and side strokes. That’s it, easy with a proper flex pen. 🙂 ????
Nib calligraphy compilation
https://youtu.be/xA_5hRLH-DM
The 3776 is the height of Mount Fuji, highest peak in Japan, in meters to represent the pinnacle of fine writing. Montblanc nibs are engraved with 4810 for the height of Montblanc, highest peak in Europe, for a similar meaning. From this you can deduce the finest pens in the world come out of Japan and Germany today.
I’m posting the handwritten message my grandfather born in 1903 wrote in a book called Dog Stories. The fact that I have something he touched and signed means so much to me even though he’s been gone almost forty years.
I love receiving MLT signed items – another awesome club benefit – and I feel I’ll pass them on in forty years to my grandchildren.
I made my daughter hand write and mail this postcard from Europe because I don’t have a smartphone
I included my rough draft for the poetry challenge, my nephew’s awesome homemade card for my Dad’s 91st birthday, and my Mom’s beautiful handwritten recipes. Sorry my penmanship is so poor; I didn’t expect anyone but me to read it, and I have to take my time to make my handwriting legible.
I’m going to post a recipe also. This is from my mother-in-law. She is gone now, but she was a great cook and the master chef for all our holiday feasts. I inherited her favorite dutch oven, which I use a lot. I think of her whenever I use it. Suppose she would be tickled to think her son-in-law would be the main one carrying on her cooking tradition.
This one is tough. I do not have nice handwriting. So, I was thinking I could post another one of my Mom’s recipes. She has lovely “Mom” handwriting. This one is Raisin Carrot Muffins. Yum, again handed down from my Great-Great Grandmother.
JP
I found this price tag in my guitar case. It’s about twenty years old. The store was called The Only Guitar Shop. (it wasn’t) It was a pretty kool spot. They didn’t mind if you just wanted to hang out and try one guitar after another. That is what I did that day. I do not think they are in business anymore.
Where do you see handwritten price tags anymore? I will have to go look for a kool guitar shop. It seems like there aren’t as many around nowadays.
JP
This is a poem my late Father-Inlaw wrote after my wife’s mother passed 51 years ago.
This is the only thing that I have of my dad, his handwriting of his name on his driver license. I will cherish this for ever. I am not sure if this will work if not I will try again
Picture of my dad’s hand writing
this is a page from 1915 new jersey census. it shows my wifes family. it is 105 years old.
this a page from the 1915 new jersey census.it shows my wifes family. writting from 105 years ago.
One of my most sentimental things I still have from my childhood is this book my dad gifted me when I was 10 years old. What a gift to get from my parents about the world they brought me into. I enjoy occasionally reading sections of this 450 page book that is well written, even for adults. One day I plan on reading it cover to cover. Inside the front cover my dad wrote my name in his neat writing, and on the other page I wrote mine in my 10 years old hand writing. Embarrassingly my cursive hasn’t improved much since then! 🙂 Well, maybe a little bit.
This is such a lovely idea!
My grandmother “Poppy” was born in 1910 to very English parents in Buenos Aires. She spoke English all her life and was always very “old-fashioned”. This would be one of the last letters I received from her before she passed away the following year. I had moved to the US a few years earlier and she always made an effort to stay in touch.
I have also included a picture of my grandmother and my mum from about that time.
What strikes me from the letter is that she still writes like decades earlier, when letters were the way to carry news, so they become a sort of “news” items. Always some good news and some bad news. The use of names is the other thing that stands out. My Family has a lot of Thomas or “Tomás” for the locals. My grandfather who was referred to as “Tommy”, my uncle as “Andy” his middle name, my cousin “Tomásito” (little Tomás) and when he got older, Tomás, and I was Mickey when I was young and then “Michael” as I grew up.
It’s interesting to note how a group of people stick to their culture in a foreign land, for over 100 years. When she uses a Spanish word, she uses quotation marks.
Lastly, it’s noteworthy to point out her mentioning Sweet Lorraine.
Tomás (Or should I say Michael?)
These old family letters are just priceless Tomas! My dad use to write me every few months when he was working/teaching in Japan in the 80’s. I wish now I had saved some of them.
This is my certificate of baptism, written by the minister at the time. It was either cursive or manual typewriter back then; sort makes me wonder how many of these certificates were discarded due to a writing mistake and had to be redone.
I don’t have any family correspondence that would be of much interest outside of school memorabilia that I wrote for classes autographs in a yearbook in high school or love letters to my wife when we were courting, but in my business dealings over the years I have had a lot of old diaries, school memories journals and autograph books from the late 1800s and early 1900s that I have laying around that you might find interesting. It’s so true that correspondence in the past was far more detailed and heartfelt and makes for some interesting reading. Envelopes that were used in mailing came in all sizes and weren’t standardized like today so I’ve got envelopes that are tiny and large. I’ve attached a letter written in 1905 and also managed to find an envelope that was sent from Boston to London England but was then forwarded to 144 Bedford St S, Liverpool England since apparently the recipient was traveling around a bit. The envelope is also what’s referred to as a Mourning Letter which has a black trim around it. These envelopes were used to send condolences to a family after a death of a close relative. I notice that the seal on the back of the envelope is made of lead and not wax with the imprint of an angel in it. Bet you can’t get away with that these days. I’ve was hoping to find some of the early stampless mail before stamps were in use where folks just wrote their letter on stationary, folded it up and took it to the post office where they would pay the postage and the postal clerk would either write the postage amount or rubber/wood stamp the number onto the envelope. These are very popular collectibles these days. Well hope you enjoy.
This is an image from a so called “Gruppenbuch” (“group book”) which every school class had to make in Eastern Germany (former GDR) during my primary and secondary school years about all their activities, which is kind of a class diary with texts, photos, pöems ect. My beloved granny did help me out often with herdrawing pictures, writing texts into the book I wrote before an paper or adding little poems and so on. This page is from an activity each school did every year in autumn: collecting chestnuts and acorns for the wild animals in the woods during winter time, It’s from the 1980s and has the handwriting of my granny on it
Just for fun, here is a John Lennon Special Edition Fountain pen Montblanc produced back in 2011. Montblanc produces limited edition special pens now and then in their Great Characters line, such people as William Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein etc. In 2011 they honored John Lennon with this pen. They can be found on ebay for a 4 figure $$$$ price tag. I keep telling myself maybe one day. Even in writing culture, they celebrate/honour John Lennon in the company of Shakespeare and Leonardo Da Vinci. Here are some pictures, of the pen and John Lennon hand written lyrics. I posted these a while back in the forum, but perhaps new members might enjoy these. 🙂
Love the little details in the pen: the Rickenbacker guitar clip, John’s cartoon portrait signature on the band, and the peace sign on the nib.
In the literature that comes with the pen, they wrote some pretty nice things about John that I transcribed a while ago in my own handwriting.
Speaking of journals and John Lennon, did you know John Lennon kept a diary? In the Beatles Archive, they uncovered John Lennon’s diary. Here are a few Lennon diary entries from 1975 to 1980 as published in Q Magazine in 1997. Intriguing. Some noteworthy events mentioned too.
This scrap of paper comes from around 1943-4. My dad was in the Army during World War II. He was on a short leave and met my mother at a bus stop and wrote his name, unit and address on this scrap of paper. It was the start of the romance that explains how I got here.
Here a longer one written just a few years ago. One of these days I’m planning on putting together a book of my writings. I have been writing a book using poems as chapter headings. Take care love you girls and your music is wonderful, thanks.
Here are a couple of original poems I wrote, I am a writer well it all started of me writing songs but being a drummer I never could remember the melody so I have tons of words on a page. Now I just write lots of words, I’ll share more if you like.
I already did this one, but rummaging through some old stuff I ran across a Valentine I made for my Mother when I was eight years old – 1961. She wrote the date on it and kept it. I found it looking through old photos and stuff of my parents that I kept after they passed away. I just had to post it. Sorry if I am breaking rules. 🙁
And, I did love my Mother best when I was eight years old and it was about other girls, but I was a Daddy’s boy. 🙂
I was looking for something unique and came up with this. I referee bicycle races and this is the score sheet from a professional stage race where I was the Chief Judge. Not a lot of letters, but it does show I can write legible numbers under pressure.
Hi Mona and Lisa!
OOOH! I love todays Advent post! 🙂
As you can see I like fountain pens! To set a limit for myself, I got this case last year saying to myself if there is no room in this pen case, it means I can’t buy a new pen, so unless I lose or give one away, no more new pens for me. I think they miss me at the local pen shop.
Thanks for sharing your story about Steve and the priceless John Lennon Happy Xmas lyrics. Special in two ways I am sure because it was Steve’s and also it’s John Lennon. The part about Steve not getting to hear “Walking In The Air” before his medical operation really tugs at the emotions, but without a doubt he heard it then, and now seen it in all it’s beautiful and majestic glory, and Steve has to be smiling very happy from where he is! 🙂
One of my favourite things is the Wide Wide Land lyrics. It is so special to be able to have your words in my hand while listening to the song. Please don’t get mad I did not frame it yet, 🙂 because being able to hold it in my hands while listening to the song has been so special, but I will eventually because the moisture or accident with water droplets will be catastrophic on the ink.
Over the last 10 years you can see I acquired quite a few journals that I wrote. One valuable aspect about these journals is that over time they serve as a time capsule of feelings and thoughts To a snapshot in time when you wrote it. It’s almost like a photo album or song, but in descriptive words/narration in your own words. Here is an excerpt from a journal entry I did back in March or April when The pandemic first started. For the first time since I wrote it, I referred back to it this evening and it is amazing what insight it brings back from that time. I have journals going back to happy and very sad Times that I sometimes go back and read and I find it so valuable.
Finally on a much more personal note, the day my mom passed away I bought this really nice elegant journal that I just put away. I don’t really know why I bought it at the time, but many months later after the
funeral I pulled out that journal and I remembered when I got it, and I started writing a letter to my mom completely spontaneous. I had never done that while she was alive, and I said everything that I wanted to say to her for the last 13 years while my mom went through her dementia, especially towards the last few years, that I couldn’t tell her. While I was writing it I just somehow knew she was reading it from wherever she was. It was a surreal experience. I have that journal in safe keeping with just the several pages of the letter that I wrote and the rest completely left blank. It’s a very special journal!
Much love from Canada!
This little signature from my mother means so much now. It is very unique and like ones finger prints indeed.
You captured the essence of what hand writing and journaling is all about. It grounds me and helps me to slow down and see things in calm perspective. I’ve read accounts of some writers who say they often write their first draft with pen and paper, because they slow down and take their time to think and the quality of what they write slowly is much better than the scatter brained rapid writing on the keyboard, going back and erasing and re-writing numerous times.
I’ve been journaling for about the last 10 years when my fountain pen hobby started. Prior to that ever since I was little I always had an affinity for notebook writing everything as much as I could as I always found it helped me to memorize and study in school. When I started working at my new old job 31 years ago, I bought this little pocket wire bound notebook, and wrote everything I needed to know to do my job in it, and was my companion at work for the first 5 years until I moved on into another role in the company. In the photos you can see how worn and battered it is, but inside, those notes were gold, all hand written. Since then in my role as a Sales Engineer, and especially when I got into fountain pens, my notes saved the day for me so many times because I wrote everything down, because I enjoyed the act of writing. When you enjoy the writing because the tactile feel of the fountain pen is alluring, you tend to write more. I could refer back to a phone call on a certain day, and the details I was trying to recall were right there.
I was writing songs and poems during, perhaps, all my life. Mostly in Russian, sometimes tried in English. As I believe for many songwriters, I usually consider only maybe 10% of my output as at least somehow worthwhile, the rest is going to the paper basket. But there was a magical year in my life, which was 1995 in Chelyabinsk, Russia when I have thrown away almost nothing of written in that year. I think some kind of muse visited me when. Many of those songs I sing till now. Below is my first song in English that wasn’t thrown away. It was written under the huuuuge influence of The Beatles, of course. And quite naive. Harking back to that times I remind myself Mona’s character in the “Won’t You Listen Now”: “I’m sitting on my sofa with a pencil in my hand, writing down the things I try to say…”. That’s basically how it was.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have a print of John Lennon’s lyric on my wall, but I had a portrait of him looking at me from my bookshelf.
The photo below, it’s not the first draft, but its first copy out of draft I placed into my songs copybook, which still exists and travelling with me from city to city, from country to country.
P.S.Years later, living in Moscow, I performed that song with my band of that time in some club. Sorry for quite a poor quality, just to give you an impression of how it sounded in my head when I was handwriting it down in 1995. And again, still in parallel to MLT’s “Won’t You Listen Now”, it also has verses in major, the chorus in minor and a harmonica solo 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsnDnWDXpvQ
P.P.S. At the bottom of the page, you can see the beginning of another song of mine written in Russian in the same year 1995.
If it’s old handwriting you want I can oblige. Here is the will, dated 1637, of Thomas Holmes, my great great great great great great great great great grandfather. Thomas was a maltster and the keeper of the Essex county jail in Colchester Castle. His son John emigrated to Plymouth, Massachusetts and he now has many, many American descendants. What would Thomas think to know four hundred years later his will would be accessible to anyone in the world at the touch of a few buttons?
Amazing that you’ve been able to trace your family history back that far!
Very impressive!
WOW!
Here is a copy of a spaghetti sauce recipe that my twin brother(John) got from my dad, who had gotten from my Italian grandmother(my mothers side) back in the late 1960’s. The recipe from my grandmother is actually over 100 years old. As a matter of fact we are having this on Saturday. Hope you all enjoy
.
This is a note inside a book given to me from a dear friend, and Reverend, William Love back in 1969. I was a rising Senior in High School, as were his twin daughters – both beautiful. One was Ms.Lower Marlboro High School and the other younger twin was Homecoming Queen. This book has a prominent place in my heart, and so does the Love family. We still keep in touch with each other.
What a beautiful inscription to have as a keepsake!
Went rummaging thru an old box and found this letter that my mom wrote me when I was in college.As you can see it was dated Sunday Evening, January 31 1971. It was nice reading this.
I was looking for something to post among old letters and stuff and found something that I had totally forgotten about: A handprint from my not quite yet 5 year old daughter done a preschool. The poem was written by her teacher.
That’s so precious!
I love your insight regarding hand written things and the act of writing by hand. One reason I chose my last laptop computer was it had a touch screen and had the ability to write documents on it with a stylus. However, it was still awkward trying to “save” the electronic notes. There is something very satisfying about having the physical presence of paper to save after completing the task of putting down one’s thoughts. After all, the last time I checked we still existed in a physical world.
So, in response to your inspiring challenge today I have spent all morning looking through just one of several shoe boxes of old stuff that I have saved through the years in order to find a handwriting example. I should have known better because most of the day has now been spent doing this instead of what I had planned to do. But, far from complaining, I want to thank you dearly because I have found things I had completely forgot about and realize now why I have saved them for so long. Most are old and are hand written but too personal for posting on the internet. But here is a letter I received in high school from my classical guitar instructor giving me some information and tips.
The second photo you will recognize and is one of my prized possessions which hangs on the wall in my office -proof of how having a physical object to hold and see can evoke feelings and emotions much richer, real and thus valuable than any digital file could.
We looked up the books by Julio Sagreras who your teacher mentioned in that letter – you can still buy them everywhere!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lesson-Guitar-Primeras-Lecciones-Guitarra/dp/0793535859
They must have come out quite recently by the time your teacher sent this but obviously stood the test of time, how great is that?
Thanks for sharing that with us here!
This is a photo of the first dictation test I had to take in school (2nd grade). It’s about a red ball :-). In the lower grades we used this kind of triple ruling with a “basement”, a “ground floor” and a “roof” indicating how far up and down the letters should go…
I thought perhaps I could remember enough of my high school German to read a 2nd grade lesson. I got the first sentence, missed “rot”, “spiele”, and gerne. I guess it’s back to 1st grade.
Hi Dennis! “rot” means “red”, “spiele” is “play” and “gerne” translates to “like to” 🙂
That’s adorable and probably very similar to what our first dictation test would have looked like (only with messier handwriting ???? )!
I started writing in a notebook, which I still have and the shared pic is from it. I started writing in it my sophomore year in high school. I was an introvert and it helped me to deal with my feelings. This is years before the journaling trend started. I just knew it helped me.
They were written in poem form and as my interest in music grew, they became song lyrics. So here is my #34, written on May 20, 1972. It later became a song I recorded for my own enjoyment.
My first entry into the notebook was in 1967.
Another interesting challenge.
All of our historic family correspondence is held by one of my brothers and I don’t intend to ask him to sift through it to find something that is appropriate and that I would be prepared to share.
I have uploaded 3 pieces of writing that I hold. The first upload has 2 the letter being one received by me from the gentleman I bought my first flat from in 1987. For context I thought that from his accent he had been educated at a Scottish public school (in the UK that means an expensive independent one like Eton or Harrow) around the 1940s. He was a recently retired diplomat who had worked overseas which may have influenced his writing as well. The small note is from my Great Aunt Mabel who would have been about 80 at the time so educated at an ordinary school in Southampton around 1910 as I was 18 in 1978.
The second upload (I’ve had to do it in 2 parts to achieve good quality) is an example of the handwriting of someone from Stanley on the Falkland Islands and she would have been educated about the same time as my Aunt Mabel. She had been my landlady for a year before she moved to Portsmouth. I had stayed in contact with her as she was very upset and concerned about the build up to the Falklands War as she had sisters still living there. It took a while for her to compose herself enough to write to me after the war and it includes some of the horror of what the islanders went through, the worry had made her ill. It is a good bit of history and it is very personal and still upsets me. The loss of life on both sides had upset her deeply but she was relieved that the British had ensured that the islanders’ desire to remain British subjects had been upheld.
The year was 1978 and I was a 21 year old sophomore at the University of Minnesota, hanging out in my dormitory room because of temperatures in the -20 degree Fahrenheit (about -29 degrees C.) when the idea to write some brief, fun poems came upon me. The first reflected the status of the window in my room and the second is a brief tribute to a young lady I had met in a fall English Literature course. I didn’t type, nor have a typewriter, to printing by hand was all I had!
My father sent this to me in 2012, five years before he died (at the age of 91). So far we have fulfilled two of his requests: the cemetery and the sand stone cliff, which is above San Marcos Christian Camp in Central California. Each time, many of his progeny gathered for a weekend of activities that included the scattering of the ashes. It occurred to me that it wasn’t what happened to the ashes that my dad cared about, instead he wanted his family to take the opportunity to gather together again (and again). Which we did with lots of fun.
Typical of a loving parent in that he gave you his requests but wanted to be sure that they weren’t demands. No doubt he knew that you would carry out his wishes and also wanted you to be together to celebrate him. So lovely.
This challenge has given me so much pleasure today – sifting through old letters and cards, reliving so many memories. Your comment about the unique quality of each person’s handwriting drove me to dig for a couple of old autograph albums. When I was a child, these albums were a big deal – not for celebrity autographs – I lived in a small town and we never saw celebrities – but for family friends, teachers, etc. I don’t think I realized, all those years ago, how precious these autographs would become for me now. So many memories! So many people who played a part in my life who are no longer living! One of the most poignant was from my high school geography teacher who wrote about the bluebird of happiness. Not long after I graduated, he hung himself. How he must have longed for that elusive gift of happiness! I’m including a sample of a few autographs, each in distinctive handwriting. I’m also attaching a picture of three of my treasures – a post card from my great-aunt Muriel – one of childhood heroes, a note from my daughter, Meriel (named after my great-aunt) on my birthday (the other names are our cats), and comments on a high school English essay. This last one is a real prize for me because I had just learned about German script in my German class and thought I would be smart and sign my name on my English essay in German script. To my surprise, my English teacher wrote his comments in German and in German script! It took me quite some time to decode the comments!
This is from the inside of a book that my Great Grandfather wrote. He was the Labour MP for Shipley from 1923 up until his death in 1930. The book was called Bone Street and the inscription is to his son, my Great Uncle, James Mackinder. It reads:-
To my son Jim.
As a child you lived in such a street as “Bone Street”.
You remember these days Jim. May you never go back to them, except in memory.
With love from your dad (the author)
W. Mackinder
Feb 12 1927
The initial outline for my first short story – in Finnish. I wrote this on the train. At home, I had hard time trying to decipher my own handwriting… So, I moved to using a note app on my phone.
The last letter I wrote was more than 30 years ago when I was working for a mining company in Sonora Mexico. I wrote it for my mom. (He still keeps it)
now the most that I write are lists of materials, some formulas for calculations that later I develop on the computer and usually I do it on recycled sheets.
for now I am working from home and happened to find a notebook in which I wrote the list of materials to make a budget for a lighting and it is the only sheet I use. (The notebook is practically new.)
As you can see, I write horrible ????
Here are just a couple of the old postcards I still keep.
The first is a card to my dad, from 1947.
Some of the words are in Finnish.
Dad had many Finnish friends, and even learned a little of the language.
He even got to play music with them at some of their weekly community dances.
The 2nd is a postcard to my great great grandfather from 1901
It lists the death dates for 2 of his aunts and an uncle
Ah Handwriting….my lifelong ” frenenemy” ( friend/enemy)…. lol… it all began in Kindergarten….for the life of me, I could not duplicate doing the capital “K” properly…I could see it, but could not print it properly , the little “k” was a little difficult too, but not as struggling as with big “K” , thus the beginnings of my lifelong struggle with printing/handwriting… perhaps it’s something to do with fact I was a full term 3 pound baby, perhaps some brain issues with hand/eye coordination…Fast fwd, partly for having repeated Grade 7, my atrocious handwriting, my English teacher I had ( genuinely from UK) had a few of us each come in the morning before school started or was it at lunchtime !?!? for a few months doing penmanship exercises..it paid off somewhat for me…as a teen, I did indeed journal, had penpals to help me upkeep my writing…the Journaling stopped in my teens, but I’d write poems out, still do, write most poems out by hand. But with technology now here, my writing has sort of become “lazy”… Perhaps, I should rediscover Journaling again…
Here’s a sample of my Grandma Rea’s letter ( envelope) addressed to my aunt in Oakville Ontario ( near Toronto) and a sample of a poem I wrote out in 2016 !?… My family’s handwriting styles are all distinctive… some of family have inherited writing styles while others, not…lol (me).. I believe tge art of handwriting/pennanship needs to be ressurected, taught in schools, etc. I’ve seen a meltdown once by a cashier in a store, the computerized cash went down, she had no clue how to use a pen/paper to figure out the basics of how much change to give back, the older staff member had to come and help her, same thing applies to having basic handwriting /printing skills, technology sometimes is not reliable or convenient( as in not available), and having the backup basics knowhow of printing/penmanship skills is relevant. Thankyou gor this Handwriting challenge…. Another MLT Club member from on here, had inspired me to go out and get a fountain pen, of course Purple ink was a must ????
This is my handwritten lyrics to my song peace at christmas
I’ve attached part of a high school essay from 1969 on German Unification, together with examples of postcards my wife and I sent to my late parents. My wife’s handwriting, needless to say, is much neater than mine.
Original handwritten poem (Jan 1993) from my later printed / published book ‘The Circle & The Sword’ . I used to go out into the moorlands of northern England for walks and get inspired by the ancient standing stones and circles there (I love being out in nature like the twins do!). Sometimes, it was almost as if these cold stones had a story of their own to tell us?