To lose the knack
I remember learning to write at school. We had pencils in the
early grades and took delight in trying to keep them sharp. They were often
lost or broken, and people were always looking to borrow. Rubbing out was easy
with pencils. Of course, real writing was done in ink but, before we were
allowed to try that, we had to wait until we had reached grade six.
The day finally came when we were all presented with our first
pens. We were clearly instructed in how to dip them into the ink, make the
stroke on the page without leaving a blotch, and use a blotter to prevent
smudging – especially if we were left handed.
All students had writing or copy books, and writing exercises
were practised until perfected. A heavy down stroke of the pen was important,
and so was the slope of the letters. It all had to match and, if it
didn’t, the headmaster would describe the page as “written by a
drunken fly”. Nonetheless, they were days of good handwriting.
The fountain pen didn’t help, but it was really the biro
that sounded the deathknell. Our headmaster would slap our wrists with his
light cane if he saw us dare to use one of the new-fangled biros.
“It’s like writing with a stick,” he would say.
He was right, of course. Then there were the script and cursive eras, but
neither really produced good writers en masse. The days of consistently good
writing were gone. It seems the art has been lost.
Perhaps it’s the same with stonemasons and the specialist
builders of yesteryear. Speed and cost-saving has replaced many of the special
and personal skills developed by individuals over many years. A by-product of
such individual skills was pride in one’s work and achievement. This
created esteem, and a high sense of worth, which elevated the work ethic and
the importance of ensuring those skills were passed on.
I wondered about the loss of accumulated policing knowledge
and skills at the Police Association’s recent dinner for its retiring
members. It was the passing of another era. Some retirees had spent close to 40
years in the committed performance of duty, and were leaving SAPOL with
hundreds of days of unused sick leave. At times, they had struggled off to work
when sick, so as not to let the team down, or leave an inquiry undone. It is a
pity we are unable sometimes to pass on to the new chum the benefits of
positive accumulated learning and practice.
I was observing my plumber mate on the weekend as he
attempted some tricky pipe bronzing. It didn’t go well, and Gus sallied
forth with his usual oaths. When he stopped abusing the pipe quality and the
“dumb flux”, he admitted he wasn’t “as good at doing this
stuff” as he used to be.
“It’s marvellous what you forget or lose if you
don’t use it,” he conceded.
I was reminding him of the story Jesus told about someone
hiding his talents in the sand where the hidden wealth was ultimately lost
through lack of use, when Floss came into the shed.
“I don’t want to interrupt anything
important,” she said, “but if you don’t soon use that mower,
you’ll never find it in the long grass.”
I hope you are as clever as you used to be.
