The Ladybird book of Handwriting,1968

The Ladybird book of Handwriting, written by Tom Gourdie,  is a book I remember vividly from childhood.  Everyone else in the class had such lovely handwriting, it seemed, except me.  We had endless (it seemed to me) lessons of practice before we were allowed to use a fountain pen for our other work.  I tried really hard, but my writing was still messy and – according to my memory – I was the last one in the class still writing with a pencil.  Later, armed with help from my dad (who had a lovely italic hand) and this book, I set about trying to learn again.  I made progress, but it didn’t really stick.  So I went back to ‘printing’ and learned to touch-type.  Perhaps, at the end of the day, I backed the right horse.  But I still envy those people with their lovely smooth handwriting.

This matt copy is in really very good condition.  There’s an owner’s name and stamp on the front endpapers but the boards show very little wear and inside the pages are in very clean, tight condition.  It dates from the early 1970s and has the original price of 15p on the back.