The long lost art of longhand

So … if you’re gonna be a bank robber, especially one who conveys his intent to rob a bank via a written note, make sure you have good penmanship.

The “weird news” arm of the Huffington Post recently rendered a story about an Englishman whose intent to part a mutual financial institution from at least some of its money went kablooey because the tellers could not decipher the demand he’d penned for the occasion.

The event actually happened back in March, according to the Aug. 13 story by Lee Moran, and was revealed Aug. 13 by authorities.

“Retiree Alan Slattery, 67, fled empty-handed from a Nationwide Building Society branch in Eastbourne … after employees struggled to read his message demanding they hand over cash,” Moran writes.

“Police shared a picture of the note on Twitter. If you look hard enough, you can read: ‘Your screen won’t stop what I’ve got, just hand over the 10s and the 20s. Think about the other customers.’” My observation: The note looks to be a hastily scrawled combination of printed and cursive capital letters and printed and cursive small letters, and appears to read: “Yowr screen wan’t stop whet GVo sot juot hard oven tho 10s and 20s. Think alout the customer’s.”

The story goes on to reveal that later in March, Slattery was able to divest a bank of 2,400 British pounds, about $3,000, in his hometown — but bombed again during another robbery in April. Maybe he typed his note for the second robbery attempt?

Anyhoo, police caught up with Slattery, who pleaded guilty to one count of robbery and two counts of an attempted robbery in July and was sentenced to six years.

First thought: Look, if you’re retirement age, you might not want to rob banks … which at least to me seems to be a pastime best left to the young. Second thought: If this guy is 67, he’s too old to be a casualty of computer typing, texting and emoticons, which have pretty much taken the place of handwriting.

These days, just about the only times any of us has the opportunity to hand write anything are when we’re filling out and signing forms, paying bills and, if we’re old-schoolminded, sending out thank-you notes and addressing invitations. And even form-signing can be done

electronically, with nary even a stylus required. Imagine the indignity the Founding Fathers — those wielders of the ink-dipped quill pen — would have felt today if asked to use their fingers to sign the screen of a credit-card payment machine at any given modern-day store.

Speaking of signing with one’s finger online, this duty has reduced us all to writing like our much-stereotyped physicians, especially those of us of the fat-fingered ilk. I always experience a moment of something akin to mourning when I finger-sign a screen, see the results, think about the long-ago compliments I received on my handwriting growing up, and wonder what the complimenters would think when seeing “Hlne Wims.” (But then I must also confess to have gotten so dang lazy about even typing things out, I use emoticons and symbols to wish people happy birthday, happy anniversary, compliment them on their photos, etc., on Facebook.)

I wonder if Slattery is a casualty not of a bad education/ illiteracy, but of finger-signing his John Hancock electronically in recent years … and, having been out of practice in using a pen at all, being unable to decide whether to print or use the cursive writing whose teaching in the schools has become a matter of debate over the years. How many of us combine print and cursive? Pair that with haste, and our notes may not look much better than Slattery’s.

Look online and articles advocating the continued value of penmanship and handwriting can be found. Especially in this age of email and social media, handwritten notes and letters convey a sense of warmth and intimacy as they help cement history and allow close examination of it.

“Pens and pencils have been replaced with the keyboard and touchscreen, and recent studies indicate that this may be damning to far more than the quality of our mementos,” according to a 2019 post at the website blackwaterandsons.com — a site whose nostalgia-minded members can “create, curate and coalesce” and, offer items for sale. “These studies reveal that the practice of written script actually benefits our minds and bodies in a way that the keyboard cannot, and to abandon it is to neglect our own dexterity and cerebral development.”

Luckily, pens and pencils are still around. As I finish typing this column, I’m formulating a vow to find more occasions to use my handwriting … and hoping more of us do the same.

Just not to write bank-robbery notes.