Notes And Letters Exchanged Between Tom Gourdie And Frank Allan Thomson

[zerobuttons]

I have acquired a copy of Tom Gourdie´s "Italic Handwriting - A Simple Modern Style" which was a gift from Tom Gourdie to Frank Allan Thomson. It contains margin notes, probably made my mr. Thomson, and a separate piece of paper with a note from mr. Gourdie to mr. Thomson.

 

If there is any interest in seeing these, and if there are no protests against this, I would be willing to scan the notes and show them here.

 

Please let me know if you are interested, or know of any problems in showing the notes here. Thank you in advance.

[Florenze]

I have acquired a copy of Tom Gourdie´s "Italic Handwriting - A Simple Modern Style" which was a gift from Tom Gourdie to Frank Allan Thomson. It contains margin notes, probably made my mr. Thomson, and a separate piece of paper with a note from mr. Gourdie to mr. Thomson.

 

If there is any interest in seeing these, and if there are no protests against this, I would be willing to scan the notes and show them here.

 

Please let me know if you are interested, or know of any problems in showing the notes here. Thank you in advance.

 

 

I would love to see the notes! The Tom Gourdie book was used in one of my first classes, and I still have my copy. I wouldn't know about the legalities or other protocol. But

it would be wonderful to see these. Thanks for doing this.

[Maurizio]

I have acquired a copy of Tom Gourdie´s "Italic Handwriting - A Simple Modern Style" which was a gift from Tom Gourdie to Frank Allan Thomson. It contains margin notes, probably made my mr. Thomson, and a separate piece of paper with a note from mr. Gourdie to mr. Thomson.

 

If there is any interest in seeing these, and if there are no protests against this, I would be willing to scan the notes and show them here.

 

Please let me know if you are interested, or know of any problems in showing the notes here. Thank you in advance.

 

 

I would love to see the notes! The Tom Gourdie book was used in one of my first classes, and I still have my copy. I wouldn't know about the legalities or other protocol. But

it would be wonderful to see these. Thanks for doing this.

[Maurizio]

I would love to see them. Tom Gourdie was master calligrapher; if the notes have any content or advice by Mr. Gourdie about handwriting or calligraphy they would be of general interest to many people I believe.

 

Re legalities - I'm a lawyer though this is not my area so this is just an off the cuff opinion. It is possible though doubtful given these facts that someone owns a copyright to these informal notes. Even if there is someone who could assert a copyright claim, publication of these notes

in this non-commercial forum would most likely be acceptable under the doctrine of "fair use".

[zerobuttons]

Now I finally got the time to scan. I have scanned only the pages with mr. Thomson´s notes, and the note from mr. Gourdie to mr. Thomson. Gamma and shadow settings have been set to show the pencil notes as clearly as possible.

 

You can see the result here:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0xM--phJhQeZDU5MDQwOTgtYTRmNi00MjNmLWEyMzctZDZkYTVmYzAyMTky

 

Please let me know if there is any problem with the link, and if you see a problem in publishing this.

[Italicist]

It's very interesting to read Thomson's comments on -- and occasional critiques of -- Gourdie's technique or drills. Even the masters may disagree with each other, and no master is above criticism. Although I'm nowhere near the calibre of penman that that these two achieved, I'm somewhat selfishly pleased to see that Thomson was bewildered by Gourdie at a few of the same points as I was, such as the cursive vrvrvrvr repetition. Having said that, however, I remain delighted with Gourdie and consult him regularly for his almost invariably excellent advice. Thanks very much for posting these pages!

[HDoug]

This is great! Thank you so much!

 

Doug

[katim]

As another Tom Gourdie fan, I found these comments fascinating. They frequently help in pointing out differences of opinion between masters of the italic form, but I was surprised by the tone of some of the remarks. They sound occasionally tetchy - perhaps even 'bitchy'! Thomson is also a bit of a 'wordsmith', preferring his own words to those of Gourdie.

 

It's interesting and perhaps illuminating to note his rather sour comment about not having been asked to provide a sample of his handwriting for the book.

What I would really like to know is whether Thomson sent the book back to Gourdie with his comments?

 

Thank you very much for providing these scans - they make a valuable addition to my copy of the Gourdie book.

[caliken]

As another Tom Gourdie fan, I found these comments fascinating. They frequently help in pointing out differences of opinion between masters of the italic form, but I was surprised by the tone of some of the remarks. They sound occasionally tetchy - perhaps even 'bitchy'! Thomson is also a bit of a 'wordsmith', preferring his own words to those of Gourdie.

 

It's interesting and perhaps illuminating to note his rather sour comment about not having been asked to provide a sample of his handwriting for the book.

What I would really like to know is whether Thomson sent the book back to Gourdie with his comments?

 

Thank you very much for providing these scans - they make a valuable addition to my copy of the Gourdie book.

Katim,

 

Your comments echo my feelings on reading through the notes in the margins. I can't imagine that Thomson was asked to write a criticism and then return the book, defaced. If not, why did he write them? (if indeed he did write them!) There are many who feel impelled to contribute to books by adding their comments in the margins.

 

"Bitchy" is a good way to describe his contribution. If I had sent a book of mine to someone, and received it back with these comments, I'd be more that a little upset! He even replaces "obtained" with "acquired" at one point. He may well be right, but how pedantic is that - and how irrelevant! In fact, many of his comments are no more than personal opinions.

 

....however, it is fascinating.

 

Ken

 

On reading through the comments again, I can't believe that the book was returned to Gourdie. If so, it wouldn't still exist!

Edited January 31, 2012 by caliken

[Italicist]

"Bitchy" is a good way to describe his contribution. If I had sent a book of mine to someone, and received it back with these comments, I'd be more that a little upset! He even replaces "obtained" with "acquired" at one point. He may well be right, but how pedantic is that - and how irrelevant! In fact, many of his comments are no more than personal opinions.

 

....however, it is fascinating.

 

Ken

 

On reading through the comments again, I can't believe that the book was returned to Gourdie. If so, it wouldn't still exist!

 

Indeed. Interesting though Thomson's critique is, it's regrettably mean-spirited in many instances. Gourdie would have been justified in burning the book if it had been returned to him with those comments!

[zerobuttons]

What I would really like to know is whether Thomson sent the book back to Gourdie with his comments?

As far as I can tell, it wasn´t. I found it in a Swedish antiquarian bookshop. In the book was also a letter from another person to mr. Thomson, who lived in Sweden.

[brunico]

zerobuttons, many thanks for this! I will have a proper read later.

[HDoug]

Thomson's comments actually reminded me a bit of threads that appear here from time to time! But I'm sure he wrote these for his own reference and not for Gourdie's eyes. Calling an example "a weak falsification of Arrighi!" would have no hope of any kind of constructive reaction. And accusing Gourdie of being "afraid of the word 'bottom'" when he uses "base" is kinda over the top.

 

But what I find very interesting (and attractive) is Thomson's small italic handwriting. I notice that he very often uses an entry stroke on the initial downstroke of a word and consistently uses the double chambered (and more labor intensive) form of minuscule "g". Taken together with his structural criticisms, Tomson's handwriting forms an example of an italic variant that is very legible and pleasing (to my eyes).

 

So thanks much for posting this. I'm glad they are beyond arguing now, and that we can contemplate two forms of masterful italic at the same time.

 

Doug

[brunico]

But what I find very interesting (and attractive) is Thomson's small italic handwriting. I notice that he very often uses an entry stroke on the initial downstroke of a word and consistently uses the double chambered (and more labor intensive) form of minuscule "g". Taken together with his structural criticisms, Tomson's handwriting forms an example of an italic variant that is very legible and pleasing (to my eyes).

 

Goodness yes! I enjoy how people adapt the basic style and make it their own, with beautiful, legible and seemingly effortless results, including yours, HDoug. One of my favourite examples of a flowing hand is from Ludwig Tan.

 

A few comments.

 

Numerals (p.65). Thomson appears to denigrate what typographers call "old-style numerals" (which keep the body to the x-height and have ascenders and descenders), and Gourdie suggests they're decorative and impractical. I think I switched to this style when I was at school, finding that dates would look too heavy and prominent on the page if written between the lines of an exercise book to the same height as the letters b, d, l etc. As in Thomson's illustration, I don't let 2 or 4 rise above the x-height. Old-style numerals mean that a date like 1962 is a pleasure to write and to look at (try it, exaggerating the descender and ascender). I still do some arithmetic at work on paper, and the style isn't in the least inconvenient.

 

For similar reasons, careful typographers will often set acronyms in small caps, to achieve visual balance and evenness, and I think that as I became aware of this my own handwritten capitals became shorter than my letters with tall ascenders.

 

Minuscule g (pp.54-55). Gourdie says "the descender may be looped but should not be continued as a ligature." I do this when writing at speed, even to the top of a following h, but I find in doing so I lift the pen so it leaves only the faintest join. Which perhaps means I know it's wrong! Thomson notes "the worst fault in g is a tail wh[ich] is too weak." Sound advice.

 

Minuscule s (p.60). For me, the counter (whitespace) of s should be slightly larger at the bottom than at the top (though not to the extent of the illustrated fault), so a rotationally symmetrical s looks unbalanced.

 

It's interesting for me to figure out the slop that's crept into my own hand. The letter p, for instance, I write in a single stroke (because I've had to write at speed for years), which means it takes more care to form well before it becomes automatic. I've never been happy joining oo, ending up doing what Gourdie would call a drooping ligature and Thomson calls a "dipped join."

 

Thanks again, zerobuttons: this will repay careful study.

[Sturdygurdy]

Thank you so much for posting these scans! Frank Allan Thomson was my father, a great admirer of Arrighi and who enjoyed a long friendship with Alfred Fairbank. Neither of them liked Gourdie much, as I recall, and this may have flavoured my father's copious annotations somewhat. To answer katim, he did not return the book to Gourdie; the notes were actually probably intended for my benefit, as he had made it a purpose in his life to teach me proper handwriting. Generally speaking, he compulsively made notes in books, magazines, and even the newspaper. Non bitchy, sed pedantic.

 

My sister and I very regretfully sold his collection of books on handwriting some years after his death in 1992, so seeing this again has made my day.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Sturdygurdy

[Lennart Wennberg]

Thank you so much for posting these scans! Frank Allan Thomson was my father, a great admirer of Arrighi and who enjoyed a long friendship with Alfred Fairbank. Neither of them liked Gourdie much, as I recall, and this may have flavoured my father's copious annotations somewhat.

 

I had the gut-feeling that Mr Fairbank and Mr Gourdie weren't the closest of friends. I expressed my feelings/observations in this thread:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/211344-alfred-fairbank-tom-gourdie/page__p__2202384__hl__gourdie__fromsearch__1&do=findComment&comment=2202384

[Sturdygurdy]

I had the gut-feeling that Mr Fairbank and Mr Gourdie weren't the closest of friends. I expressed my feelings/observations in this thread:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php?/topic/211344-alfred-fairbank-tom-gourdie/page__p__2202384__hl__gourdie__fromsearch__1&do=findComment&comment=2202384

Good call!

[Lennart Wennberg]

Thank you so much for posting these scans! Frank Allan Thomson was my father, a great admirer of Arrighi and who enjoyed a long friendship with Alfred Fairbank. Neither of them liked Gourdie much, as I recall, and this may have flavoured my father's copious annotations somewhat. To answer katim, he did not return the book to Gourdie; the notes were actually probably intended for my benefit, as he had made it a purpose in his life to teach me proper handwriting. Generally speaking, he compulsively made notes in books, magazines, and even the newspaper. Non bitchy, sed pedantic.

 

My sister and I very regretfully sold his collection of books on handwriting some years after his death in 1992, so seeing this again has made my day.

 

 

Thank you Sturdygurdy!

 

You have shared with us information about your Father in a field where we others only can speculate.

 

Please stay with us in our humble forum, for fans of the handwritten word.!

 

Lennart

[Sturdygurdy]

 

Please stay with us in our humble forum, for fans of the handwritten word.

Thanks, Lennart! I certainly intend to stick around. In my attic, I have a boxful of letters between my father and Alfred Fairbank, and also Arthur Osley; when I have time I'll bring it down and scan a few, I think the users of this forum might like them.

[HDoug]

Thanks, Lennart! I certainly intend to stick around. In my attic, I have a boxful of letters between my father and Alfred Fairbank, and also Arthur Osley; when I have time I'll bring it down and scan a few, I think the users of this forum might like them.

 

That seems almost too much to even hope for. Meaning, that would really be wonderful to see. Most of my interest in italic handwriting comes from the books of Alfred Fairbank, and seeing his actual handwriting would really be a treat.

 

Doug