Kindly write on only one side of the paper

A scare article in the Guardian says that handwriting will soon disappear. Not so. In fact, in the last two years I have reverted to doing all my writing by hand as they no longer make the machines I like, and my eyes object to staring at a screen. My assistant, the angelic Mary, puts my scribbles on computer or disk. Being left-handed, I have to hold my pen in a funny way, as writing from left to right is unnatural to sinistrals. I envy the Ancient Egyptians, who carved their hieroglyphs either way and wrote hieratic (the written version) from right to left. When I was writing my history of Ancient Egypt, my favourite book was Egyptian Grammar by Alan Gardiner, from which I learned hieroglyphs, and a little hieratic (the commercial cursive, demotic, was much too difficult). Gardiner not only knew more about these scripts than anyone who has ever lived, he also wrote a beautiful hieroglyphic hand. What kind of pen he used I do not know, as he died in 1963 and I never met him to ask. The old scribes of Memphis had to hold their instruments three inches from the end and were never allowed to rest the heel of their hand on the papyrus. Hard work, eh? I sometimes use my Egyptian lore for birthday cards. I paint the limestone bust of Queen Nefertiti (putting in the missing eye) and have her speaking a balloon-message: ‘Happy Birthday!’ Then I put a bit underneath in hieroglyphics, using Gardiner’s Grammar.

Writing a book by hand is more fun than using a computer, and perhaps quicker in my case. I was taught copybook writing by a gifted Dominican nun who loved doing illuminated manuscripts in coloured inks and got me to develop a clear and rapid script.