Episode Transcript
Laura Edralin (00:03)
Welcome to the Life of Letters, a podcast where we explore the artistry, history and future of calligraphy, penmanship, handwriting and lettering. I'm your host, Laura Edrelin, a calligrapher based in London with a forgotten degree in archaeology and a curiosity for the stories behind the letters and beneath the ink. Through conversations with historians, artists, societies and stationary experts, I want to discover which of the forgotten letters?
Who are those pioneers of the pen and journey the world to join the dots between tradition and modern creativity?
Whether you're a seasoned calligrapher, a lover of beautiful handwriting, or simply someone fascinated by the evolution of letters, type and the written word, it's great to have you with me. So grab a cuppa, perhaps your favourite pen, settle in And let's dive into the life of letters.
Laura Edralin (00:56)
Before we begin this episode, I want to let you know in today's conversation, we discuss themes of suicide and violent behaviour. While we always approach these topics with care and sensitivity, I understand that they can be difficult to hear. If you need to, please take care of yourself, whether that means listening when you feel ready, skipping certain parts or reaching out for support. With that said, let's get into the episode.
Laura Edralin (01:22)
I am delighted to be speaking with Tracy Trussell, a leading expert graphologist with a passion for exploring the uniqueness of people through the prism of handwriting analysis. From just a few handwritten sentences, her work offers profound insight into people's personality and behaviour. Her areas of specialism are wide and her company HandWrite offers a bespoke service that shines a light on issues that confront us all every day. Tracy has analysed
thousands of people's handwriting and has been featured on TV shows such as this morning along with various radio shows and news publications. Too many to mention. And you are also an accredited tutor at the British Institute of Graphologists. So Tracy, a huge welcome to the Life of Letters podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Tracey Trussell (02:11)
Thank you so much for inviting me.
Laura Edralin (02:13)
It's lovely. So firstly, can you explain a little bit about what you do and what graphology is?
Tracey Trussell (02:21)
Yeah, so graphology is the study of handwriting for the purpose of uncovering personality and behavior. It finds its roots in ancient China at around 500 BC during the time of Confucius. It didn't just rock up in the 21st century.
Laura Edralin (02:40)
Hahaha
Tracey Trussell (02:41)
It's a top-draw system that's been tried and tested and finely honed for centuries by some eminent psychoanalysts worldwide. So what I'm doing as a full-time practicing graphologist is analyzing handwriting to reveal what it says about the writer.
Laura Edralin (03:03)
Okay, So there's probably people out there going, yes, that is a word that I kind of know.
But how does it work? How does graphology work?
Tracey Trussell (03:10)
Yes, good question. Well, do you remember back to a time when you were little and taught to write? It was probably in school and you were probably given a template to copy. The point is we were all taught to write exactly the same way.
And yet we've all developed our own style of handwriting to the extent where we can say that our handwriting is unique to us. Very few people's handwriting stays exactly the same. So what I'm doing is looking at all those deviations and quirks from the way we were taught to write. And these all add up to make the portrait of the writer. That's the premise of graphology. You could say... I'm looking at the unique profile of the writer's whole psychological profile expressed in symbols on paper.
Laura Edralin (04:08)
So it's a real deep dive, isn't it? Yeah, I think we forget. And actually as a calligrapher, I'm very aware of the difference between handwriting and calligraphy, but I'm more aware and very mindful of the intention that it takes for my brain to decide how much pressure and how angled I am with the pen and the paper and choosing all of the ways in which I'm about to...
Tracey Trussell (04:10)
Yes.
Laura Edralin (04:38)
...really draw letters on paper. But when it comes to handwriting, it's fast and furious and scribbly. you know, for the most part, mostly legible, but in some cases, obviously, you know, there's all sorts of stereotypes around doctors handwriting and things. But so that's fascinating. So there's a there's a big kind of psychological profiling that can happen just by looking at these sort of symbols on the page. But what does, so what does graphology kind of tell you as a graphologist?
Tracey Trussell (05:13)
Yeah, well, it can tell you about somebody's core character, their fluid behavior, their state of mind. actually, to be honest, it would be quicker and easier to tell you what it doesn't reveal. So I always need to know somebody's gender because we're looking at the soul, which tends to be non-discriminatory and unprejudiced. So I do need to know that. I need to know somebody's age because...
Laura Edralin (05:27)
Mmm.
Tracey Trussell (05:43)
...your mental age isn't necessarily the same as your maturity. I need to know if somebody's right or left handed and that's so I avoid some misinterpretations. For example, I'll give you an example. If you were left handed, it would be perfectly normal to have falling baselines. But if you're right handed, I would interpret that, that either the writer's...
Laura Edralin (05:48)
Hmm.
Tracey Trussell (06:13)
...utterly exhausted or they're actually feeling quite depressed. So I don't want to accuse a left-handed writer of being depressed when you know this is perfectly natural for them. There's a number of other misinterpretations that could occur so I need to know. I can guess but I would rather check in advance of analyzing. The only other thing is I don't do future predictions.
Laura Edralin (06:21)
Yes.
Yeah.
Tracey Trussell (06:40)
I don't have a crystal ball, I'm not a witch. It is system that is empirically learnt and applied.
Laura Edralin (06:49)
Okay, okay, that's really interesting. for those of us who, my mind immediately went, what's a fallen baseline? Do you mean where it slides, you sort of write down the page? Okay, so it's downwards. Okay, yes. Yeah, I can imagine that there's certain things that you must need to know to be able to build that foundation, otherwise you'll end up.
Tracey Trussell (07:00)
Yes, slow downwards, yes.
Laura Edralin (07:16)
...interpreting all sorts of different things, yeah absolutely. Yes.
Tracey Trussell (07:18)
But that's all I need to know. I don't need know anybody's background or absolutely nothing. And I'd rather not. I'd rather just have the handwriting to guide me.
Laura Edralin (07:25)
Okay. Yeah.
Mm, yeah, that's amazing. Okay, so you're commissioned regularly to analyze people's handwriting, but are the reasons that people kind of come to you, what do they sort of approach you for in terms of wanting this service?
Tracey Trussell (07:47)
Well, graphology helps people to feel seen and I guess it empowers them to make the right decisions going forwards. Graphology is actually a highly effective tool that shines a very practical light on many of the issues that confront us all every day. So clients usually come to me with a specific question. Should I hire them? Can I trust them? What motivates them?
What's my potential? Are we compatible? Should I marry them? At the most extreme end, I've had a client who wanted to know what her husband was thinking and feeling on the day he took his own life. My insights were not only revealing, but actually immensely comforting for her. And the full story of that is in my book, Lifelines, which maybe we'll talk about later.
Laura Edralin (08:43)
Okay, yeah.
there's so much more than we can have in this single chat, so I'm really pleased that there's a book that people can go and explore as well. So that's incredible, I guess there's two perspectives, probably more, but there's the person wanting to know about themselves, but then there's also people wanting to know about others and especially when somebody's no longer there. So how long does it take you to analyse someone's handwriting? Is that a bit of how long's a piece of string?
Tracey Trussell (09:12)
That's a good question. Usually I like to allow a couple of days for commissions. This gives me time to measure, assess and assimilate all the variables so that the writer metaphorically steps off the page. However, I can and often do on-the-spot snapshot analyses. But trying to extract the essence of personality in super quick time is not an easy thing.
It actually takes years of practice. mean, this time last year, I was hired by Mont Blanc to work in the penthouse in Harrods, analyzing all the personal shoppers' handwriting. It was great fun, but obviously it puts you under a lot of pressure to have to deliver very quick snapshots. So it was utterly exhausting. But I loved it. It's one of the most enjoyable things I think I've ever done.
Laura Edralin (10:07)
Wow.
Tracey Trussell (10:08)
I normally do in my office.
Laura Edralin (10:11)
Are there specific things that you would have had to take with you to Harrods?
Tracey Trussell (10:15)
Well, I would have had to have taken my magnifying glass because in truth, I don't use a magnifying glass in my studio. I scan a handwriting sample...
Laura Edralin (10:17)
Okay.
Tracey Trussell (10:28)
...and then I blow it up nice and big on my screen. And so if there's anything that I'm missing by eye, and actually without my contact lenses in, I've got extremely good eyesight to close up. When it's on the screen, nice and big and magnified, I can see every little detail that you might miss. So yes, when I'm doing an on the spot, I need a magnifying glass just in case.
Laura Edralin (10:41)
Wow.
Yeah.
Tracey Trussell (10:54)
But generally when you're limited on time you're looking at that overall picture and just trying to give one or two sentences that sums up the writer. You don't have the benefit of time to really take that deep dive and find out why somebody's behaving the way they are or all those other things that I do explore in the studio.
Laura Edralin (11:21)
Yeah.
So can you share any insights that have stood out to you over the years? Any unexpected results?
Tracey Trussell (11:29)
Yeah, I mean, to be fair, every commission is different and interesting in its own way. Let's see. So I did an analysis not long ago, just before Christmas, and it was very complex. The writer gave me two entirely different samples of handwriting. So different, they looked like they'd been penned by two different people. We were talking, we touched on calligraphy earlier. So...
One of the samples was more artificial. It was a beautiful stylised version which she had perfected and used for many years. You could say it was like an acquired mask for hiding her real self. The other sample was only extracted when I insisted she let herself go and write naturally and spontaneously without overthinking the process or worrying about legibility or the attractiveness of the penmanship. I think it took her about five pieces of paper to finally get there, but that was when I was able to reach the essence of the writer. She said afterwards that what I'd done was given her a key for a very old rusty lock that hadn't been opened in decades.
And while she recognized the person in my description as a vague outline of someone she once knew, it was going to take her some time to get that key to turn and unlock the real woman. She said that she felt like she was beginning to wake up and growing in stature. It had been like some complex deep therapy for her. Going back further in time.
I had a woman who came to me and asked if her husband was having an affair. I explained immediately that I couldn't possibly know the circumstances, but I could tell someone's propensity to behave in a certain way, given a certain set of circumstances. So she sent me her husband's handwriting and her own handwriting, and I could immediately see that he was a repressed homosexual.
Turns out he was having an affair with a man. Not an easy report for me to write, but probably much more difficult as you can imagine for her to read. Yeah, I had to couch my words incredibly sensitively. That one stayed with me for a long time afterwards.
There's one more story that I want to ...tell you about.
Laura Edralin (14:18)
Please.
Tracey Trussell (14:18)
...story that that stood out for me was the day someone sent me Dennis Nilsson's handwriting. It was a four-page missive that he'd penned during the latter part of his stay in prison. I should explain that Nilsson was jailed for life in 1983 for murdering 15 men in North London. He was known as the Muswell Hill murderer. His ritual involved inviting men, I believe they were often homeless men, but not always, to his flat where he strangled, bathed and dressed them and then he had them hanging around for company, often sleeping by their side until finally dismembering and storing their body parts. It's just awful. Floorboards or actually flushing them down the loo. So I wanted to learn about the rationale of a killer and if there would be any telltale clues in his handwriting.
There is much I can say about his handwriting and to be fair I've written the whole chapter again in my book but to sum up for the purposes of the podcast I'll just say that excess is always a source of negativity in graphology and here we clearly have an excess of everything so the writing is too compact and cramped together it slopes forwards far too steeply.
The indentations on the paper are much too heavy, resulting in some flooded areas and ink actually coming through on the back of the page. Letters and sometimes words are overly connected or joined up and so much more besides. All creating a negative portrait of an evil, unhinged man who couldn't control his violent impulses. And we'll leave it there.
Laura Edralin (16:20)
Wow.
Tracey Trussell (16:22)
I still can't take it out of that brown envelope, it's still in that protective covering. cannot bear. I said to you earlier about how I soak up a little bit like osmosis and it really did have an effect on me.
Laura Edralin (16:37)
And I guess what's interesting to me is you talking about it, can almost, you know, viscerally feel that energy that you must experience when, we see handwriting on bits of paper every day, but it's actually becoming really aware that someone has, at a time, put their hand on it, you know, the energy exchange between the person and the piece of paper must be incredibly intense when it is somebody who, you know possibly about through the news, but also you are aware on an even deeper level because you analyse handwriting so you are seeing even more things than you know the average person would.
Tracey Trussell (17:24)
...again, that whole psychological profile in symbols on the page.
Laura Edralin (17:27)
Right. Gosh, terrifying...this has turned into a horror episode.
That's fascinating. And even just that kind of insight into how you analyse in terms of, obviously you talked about the pressure on the paper but also how letters sit together, the angle of them. There's also the kind of carefully scripted versions, as you say, about the lady at the beginning. I think so many people, if they were getting their handwriting, I can attest to this, handwriting analyzed, you sit there going, right, how am I going to present this? You're sort of trying to put on maybe not a facade, but you want the best results, yeah.
Tracey Trussell (18:20)
And the best results are achieved through natural handwriting. Yes.
Laura Edralin (18:24)
And authenticity, right? Yeah.
Incredible. And very moving to hear how much that lady had kind of gained from your explanation and your analysis of her.
Tracey Trussell (18:41)
I'm literally following a formula and saying what I'm seeing, trying to couch my words carefully, but I can't know how that will be received. yeah, that particular occasion was quite powerful.
Laura Edralin (18:46)
Mm. Right, of course.
So with the Dennis Nielsen case, were you reporting that back to someone or was that just...
Tracey Trussell (19:04)
There.
I just happened to come across his handwriting. It's one of the few occasions where I did know a lot about the writer because obviously it had been in the news and he was already in prison and the sample was written while he was in prison in the latter...
Laura Edralin (19:09)
Okay.
Tracey Trussell (19:28)
...part of his stay, for want of a better word. And he passed away. So it was just more of a project for me. I was trying to learn about the violent indicators and if they would be apparent. I wanted to understand what, not just what he was made of, but what was going on in his head at the time that...
Laura Edralin (19:31)
Got you, Yeah,
Tracey Trussell (19:50)
...sort of encouraged him to behave in such a terrible way. They say you don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Well, obviously that's very extreme, but this is the thing with graphology, you are looking behind that closed door.
Laura Edralin (20:10)
Absolutely. Yeah, and you might not like what you see, I guess, in many cases. And I feel like our handwriting changes over time. So this was a real conscious thing when I was submitting my sample, because, you know, in one notebook, I might be a little bit more abstract or maybe a different pen, I kind of write slightly differently. But even back to, you know, when I was at primary school, secondary school, there's so much changing changes going on. So how does that work in terms of your analysis? Has it all fed into that sample? Can you kind of still see all of that there?
Tracey Trussell (20:49)
Yeah, well, so handwriting is basically the complex interaction between the eye, the brain, hence the central nervous system and the hand. The pen we hold is merely a conduit giving a direct line to what's going on inside your head at the time. This means that handwriting is very much a snapshot of the moment reflecting our core character and fluid behavior.
at the time of writing. So our handwriting will change quite often on a daily basis. And that's because we're not robots. We're human beings with feelings and emotions. Some days are better than others. Some days we're in a bit of a funk and others we may be on a bit of a high, depending on circumstances. And everything that happens in our lives on a daily basis is reflected in our handwriting.
The other thing is that handwriting is very much a pattern of our evolution. So in other words, everything that happens to us in life is reflected in our handwriting and you'll be able to see changes as you mature and evolve and simply because life happens. There was a time, for example, believe it or not, when I had beautiful handwriting.
I used to win competitions at school, but then I grew up and my character took shape and without going into all the gory details, all the things that happened to me over the years affected me and changed me. And hence my handwriting altered to such an extent that you'd never think it was the same writer. It's quite astonishing actually, real proof. So yeah.
Laura Edralin (22:37)
Wow, that's so interesting, I guess with anything, our characters change, when life happens, you collect all these energetic changes in terms of traumatic events and evidence of success and all sorts of things that go into your makeup and take you to where you are.
What's really interesting about that is with calligraphy, when I teach calligraphy, I think people are so hung up on the perfection and it is a slow process, so you're really, really paying attention.
Tracey Trussell (23:14)
Yes.
Laura Edralin (23:20)
and you don't want to get it wrong and you want to get it to look like the script that you're trying to do. But what I really encourage people to think about is actually every time they sit down to practice calligraphy, to maybe create something in calligraphy, it's this little time capsule...
Tracey Trussell (23:24)
Yes.
Laura Edralin (23:37)
...of that moment of them doing that, whatever the light was like, whatever room they were in, whatever surface they were writing on, whatever paper or pen or how fast their heart was beating, what had happened that morning, what they were thinking about happening later, And I think...
What's nice about that is exactly what you said. if you were to give that, if you were to write a handwritten letter or note and pass that to someone, that energy that we talked about earlier is encapsulated in that. That is somebody sitting down and spending that amount of time writing those words from their brain through the pen onto paper and then giving that to someone, which is incredible.
Tracey Trussell (24:18)
And actually that whole process that you've just described is very cathartic, isn't it? It's very mindful. For the purposes of what I do, I'm really trying to get more of a sort of, if you like, subconscious stream of handwriting because that gives me a lot more insight.
Laura Edralin (24:23)
Mmm, it is very mindful.
I love that idea that there's a sort of the subconscious side that you're looking at. then, you know, for us kind of artistically, there's there is that kind of performed way of writing in terms of kind of creating calligraphy or crafting letters.
Tracey Trussell (24:49)
Yeah.
Laura Edralin (25:03)
So how did you get into...where did you study? I feel like this could have come first, but fly us back a few years.
Tracey Trussell (25:09)
Well, I think like all the best things in life, it was completely unexpected. I like to think of it as a moment of serendipity. It was 23 years ago, actually days after my dad had passed away, and my mother asked me to go along with her to a day's graphology course for moral support. Basically I was blown away blown away by the insight. It seemed like a magic trick and after testing it out for about a year I decided that I wanted to learn how to do this magic trick too.
So I enrolled at the British Institute of Graphologists and began a three-year email correspondence course. It's like a degree course. I'm now teaching. I'm accredited tutor at the Institute and a mentor. actually most of my students are in Hong Kong.
It was interesting because on that day's graphology course 23 years ago, the lady who was running it, the president of the British Institute of Graphologists, she invited me to the front of the class to do a piece of handwriting, she came up to me in the lunch break and she said okay so what happened so I said excuse me so she said well your handwriting is tortured so I said well my dad died a couple of days ago and yeah we became very good friends very close.
I gave her quite a lot of samples over the process of a year, trying to test it out, trying to catch her out. And because when I do something, I pour everything into it and I'm not about to do that unless I know for absolute certainty that it works. So yeah, that's the background.
Laura Edralin (27:01)
Yeah. That's fascinating.
And you mentioned that a lot of your students are based in Hong Kong, which just made another question spring to mind. Are you able to analyze handwriting in different languages or with different alphabets?
Tracey Trussell (27:33)
Yes, yes.
So long as you've got the copy book, you need to know how old somebody is. need to know if they weren't born in the UK, you need to know where they were born.
So I was about to go off a detangent because one of the reasons why you need to know where somebody's born is because if they're Irish it's actually really common in the Irish language, I believe in their copy book, to write a capital R. I don't know if that's still the case but it certainly used to be that Irish people do a capital R but English copy model says that we don't do a capital R and actually the meaning for that if somebody does it is that it reveals somebody's got a bit of a temper so they can lose their temper in a blink. They'll get over it quite quickly and be lovely again but that's what it means. Sorry I've digressed.
Laura Edralin (28:32)
No, please, I was just quickly wondering whether I do that. I don't think I do.
Tracey Trussell (28:35)
No, you don't.
Yes, so going back to the copy model and different countries, I've got a folder, quite a large, fat folder full of all the copy book models through the years in England and abroad. And so long as you know where somebody was born, then you can see if they're French, they might have, you know, fuller, wider loops in the tall stems.
So then we're looking at universal symbols because of course Europe and the UK, you can follow the copy model but when you're looking at Chinese handwriting that's a whole different story, a whole different type of symbolism. You can still look at the layout, you can still look at the pressure, there are a number of things that you can still assess.
But yes, you can analyze foreign handwriting in a nutshell.
Laura Edralin (29:35)
Wow.
That's fantastic. I feel like you might glaze over this, but I was going to just pull it out. But you were given a prestigious award, right, in 2021?
Tracey Trussell (29:49)
Yes, yes
I was. Yeah, I'm sorry I'm not very good at blowing my own trumpet. I was given it was quite an important award in griffology for everything I've done for griffology with the book, with the students. I have to say and this is praise to my students as well.
Laura Edralin (29:57)
No, I'm going to blow it for you.
Tracey Trussell (30:16)
Every single year there is an award for the best student and so far every single year that's gone to one of my students so that's really lovely. You know we all work very hard so it's nice to have something back for that.
Laura Edralin (30:25)
Fantastic.
For sure, that recognition is incredible, especially if it's something that you've spent so long working on. And raising awareness of it through your book and promoting this area of study that not a huge amount of people might know about.
Tracey Trussell (30:43)
Yes. Yeah.
People don't realise actually how much study is involved in becoming a fully qualified graphologist. As I say, it is like doing a degree course, is hard work. There are a number of exams to pass and we cover the basics of how you follow the formula and measure and assess.
Laura Edralin (31:00)
Yeah.
Tracey Trussell (31:12)
Then the second year is all about the psychology, so it's the whys of behaviour. It's very clever to say what somebody's like and what they do, but why do they do it? It becomes more interesting. And then year three is how you can apply it in the practical world. So it's how you can go out and become a graphologist. And we look at various different aspects, children's handwriting, compatibility...
Laura Edralin (31:22)
Mmm.
Tracey Trussell (31:39)
...in the workplace as well as on a more intimate level, recruitment, various, you know, all the normal things in life. And then sometimes people choose to specialize. Whereas I actually like the diversity of you never know what's coming next. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Laura Edralin (31:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, keeping you very busy.
So I wanted to ask a question about technology. Obviously, with technology available, people are writing less and less, maybe opting to type instead. But what does this say about us? What do you feel is missing when we don't use our hands and put pen to paper?
Tracey Trussell (32:20)
Yeah, the elephant in the room. People are always complaining that they don't write anything anymore and that the handwriting is unpracticed and terrible. Usually when I mention I'm a graphologist or I ask them to write a brief sample so that I can analyse it for them. What they don't realise, and this really is what we were touching on earlier, is that graphology treasures...
Laura Edralin (32:22)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Trussell (32:48)
...champions those unique organic pen strokes on the page. But actually the more unpolished and the more natural the handwriting, the more insight can be revealed. So obviously you asked about me from an entirely selfish perspective. If people stopped writing, my work would become obsolete, which would be very sad. I absolutely love my work.
But actually more importantly is how opting to type instead of write will and already does impact on all of us. I have to say that having grandchildren now, the one thing that concerns me the most is that we take our handwriting skills for granted. We forget that children don't always have this benefit to build from.
Handwriting develops hand-eye coordination skills, language and dexterity. It basically shapes human development. It also engages the brain differently, so it helps and enhances memory. I mean, I don't know if you remember back to when you used to take exams at school, but we used to write notes, didn't we?
Laura Edralin (34:08)
Mmm.
Tracey Trussell (34:09)
It helps your memory, it helps to crystallise those facts and figures and thoughts in your mind. Your creativity, if you want to write a story, hand write it. You'll find you'll have all these creative thoughts and inspirations will come to you as you're writing. Your imagination, comprehension and understanding, problem solving, concentration.
Now that's a good one. It reduces distractions. When you're typing, you tend to get distracted and people go from one thing to another. They're like surfing the net. When you're writing, you are concentrating and focused in that moment. Independent, deep thinking skills, really important. And I have to say it prevents brain decay and Alzheimer's.
There have been tests, it has been proven. And well, as I mentioned earlier, the handmade word, when we write it, can be a very cathartic process. Having said all of that, in an ideal world, I truly believe that we would have a hybrid society. And then we would have access to all the skills in our literacy toolbox and we would use technology but we use it alongside handwritten notes and letters but I can't stress strongly enough if we lose the art of handwriting we really are going to lose a lot more than we realise and this is the last sentence in my book handwriting really is the shape of humanity.
Yeah, it's quite a thing.
Laura Edralin (36:02)
It's, yeah, it is, it is. And, you know, even researching lots of articles for this podcast, know, producer Heidi has found incredible, you know, reports about the statistics of how many children and people aren't handwriting anymore, aren't putting pen to paper. And actually, when they do come back to it, it's a shock to the system.
But it also impacts other things like you've said in terms of their own ability to read other handwriting. And it's just such a huge thing at the moment, such a hot topic. Certainly within the world of the life of letters, I think for any of us who do spend time crafting anything on paper. But I think as well, there's a lot of people who'll be listening who are just stationary lovers. They love a new notebook. They love that sense of getting a new pen. And I really hope that sense of excitement sort of keeps that momentum of people wanting to write and that's passed down through generations. yeah, handwriting being the shape of humanity is absolutely we should have just stopped there.
Tracey Trussell (37:16)
We're not going to leave it there though, are we?
Laura Edralin (37:18)
No, we're not. So we asked you to analyze two sets of handwriting for this episode. So we gave you one set of handwriting, which was mine and one that was Jane Austen's. Could you share a little bit about your thoughts on these two samples?
Tracey Trussell (37:39)
I can. So, your handwriting.
We're going to start by looking at the plain white expanse on the back of the paper. The lack of any indentations here at all tells me that the weight you've exerted on the page when you were writing your sample is light. You've got light pressure. What this tells us is how you use your energy. It means that all your ambitions revolve around your intellect, your headspace. In other words, you're mentally talented. Okay. That's the starting point.
Laura Edralin (38:17)
Okay.
Tracey Trussell (38:18)
Back over onto the written side and look at what we're meant to be looking at. So now we're going to try and pull out those strong feature movements. So the way the handwriting will inclines or slopes forwards. Now that means that you're highly expressive and articulate. You love to talk and you love to share your findings. You're proactive, you're collaborative, friendly, sociable and fairly passionate about your work.
Most of your letters are fairly broad, they're wide, stretched out. We're looking mostly at the letters N, and H and this rubber stamps the idea that you're unprejudiced and very open-minded. It also tells me that you're very personable when you're meeting somebody in an interpersonal situation.
The next standout feature for my money are the rising baselines. Now, we talked about falling baselines. Rising baselines is when they go up, okay, and they do rise. And this tells me that you've got an upbeat spirit, lots of enthusiasm, and basically you're a glass half full type of woman.
Laura Edralin (39:19)
Yep.
Tracey Trussell (39:32)
If you look at the word huge in line four, that G is what we call a complete loop and that means that you're someone who finishes what she started. Yeah, that's you in a nutshell.
Laura Edralin (39:42)
Yeah. Wow.
Tracey Trussell (39:47)
Jane. So Jane Austen's handwriting. Now the sample that I've been given to analyse actually beautifully illustrates how a handwriting analysis is merely a snapshot of the moment reflecting the writer's character and behaviour at the time of writing. I can't emphasise that more strongly.
So this particular sample that I've got happens to be her will. It's dated April 1817, which was just a few months before Austin died in the July. And therefore it may be different. It probably is different to other samples written in her prime. This means that Austin was probably, possibly not in the same state of health or frame of mind as she might have been previously.
Nevertheless, penmanship does shed some light into what may have happened. So once again these are the standout prominent clues. Austen wrote prolifically and compulsively with a constant need to excel. This is seen in the continuously joined up letters, the fast speed, the regularity and the way the handwriting also inclined strongly forwards like yours does, but hers even more so.
Realism is seen in the way the writing adheres strongly to the baselines. So it's really important for her to excel in whatever she's doing, to write prolifically and her work would be realistic. She's not prone to flights of fancy. Financial stability was key in her world. And I know that because the long down strokes beneath the baseline are the largest section.
Talking about the sections of the writing, which means that economic decisions, financial stability, everything pertaining to money and her comforts would have been important to her. However, the short D stems, the letter D, reveal independence.
Now here we've got very light pressure patterns combined with the strong right slant which reveal her romantic side and flirtatious nature and may tell us why Austen preferred not to make any lasting commitments.
However, the close word spacing is indicative of someone who craved company. So she would have loved having people around her, maybe family, I don't know, but she didn't necessarily want people to get too close. She liked to be independent. It's a mystery why Austin died so young, although judging by this piece of handwriting, she seems to have lost her will and was literally fading away on the paper.
We've got very, very light pressure, which is indicative of extreme fatigue. So basically her physical resources were depleted, she had nothing left in the tank and the long light T bars support the interpretation that she was deteriorating rapidly, really going downhill.
We've got flooded blotchy letters that show her obstinacy and festering emotions. And these are also actually an indication of physical illness. And perhaps it was a combination of factors that brought about her death. Whatever the truth, emotions would have been high and the dramatically rising baselines, they go up too much and again, we've got something that's happening excessively, which I said earlier is a source of negativity. And when it goes up too much, she's trying desperately hard to put a bright face on her predicament, regardless of how she's feeling inside at the time. But really, it's depression at this stage because it's done overly.
Laura Edralin (43:50)
Mm-hmm.
Tracey Trussell (43:51)
Finally, one of the T-bars loop back to the left This tells us someone who was dealing with feelings of regret and self-recrimination. We know that she was disappointed and dissatisfied with her achievements because we've got some pointed tips in the tall stems.
Perhaps she realised that she couldn't or wouldn't be able to fulfil all her dreams, which is actually quite sad. So she clearly wasn't happy with what she'd achieved.
Laura Edralin (44:17)
Hmm.
That's so sad, but so insightful. You know, it's incredible that, well, there's two things, isn't there? The one about me who you know very little of, and the one of somebody who is so well known and so analysed in terms of her work, her creative output, her successes. yeah, that's incredible, incredible.
Thank you so much. My gosh, I could just listen to you for hours. what's even better is that you have got this book. So Lifelines, can you tell us a little bit about the book before we close?
Tracey Trussell (45:01)
My pleasure. So my book contains a carefully curated collection of real life, deeply personal stories. We're exploring love, violence, trust, amongst other things. it's basically it's a celebration of how our ordinary, organic and often unpractised handwriting is not just a living form of expression and mode of communication, but also a relevant and poignant way of understanding ourselves and the people around us.
Laura Edralin (45:36)
incredible. I am so excited you were just somebody I had to speak to and I'm gonna go away and think about all the things you you told me about myself and all these incredible stories but I just think it's a fascinating area of study and something that if anybody listening is interested in finding out more, definitely look up at handright.co.uk, which is Tracy's website. They can connect with you on Instagram at Tracy Trussell. But we will pop all the links in today's episode, show notes, and we'll put some links to the images as well. So if people are listening to this audibly, they can have a look at the actual samples that you've analysed and make sure that everybody can see a little bit as well as hear.
Tracey Trussell (46:24)
Well, thank you so much for having me.
Laura Edralin (46:27)
It's been such a pleasure, such a pleasure.
Thank you, Tracy.
Tracey Trussell (46:32)
Thank you
Laura Edralin (46:35)
That's it for this episode of the Life of Letters. Thank you so much for listening and joining me on this exploration of the written word. Please subscribe, leave a review or share it with a fellow lettering enthusiast. And for all the details to connect with us on Instagram or drop us an email, check out the show notes. A huge thank you to my producer, Heidi Cullop, for ensuring this podcast reached your ears. And finally, to all the guests featured in this series. Go check them out...
