Learning To Type

When I was 13 or 14 years old I had the choice, at school, of doing another language (I was already learning French) or doing secretarial studies.

I really, really wanted to learn how to type. Even at that age I thought it would be a useful thing to be able to do and thought that if I knew how to type I'd always be able to get a job. After all, it was the early 1970's and most big firms still had 'typing pools' which mainly consisted of girls 'copy typing'

Unfortunately in those days it wasn't up to the pupil to decide what subjects they wanted to study - it was the parents choice. And my parents decided that 'secretarial studies' was not 'academic' enough. They seemed totally oblivious to the fact that I was unable to grasp even the basic phrases of the French language. How they thought that I'd be able to master German as well is a complete mystery to me. And why the teachers actually let me take a second language, when I was obviously failing the first one, is another mystery. The only reason I can come up with is ......................... my parents were very 'middle class and pushy' and I think they probably intimidated the teachers.

When I tried to tell my mother that I wasn't capable of taking another language, she actually told me that I'd meet 'a better class of people' in the German class than I would in the secretarial class.

When I did eventually leave school, I had no secretarial skills and had failed French & German.

So, I did what everybody in those days did, if they wanted to further their education - I took myself off to night school and enrolled in a typing course. And I was good at it.

We learnt to type on typewriters, the old fashioned way - starting with our fingers on the home keys and painstakingly practising each letter with the required finger so that we could copy a letter without having to look at any of the keys. Once we had learnt to do that we had to build up our speed. Fast, accurate typists were in demand. Mistakes couldn't be made. No boss wanted to send out a letter with tipex marks all over it.

After about a year (2 hours a week) I had managed to gain RSA1, RSA2 & RSA3 in typing. Most typists I knew only had RSA 1 or 2. They could type 30/40 words a minute. I could type 50/60 words a minute.

'Touch typing' is the most valuable skill I have ever learnt.

More than 30 years later, it is still the skill that I have used for most of my life.

Even today, at work, a '20 something' colleague said to me: 'how can you type & talk to people on the phone at the same time'?

My answer - 'I learnt to multi-task when the word multi-task hadn't even been invented'.

Typing is the best thing I ever learnt to do!