Black and grey photograph of the words never give up in handwritten script tattooed along a finger, held by another hand.

Never give up lettering on a finger

Lettering · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey photograph of a finger with the words never give up tattooed along its length in a loose, handwritten script. The lettering is solid black with uneven, slightly wobbly strokes, and the ink appears crisp against the skin. Another hand with dark painted nails holds the finger against a ribbed, pale fabric, and the composition is tightly framed on the tattoo.

Lettering Hand Handwritten text Quote

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The Palais on Stanhope Road smelled of Brylcreem and wet wool the night Dennis Fairweather tried to teach me the quickstep with his bad knee. I was seventeen and had been sent to fetch the ticket money, not to dance, so I stood by the cloakroom hatch with a biscuit tin of shillings and listened to him counting steps under his breath.

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Every Thursday he wrote the same words on the edge of his partner's dance card, in pencil pressed so hard it dented the board. Vera had lost the use of her right side in March and could no longer hold the card herself, so Dennis did it for her, letter by letter: never give up. The letters leaned and wobbled the way a man's writing does when he grips the pencil too tightly, and Vera would tap the words with her good hand before the band struck up.

When the band packed up that autumn, Dennis had gone into the infirmary with his own heart playing up. I found him propped by the window, practising the box step on the blanket with two fingers. He held out the card and said, hold this for me, love, my hand's gone to pieces, and I took it from him and carried it home through the rain without once looking at the puddles.

Last month I had his handwriting copied onto the side of my own finger at a parlour off the seafront. The artist traced each wobble with a patience I didn't expect from someone so young, and afterwards I folded the old card into my coat pocket, soft as cloth now, and went dancing alone in the empty hall on Thursday, one finger resting on the letters.