histchat

This is room 36 at the back of block 12. It was my second year history room (and possibly 3rd year too). For
some reason I remember it as being a very dark room - I wonder if it still is? History lessons (for 2BG anyway)
were usually a choice between dictation, copying down from the blackboard or, on a good day, making notes
as we viewed a series of black and white slides on some history related subject or other. For most of us
dictation was a race against time as our history teacher (can't remember his name) clearly thought we were
all capable of 60 words a minute shorthand. I remember there was one girl who sat in the row in front of me
(I think her name was Margaret Mansfield) who had the most beautiful handwriting. I would watch in awe as
she kept up with a whole lesson of dictation in a seemingly effortless manner, producing page after page of
flawless copperplate. Boy, did I admire and envy her speed and skill with a pen!

As it happens I had a bit of a schoolboy crush on this same girl too - although nothing at all to do with her
calligraphic expertise and as you'd expect at 12 years of age, nothing ever came of it. I do remember she
was a passenger on HMT Dilwara when we went back to the UK for a 3 month holiday in July 1959.

On the subject of pens...

I remember we were not allowed to write using a roll tip biro as it would be certain to "ruin our handwriting".
In the late 50's this meant using a refillable fountain pen with all the many possibilities of things going wrong.
Within days the nib would bend or twist or open up. It would become unbearably scratchy or the ink would
run too slowly or too quickly and leave unsightly blots on the page. Unlike roll tip pens, fountain pen ink does
not dry immediately but lies in wait, still wet on the paper, just waiting to be smudged or transferred in mirror
image to the facing page.

The fingers on our writing hand would become stained with the blue or black Quink ink, or worse still your pen
would decide to leak when inside your case or jacket pocket. Some particularly talented kids even managed
to transfer ink onto their lips and tongue! Very occasionally you might get a pen that had none of these
problems - that's when you knew for sure that it was destined to join all its many brothers and sisters in that
mysterious equivalent to the "elephant's graveyard" that all pens and pencils (even roll-tips) eventually find
their way.