Editorial: Nothing so personal as writing

I have no clear memory of the day I finally mastered the alphabet, but I possess a clear memory of being taught to write it down.
At primary school, we used old copies of the Listener which in those days (and this will age me nicely) covered mainly radio as television had only just surfaced ... in the form of one solitary channel.
The radio schedules were spread across large columns which made for perfect boundaries to get the letters formed in. We used crayons and we wrote and we printed.
It was important to learn handwriting for that was how we would one day formally send off letters thanking Aunty for the underpants she gave us for Christmas and on that day in the faraway future when we would apply for a job.
Printing was sort of a lower-class form of putting down words, although in the long run was easier.
I can still handwrite (I've just written the alphabet in capitals and lower case and even remembered how to do the tricky capital "F" and the "S") but generally I use basic printing.
Since the time Stone-Age people invented the shopping list, writing has been an integral part of life.
Without it, we wouldn't have any history books to read.
It is just automatic. You think of something you have to do or purchase and you write it down ... in your own way. Be it handwritten or printed ... or in that bewildering script doctors used to get taught at medical schools.
And I hope that is always the case, although I harbour some serious concerns and doubts after reading an article in The Times this week.
In the US state of Indiana, "officials" have decreed that instead of learning to write longhand, pupils will be expected to focus instead on tapping and typing on keyboards. They are not alone, for in 41 states there is no compulsory rule to teach writing ... schools can choose to do so or not.
Because keyboards, and their computer chums, are the way of the future.
That is quite awful, because apart from helping the young brain develop and create its own unique personality, such a pursuit is turning us into an extension of the electronic that are nudging closer to ruling our lives.
There has been some tinkering with writing and printing programmes in schools here in the past, through the adoption of post-script and "linking" of letters - despite the near-extinct handwriting having done that in the first place - but at least it is still there and, hopefully, firmly encouraged.
For when you write a word, any word, it is in a form no one else can do. But type it out and and it looks the same as a billion other people's effort.
Your writing is your skill. It is your character. It is your individuality and that, to me, is everything.
Geographically we are 13,100km from Indiana. Educationally, I hope that vast distance is maintained.