The 3 R’s: Reading , Writing and Arithmetic are the cornerstone of all learning but today, as with everything else, this basic learning has undergone a name change and is known as “Language skills” and “Mathematical reasoning”  eroding the charm associated with early childhood learning. Of course learning is less formal and more fun with activities that stimulate the mind rather than encourage the memory but I still feel nostalgic when I think of how I learnt to write with ink.

It was the 2nd term of Std 4 and we had all returned fresh from our Summer holidays to begin a new journey of learning. This time we were excited because finally we were growing up – Yes, we were going to start writing like grown ups, abandoning our pencils forever. There was a charm to writing in pencil especially wasting time trying to get the point just so. We loved watching the wooden shavings drop into the waste paper basket as we got the tip sharp enough to hurt. But we soon discovered that writing with ink also had moments of wasting time. Lots of it in fact.

Mrs. Castellino was taking over class since Miss Smith had gone off to Australia to get married. She was quite different from Miss Smith who was all peaches and cream with her soft gentle voice that was no match for twenty boisterous 9 year-olds and the moment we saw her, we knew that she would tolerate no nonsense. So when we marched up to class after the morning Assembly, there was pin drop silence as she distributed the pens to all of us, without the usual oohs and ahhs of appreciation that would have accompanied such a ritual by Miss Smith.

” Now look at this pen,” said Mrs. Castellino, “This is the pen holder or handle,” she said holding up a red wooden object. “And this is the nib, which goes in here,” demonstrating how the nib fitted into the handle. “At the back of the nib you will see a pocket which holds the ink so when you write, dip the nib into the inkwell, hold the nib against the edge to drain off any excess ink, gently blot it before writing. Now will each one of you come up to my desk and get the inkwells filled?”

One by one each one of us solemnly went up to her desk with the inkwell in our hands and waited with baited breath as she filled each one to the rim with thick blue ink from a large Camel ink bottle. We walked back carefully to our desks, mindful that we didn’t spill even one drop and gingerly put each inkwell in the hole assigned for it.

When we were all seated, each girl in the front row was given a sheaf of pink blotting paper that we had to pass down the line and when all of us were set , we opened our books to the first page of our Writing Books – those special books with two red lines in the middle of two blue lines so that we could make patterns  dipped the nib in the well , blotted out the excess ink and pressed the nib down to write our first word – our name.

We then had to turn over the first page of a lined notebook especially for Hand Writing :

in which we had to carefully make writing patterns so that everyone in our school wrote in exactly the same way – neat, legible, cursive writing according to Marion Richardson

It was hard work writing with ink, we had to press down firmly but not too firmly lest we break the nib and we had to write slowly, forming each pattern with care exactly between the evenly spaced lines. We had to make sure that the nib didn’t run dry half way through the line because it meant a slight change in the colour of the ink – and above all we had to make sure that there were no ugly, blotchy ink marks  on the page.

Each girl developed her own style of writing – some with the nib held at a slight angle, some with the paper held at a slant, some with the tongue placed between the lips making sure that the patterns were just so.

After the hand writing period we were told to go to the wash rooms one by one and wash out the ink from the nibs and carefully cover the ink well for the next day. One of us was appointed ink monitor and it was her duty to make sure that on Friday evening the inkwells were washed out and left to dry on the desk beneath the window. Another one was appointed to pour out the ink and cut and distribute the pink blotting paper. And by the end of the year we had all graduated from writing patterns to full sentences. By the time we reached the final year of school, all of us had beautiful handwriting which would flow out of our old fashioned dip nib pens with not a blot on the paper.

I am posting this for #Monday Musings and would like to thank AJPai for inspiring this post!