It’s tragic, really. For years, my handwriting has been in a state of ever-increasing decay. Like an ancient pullover, it has been gradually unravelling until all that remains is a single, indecipherable thread. The tragedy of my handwriting is not a story of a single minute but of a toll taken over several decades. It started out as terrible from which point it has since steadily devolved.
It’s tragic, really. For years, my handwriting has been in a state of ever-increasing decay. Like an ancient pullover, it has been gradually unravelling until all that remains is a single, indecipherable thread. The tragedy of my handwriting is not a story of a single minute but of a toll taken over several decades. It started out as terrible from which point it has since steadily devolved.
To all my primary school teachers, I’d like to offer you the sincerest of apologies. The hours you spent at the blunt end of the blackboard should not have been in vain. That my body should seemingly reject all that I ever learned about cursive script is not anyone’s fault to speak of. Not even my own. I was never a delinquent. At school I dutifully copied down the patterns on the blackboard into my exercise book, developing a style of handwriting as unique as any fingerprint. I thought my handwriting was fine until I saw the crisp, clear lines that filled the pages of my schoolmates. Even then, my handwriting was lousy.
But as poor as it was, it must still have been legible. I say that because all our examinations relied on handwritten answers and I managed to progress. If I’d had then the handwriting I have now, I’d still be in year 10. But why the decline? Technology is at least in part to blame. When I was at university, laptops began to pop up like toadstools in dark corners of the classroom. I believed these contraptions to be little more than a passing fad and I dismissed them as vigorously as a paid-up member of the flat earth society would a globe if he got the rough end of a Kris Kringle. Resistance, however, would prove to be futile. When I started working, I found myself at a computer for most of the day. Indeed, it’s now where I spend the best part of everyday. My handwriting has suffered terribly as a result. It even resulted in a co-worker once referring to my script as ‘chicken scratch.’
In truth, my handwriting never stood a chance. It’s genetics, you see. The fact of the matter is that my family has long harboured a dark tragic secret – we all have terrible, atrocious handwriting. Christmas at our house was always a scene of great confusion as we struggled to decipher which gift belonged to which child. Gift cards were frequently despatched down to the team at forensics for analysis to determine precisely who the intended recipient was. It resulted in the occasional perverse outcome, but we lived with the consequences nevertheless.
By far and away, the person with the worst handwriting in our family is my father. If my father’s handwriting was a font it would, without doubt, be ‘wing dings’. I have dozens of wonderful books, all of which are home to the most touching and thoughtful inscriptions from my father, none of which I can read. Many appear to have gone through a couple of cycles in the Enigma Machine. Technically, it may not be handwriting so much as it is a biro out for a walk. Birthday cards were encryptions that my brothers and sisters and I would spend hours trying to crack. Either he was wishing me a ‘happy birthday’ or the Germans were planning an air assault flying out of Dusseldorf. It was impossible to tell which. This, of course, is to say nothing of post cards. The reason for such silence is that the contents of postcards were as inscrutable as our faces as we attempted to read them.
There is, however, an upside. Now that handwriting has largely fallen foul of the fickle breeze of fashion, the playing field has been levelled. Soon, generations of youngsters will look upon a ballpoint pen with the same kind of screwed-up incredulity we’d give a horse and buggy or the decision to bring back ‘It’s a Knockout’. Handwriting will soon be all but irrelevant, preserved only by small groups of dedicated purists who meet in secret to practise their penmanship. Either that or it will be elevated to the level of an exotic martial art and used by street gangs as a means of settling disputes. Finally, the pen would at long last truly be mightier than the sword. Frustrations would be resolved by way of a Caran d’Ache Fleur de Dentelle fountain pen and bickering by way of the ‘bic’ biro.
But in spite of these pocket-pens of resistance, handwriting would inevitably be declared an endangered species at risk of extinction. Let me say that it can’t come soon enough. Only then will I be free from the shame and attendant mockery that only truly terrible handwriting can inspire. No longer will Christmas in our house be the slightly random present-throwing affair that so marred our childhood years, even if I still insist that the size seven ballet shoes I received when I was fifteen were intended for me. (No one had the nerve to tell me otherwise. I seemed so pleased.) From now on, people will get the presents that were bought with them in mind.
It can now be said that, if not the writing, then certainly the Times New Roman is on the wall for handwriting. It will not affect my father. He will continue to gift books with indecipherable inscriptions and send post cards, the contents of which remain a mystery. I can’t say I mind so much. There’s such a thing, I think, as making things too simple. Or, as my father would say, ‘too simple’.