How is that for handwriting? The person that wrote this letter was expressing her feelings on the illness of my great grandmother, who I never knew. Now you can look at the address where my granmother’s family were living at the time. We were not nobilitiy, nothing like it, but grandmother Emily happened to be born at Sissinghurst Castle where the majority of her 11 brothers, including her father, were all farm labourers. My grandmother was also employd by the castle owners, most probably working in the diary with the milk production, although there are stories circulating that she was in service.

However you desribe it, at the end of the 19th century you did not search for the job you wanted, the jobs came to you whether you wanted it or not. It all stayed in the family. Yes, grandmother was a product of  Downton Abbey similar surroundings, but they all got their hands dirty doing something or the other. I do not even know if my great grand parents could write, but it seems it was my grandmother that informed the person answering the letter that her mother was seriously ill. I do have her exact date of death, the records are somewhere in the cellar. Her husband Jason had already passed on in 1907 and so I assume that my great grandmother died around 1916 or something like that. I know my grandmother was one of 16 children. It seems they did not have a TV in those days.

These were the days when people still wrote letters and thanks to these letters I have some records of life at Sissinghurst castle. They are carefully written documents. Of course a computer might have been better, but at that time the houses were still partially illuminated with gas light and electricity was in the children’s shoes.

Sissinghurst Castle was eventually bought by Vita Sackville-West and her husband, a well known writer of the time and it was she that had the wonderful Sissinghurst Castle gardens built. I have a letter from Vita Sackille-West to my grandmother who once paid a visit to the castle. I have the original signature of Vita, but the letter was typed. By this time my grandmother had been transported to the East End of London, Stratford-Bow, married to a cockney and building her own family.

I had another side to the family, my mother’s tribe. They were all London East Enders, some of the origins I did trace to Norfolk. The problem with this part of the family was that all census records were written by hand. The name was Lay, quite simple really. When searching for my origins I discovered they had been entered with the name Say, Day and even Lay eventually, which did cause a mix-up. Even the wonderful handwriting of those days had its problems. Naturally Joe or Fred, the guy that knocked at the door and wrote the names on the paper for the census, was not exatly a Professor of Literature, but an average working man. He had visited school, but his handwriting lacked a certain finesse.

Today these problems no longer happen or do they? Of couse not, we have computers, iPads and all sorts of mechanical helpers, so why do it in handwriting. At my first school I was given a rudimentry pen which I had to dip into an inkwell to write with. This incorpoated using blotting paper and very inky fingers when you were finished. The most irritating thing for me was that my desk neighbour was left handed. Basically it would not have bothered me, but she was continually using my ink well meaning that I had to fill it up at least once a day. My ink consumation was doubted, the teacher was convinced I was and ink addict and drinking it. Luckily I got a different neighbour when the class changed.

With time we had foutain pens, which we had to fill with ink ourselves: another problem. If your fountain pen sprang a leak you had to confront your mother with reasons why your clothing had ink stains. The quality of the first fountain pens was not so good.

Eventally the fountain pens arrived with cartridges. The ink was used up and so you inserted a new catridge. One day you had it all under control, but then you were already attending the typing class. You leave school, continued with the typewriter and just scribbling everything by stenography, pencil of course. We were back in the dark ages.  If it was your own stenography that you had written, then you were lucky if you could read it afterwards.

Today we are all online, so why do we need handwriting. It is superfluous, there is no point, unless you want to write your testament (happy days) or make an alteration. This has to be done by hand, and from experience I can say I can no longer write by hand. I am sure that the handwritten letter above was finished in perhaps 30 minutes at the most. My documents by hand are usually accompanied with 10 attempts to write without a mistake until I arrive at the necessary result and needs an afternoon of work. Not only this, but my wrist, arm and hand have some sort of computer withdrawal pains. My ancestory had it better at the castle, even if they were up to their knees in dirt in the fields or filling up milk cans. It was a quick scribble with pen and ink and it was done. Yes gran, you had it easier in your day with the writing.

Daily Prompt: Handwriting