Farewell old friend!

[Mutley]

Britain's last ever typewriter has rolled off the assembly line at the Brother factory in Wales today.

Another piece of our history bites the dust.

I remember learning to type, though I cannot remember exactly which machine it was on.
There was the Corona, the Royal, the Underwood, the Remington and probably a few others. We had to type under a shelf which sat over the keyboard so we could learn to touch type without seeing the keys.

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs.

I wonder how many of our female ancestors were typists back in the early 1900s, I suspect quite a few?

[Lizzy9]

I never learned to type, wish I had as then my keyboard skills would be better. I'm OK with letters and numbers it's the other keys I struggle with. Practice does make perfect though; I'll never be perfect but I may eventually master the keyboard.

Sad isn't it, when something we were used to seeing daily is no longer useful, but hey that's progress.

[Nicolina]

Back in the 60's, I learned on an "Imperial 66" and another phrase we had to type was:
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

[Colin Rowledge]

Back in the 60's, I learned on an "Imperial 66" and another phrase we had to type was:
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.

When I worked for a newspaper c. 1959, I had to learn to type.

The course started with learning the letters -Q.W.E.R.T.Y. And then ;.L.K.J.H.. Then we progressed to a phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Never could handle that lot, so was transferred to being assistant to the reporter who covered court cases. He was fine in the morning, but after a liquid lunch, I had to take over the reporting. So I developed my own form of writing short-hand, but it wasn't Pitman [with squiggles] but resembles what we see today as text-messaging.

Wish I had patented the idea before being canned in 1961.

[susan-y]

Nicolina and Mutley..

I remember both those phrases. I only took one year of typing in high school as our school system was set up for either university bound or business bound and I was in the university bound. However it was felt we should have typing skills because we would certainly need them. Our individual keys were covered with caps so we couldn't see the letters and once we got on to 50? ( I think that's what it was) words a minute the covers came off......

Sue.

I would not have wanted to be the teacher having to cover all those typewriter keys in the classroom. It used to very disheartening hearing the "bing" as someone finished a line and you knew they were much faster than you.

[bamagirl]

I'm reminded of the Jerry Lewis routine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxm0TN5WDQI

Barb

[BayHorse]

I had typing lessons in 1981, alongside my A levels. Being a girl, I was made to. Touch-typing is useful when internetting in the dark, but I never needed that extra qualification.

The attic is full of archaic typewriters, too, with chewed-up ribbon. Wonder if they're worth anything?

[Hilda Woodley]

Did typing on a manual typewriter at school in the late 60's, during the course of the next 40 years my first job I had an electric Italian brand and I hated it, another job I broke three carriage returns on my electric typewriters (name escapes me now) then my boss got me a Golfball - WOW best electric typewriter ever for me because I type at 100 words a minute so it was easier to type than take down dictation, which I could not read back anyway, so generally my bosses used a dictaphone. I had the speed up so high my bosses always sounded like they were on helium - those were the days!!! Then came the computer, that's even better at responding to my fast fingers and I luv mine with a passion.

[Jan1954]

I have just had a look at the Typewriter Museum website (thank you, Mutley ) and found the one that I learned to type upon: the Remington Standard 10, built in 1913. It was obtained from a jumble sale when I was in my early teens and I never had a lesson, being self-taught.

As I also played the piano, I have been told that I type like a pianist......

[Nicolina]

that's reminded me of a trick we were taught. Imagine a piece of music playing and type to that. There were some strange tempos at times.