Pan And Ink

 

Prompted by these long-unused fountain pens in my desk, I tried to think back to when I last used pen and ink; not biro, felt tip, gel pen, or any of the other variations, but proper liquid ink. It must have been around 1987. 

At primary school we only used pencil. Every classroom had a large “industrial” sharpener fixed to a desk near the front, with pencils at the ready. I seem to remember pencil monitors responsible for sharpening the pencils. But, at some point during junior school, around the age of 10, we were allowed liquid ink: by then no longer nib pens dipped in inkwells, but fountain pens. I do still have my Dad’s old inkwell, though, glass and heavy, almost impossible to knock over, encrusted with decades of dried ink.  

We used mainly blue or boring blue-black ink, permanent or washable, Stephens or Quink. I liked Stephens Radiant Blue, and once had a bottle of red. Brilliant blue light shone through the bottles, like sunlight through a prism. It was as if you could touch, feel, taste, and hear it. 

We definitely had fountain pens by secondary school. All my school notes, work, year-end examinations, Ordinary and Advanced Levels, as well as personal letters and everything else, were in fountain pen. Biro was forbidden at school without saying: horrible, messy, blotchy things. Useful paraphernalia included blotting paper to ensure the ink was dry before turning the page. 

In accountancy in the 1970s, our working papers (the equivalent of hand-written spreadsheets), drafts for typing, year end ledgers, and so on, were still in fountain pen. We only used biro to tick (check) things off, usually in red and green in alternating years. Then, again, a few years later, taking Advanced Level examinations for a second time, my notes and exams were all in fountain pen. It continued through university: one clever chap, who got a First, fascinated us by the way he worked his fountain pen through exams, steadily without a break. For me, it was fountain pen again through my Masters course and early work as a university research assistant. I remember having to pay to have my dissertation typed. 

What changed is that biros gradually improved, and other types of pens became available. From about 1983, I became an early user of electronic text. We had a BBC Micro Computer with a WordWise chip, and a dot matrix printer. Dot matrix was low quality, but the software enabled you to write straight into a computer. Then, two years later, I got a job in a computing department with a good quality printer. You printed into the system from your office, then walked down the corridor to collect the output.  

I bought a decent printer to use at home. The regulations for my thesis stated that it must be typed, but I used my home printer anyway, and got away with it. By then, it was near impossible to tell the difference. I believe I continued to write personal letters in pen and ink until I lost touch with Brendan in Tanzania, mentioned in previous posts, and that would have been it. I probably used biro after that. 

Most of us as school had Platignum fountain pens, not the more expensive Parker, who still emphasise quality (“a free Parker Pen when you take out our life insurance policy”), but I tend to press so hard I wear them out just as quick as any other. I must have worn through 30 fountain pens in my time. 

The earliest had a small lever on the side, which you opened, dipped the nib in ink, and closed again to suck up ink. The later ones pictured are all filled by unscrewing the barrel. The yellow one is squeezed by hand. It was the last of four cheap ones from the stationer W. H. Smith’s I wore out while re-sitting my ‘A’ Levels, and being the kind of obsessive I am, I wrote the date of March, 1977, inside. That cheerful shade of yellow must have been worth at least an extra 5%, and the radiant blue another 5%. 

The silver one is a Parker Pen that works the same way, but better quality. It may have been my dad’s. The red one is a Sheaffer cartridge pen. These were refilled by replacing a disposable plastic ink cartridge, which was more expensive but much less messy. They were available from maybe 1970, and most of my last pens were of that kind. 

I imagine most followers will remember fountain pens well, but those under 50 might find them as strange and archaic as quill pens and inkwells. My daughter was not really sure what a fountain pen is. Things have changed very quickly.