I think I’m lucky. No, I know I’m lucky. In art class, I was taught handwriting by Tom Gourdie MBE during my time at Kirkcaldy High School. As well as being an accomplished artist, Tom taught handwriting, literally handwrote books on handwriting and travelled the world extolling the virtues of his beautiful and natural Simple Modern Hand. As you can see below, it is so simple and natural that it is ideal for teaching to Primary School children. Despite Tom’s continuous efforts, it was never adopted by the educational bodies in his homeland but he was responsible for it being adopted by Scandinavian and East German schools, amongst others.
Everything Tom taught seemed like the obvious, natural things to do, from the basics of a relaxed positioning of the pen – so that it sits lightly on the middle finger and is loosely held by the thumb and fore-finger (see below) – to the importance of a comfortable seating position and to how best to position the paper. He also stressed that good handwriting is done by the whole hand and not just the thumb and fore-finger. The hand moves the pen up and down, backwards and forwards, from the movement from the wrist. The natural, curving stokes of the letters are created by the hand, moving from the wrist and pivoting on the little finger.
This can easily be demonstrated, as shown below, by scribbling up and down without moving your hand’s position on the paper. As soon as you start to move your hand and wrist to the right, the vertical strokes are joined by lighter, more angular strokes. By increasing the travel distance of the hand and wrist to the right, and with a regular, rhythmical movement, a natural curved linking stroke is created. This is the basis of Tom’s handwriting style. The letters n, with its clockwise curve, and u, with its anti-clockwise curve, are the basic shapes on which all other letters of the alphabet can be based. Tom’s diagram below shows this clearly.
Based on these fundamentals, Tom created numerous exercises for us to practise, like the one below, which, he admits, he ‘borrowed’ from a 16th century author! While some classmates would prefer to have been painting or to have been elsewhere altogether, I must admit that I did enjoy working within these strict perameters and guidelines, and (as any good Taurean) enjoyed the challenge of trying to control the shape of each letter, to perfect this art and to be as good as the master. I’m sure it provided me with a greater empathy towards the wider world of handwriting and calligraphy, and probably directed me subconsiously towards my career in graphics. It has to be said, though, that at that time, in the late 1960s, ‘graphics’ wasn’t an industry title. There were ‘commercial artists’, but that’s another story. It’s also the reason I chose to do Architecture at Art College, as an architect in those days made around £3,000 a year! But I digress.
To many of you reading this article, I’m sure it all sounds like far too much hard work and application, but may I assure you that it was all very worthwhile as I have taken great pleasure, over the years, in having been complimented on my handwriting, and every time I take it as an endorsement of Tom’s simple writing style as much as to my own ability of putting pen on paper. Nowadays, I must admit my notes to myself can deteriorate at times to a scawl, but at least it’s a neat, controlled scrawl!
If you’d like further information on Tom Gourdie, his calligraphy, paintings and prints, you’ll find it at www.tom-gourdiesgallery.co.uk
I’d like to thank Tom Gourdie Jnr for allowing me the use of his father’s material in this article.