What your signature says about you

I have a photograph of Queen Elizabeth II and her parents on the wall of my bathroom, not out of any lack of respect but because the gloom there prevents it fading. It is signed Albert, with an odd droop forward of the bar of the T to join a single flourish beneath, and Elizabeth in a familiar hand. This is not the late Queen’s signature, though, for it was made in 1927, when Princess Elizabeth was hardly into talking, let alone signing.

Queen Elizabeth, whom we still think of as the Queen Mother, was a simple royal duchess then. Yet one can’t help thinking that in choosing her style of italic signature she had taken note of that of her namesake: the first Queen Elizabeth.

Another Elizabeth, Liz Truss, got some stick for the signature on the letter to Kwasi Kwarteng about his sacking. Actually, sticks have been a-thrashing wildly, even when she did nothing wrong, as with the inclusion of his name at bottom left.