Gammy Hand.


My handwriting has deteriorated so much over the years that it now resembles the illegible scrawl of a five-year-old.

Not a particularly adept five-year-old at that. I’m talking about the sort of child who seldom writes, has broken both wrists and is holding the pen in his weak hand. Yes: that bad.

It’s very embarrassing. Just writing a greeting card makes me self-conscious. I’ve grown to expect the frown and narrowing of the eyes of the recipient as they do their best to decipher it; something even the people at Bletchley Park would have struggled with.

These days, I’ll mostly resort to block capitals, which is the writing-style-of-choice of the moron. Even this isn’t foolproof. My capital E looks like a small 't', and my M and W are nigh on indistinguishable.

This is what happens when you type and text so much: you get out of practise. It’s still a shame. There was a time when I couldd write a multiple-paged essay without worrying whether my teacher would understand it.

Maybe I was wrong. Perhaps the only reason I got an A at English A-Level was because the examiner thought that I’d written something else.

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