Handwriting
posted by Henri Llewelyn Davies @ 14:37
8 Comments
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
About Me
- Name: Henri Llewelyn Davies
- Location: London, United Kingdom
My real name is Henrietta - Henri stuck (like names do - for no reason) from when I was sixteen and at boarding school, which I hated. (Well, it's no worse than Hen or Henny, which were sometimes awarded to me in my youth, and when I started writing a lot of horoscope columns the full nine syllables was too much of a mouthful to put on a by-line - Henri Ll. D in itself is more than long enough!) I am a psychic astrologer, doing personal readings, and I love my work - which I've been doing for (almost) three decades. I also write. Work website: http://www.henrillewelyndavies.com/
8 Comments:
I love looking at different handwriting - it tells you such a lot about the person.
I happen to think there's a genetic influence in the way a person's handwriting turns out. My sisters (who are from my father's first marriage) have very neat, non joined up writing, which curves slightly. At least one of my sister's children have the same sort of script.
I, on the other hand, have a similar style to my mother, although mine is slightly more legible than hers! It's rather loopy, some of the lettrs run together, and it's not at all sophisticated! It seems like it might be passed through the mother (although this might be because mother's spend more time teaching handwriting, although mine didn't)
It's fascinating to hear what you say about your own mother's handwriting and how it changed through circumstance.
Henri I'm loving these posts about your family. I was taught a very standard neat handwriting at school called Marion Richardson and loops were a punishable offence. I spent my childhood pining for a flowing loopy style and now I think about it, that was quite restricting. The minute I left primary school I went mad with loops and clearly remember 'sorting out' a handwriting style that would be mine alone. I now get a lot of comments about it at work especially, where I've been writing hand-written clinical records for thirty years now, everyone says there's no need to add my signature, because they spot my records a mile away!
What an amazing family heirloom. Was it 1890? Of course, the Bronte link fascinates me. And the power of handwriting -- which is in part what 'Daphne' is all about. I'm really enjoying reading your blog -- it's like seeing the pages of a book emerge, day by day.
I agree with Justine Picardie, you really should write a book. Of course your writting is brilliant and flows well, but your voice (especially when you add that dry and sarcastic tone) and your stories are enchanting.
Hi Henri, yes I agree, you can tell alot by someone's handwriting - I write my fiction by hand, and somehow I feel the characters come better that way than typing, sometimes just gushing to get out ( was it Yeat's wife George who did the spirit writing in her Sligo tower? Because that is what it feels like)...
The thing is because of all these characters bustling through my hand writing, my handwriting has turned to brambles, gone is the school girl loops - funny thing is, we used to chide my father for his messy handwriting, and now I have become the same ( maybe it is the link between my Aquarian father and my Aquarius rising)....
You do write beautifully Henri, your family sounds like it has several mines worth of diamond-stories along, keep them coming
Thanks so much for all your excellent comments everyone. I know for a fact that all of you write great blogs (and booklover is in the same category - a really good writer, I can tell it with my psychic hat on, even though there's nothing on your blog page yet, booklover...)
Justine: many thanks for pointing out my typo - yes of course, I meant 1890, not 1990. Nobody would know, with my numerical dyslexia (I failed Maths O level) that once, in a rather arid period of my life, I did a lot of proofreading for extremely respectable publishers (although people often can't
proofread/edit their own writing - there's that, too).
The most enjoyable things I remember proof-reading were a book of pre-tenth century Arabian love poetry (in a really good translation) and a re-printing of A Clockwork Orange, which turned out to be a brilliant read (I'd absolutely hated and loathed the film when I was eighteen).
Talking of 1890, it was the year Arthur Llewelyn Davies married Sylvia du Maurier, having known her a very short time. That example I have of his handwriting is very different from his wobbly, sadly erratic style of writing while he was slowly dying - which can be seen on the J.M. Barrie official website. That sort of change in the writing happens, often, when people are dying of cancer, but at least when one looks at such traumatic objects one knows the real person was still THERE, underneath the changed writing.
Gondalgirl: yes, I know what you mean about ('backs of envelopes'-type) hand-writing, and yes I think it was George(y?). I remember my tutor at college saying the best thing Yeats ever did for himself was to sensibly marry her ('after all that hoo-ha with Maud Gonne'!)
Hi Henri - I think George Yeats dropped the 'i' as she was George due to feminist sympathies...at university there was a huge guffaw from a dry lecturer talking about Yeats, and his wife George....
My mind keeps winding back to the past so I agree with the Merc retro vibe...no replies on my blog either...but then am overcome with the feeling that blogging may be my way of crapping on and not getting on with the novel....a friendly diversion....?
A bit of a late comment, but did you know that George du Maurier -- your great great grandfather -- did some illustrations for an edition of 'Sylvia's Lovers'? I wonder if it was this edition?
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