Shorthand-if only I could read it back

I enjoyed Natsuko Waki’s light-hearted story on learning shorthand as part of the graduate training course. I had a similar experience learning ‘Thomson Tee-line’ shorthand in a dusty classroom off Fleet Street in 1979 while myself on the trainee programme.

It was fantastic, I could get an entire speech down as it was spoken, no problem. Sadly, the difficulties only arose later when it came to reading it back. What did this squiggle mean — was it doing, downing or drawing?

I had to revert to the scrappy method I formulated in lecture halls during my college days.

(This is no reflection on the lovely lady who did her best to teach us trainee journos. Some bits did stick!) ■