In the beginning there was the typewriter….

 

I wonder how many people today have ever used a typewriter.  In fact, if you are young and living in a developed country, you may never have even seen a real one outside of a museum.  And perhaps you are thinking to yourself  that I  should  be in a museum, too.  Now that’s a bit unkind !! 

 My experience is first hand.   After all, when I started typing I was about 16 years old, so that makes my knowledge of this antiquated machine some sixty years old. 

 However, in the olden days, there weren’t many career opportunities for girls. You left school, became an office worker of some type, worked in a factory or shop, or got married early and became a stay-at home-housewife. 

 But, in learning to type, I discovered I had a hidden talent, and that was the  ability to type like the wind.  I don’t know how I acquired this skill but, as I got faster and faster,  I got a job in the ABC Radio Newsroom, as a news typist,  and eventually became one of the fastest typists in the fleet, so to speak.   We all used old Olivetti manual typewriters, no electric typewriters in the early days of this part of my career.  You can imagine how fast I was when I could type 120 words a minute.  A lot of the stories were taken directly over the phone or in face-to-face dictation with reporters, straight onto the typewriter and, from there, straight to air .

 In case you are wondering what this has to do with you, I feel there is a need to

de-mystify the typing skills of yesterday.  As I sit pecking away at the i-Pad, with my arthritic fingers, the legacy of bashing the manual typewriter for years, I have found that the use of the stylus( looks like a pen but with a rubber tip)   has revolutionised the art of typing on a virtual keyboard.  You only have to hold it in your hand like a pen and tap away. This removes the need for your fingers to touch the screen at all. 

 You do need to learn to type on this keyboard at  a reasonable speed.  At first, I was convinced that this was a step too far in my virtual life.  However, I devised some exercises to help me memorise the keyboard.  Every day, I sit down face to face with the iPad, and start work.  First of all, I look at the positioning of the keys.  Then I do the basic typing exercises, QWERT  and so on, and then type up the alphabet  a few times.  This has helped me to position  the keys in my mind as a map, and really has nothing to do with touch typing.  And of course, as I also work on my desktop, I  try to do the regular exercises on my keyboard, in an endeavour to keep what typing skills I still have.     

 

I know I am never going to be able to type at 120 words a minute again, but who cares?  My mind doesn’t work that fast any more, either.