General Chat

Anyone bothers to use a fountain pen anymore?

When I was at school we had writing lessons - ink monitors gave out the ink wells and if you didn't own your own pen, then the school loaned you one.

:-)

I remember using fountains pens at school. What a mess! :-D

Not many people write much at all these days. And using a ballpoint pen is so much easier than a fountain pen. :-)

Solicitors do and so does OH if he has to sign a legal document.

When I was at school biros were banned, as they ruined your handwriting. Juniors used dip-in pens and seniors were allowed to use fountain pens.

I had a Conway Stewart "Dinky", which I still have! :-) :-)

I was watching the first episode of the Stuarts last night and they showed a document where one of the Stuarts was practising his letters - so do you remember copying those ffffffffffff and sssssss and ccccccc either in pen or pencil. I don't think either of my kids ( either side of 30) ever did that.

I also remember having to prove my writing was good enough before I was allowed to use a fountain pen.

Yes, I remember pages and pages of individual letters....they had to be uniform in width, length etc., In fact to start with we had to use 2 spaces and 3 lines to help.

... To diversify slightly.... does anyone remember 'silent reading' being part of the curriculum? how on earth did they mark us on that one? :-S

Even supposing you wanted to use a fountain pen, can you still buy ink?
I well remember being in trouble at school for favouring black or violet. Ordinary blue was far too common.
Even now I use a black ballpoint rather than a blue one.

Yes Graham, I know lots of people who went home with blotches on there shirts - girls included!!
AndysMum... Thanks for reminding me of the name of my first 'own' pen ... mine was like a red marbled colour. My next was a Schaeffer - light green.
I used to love pens and going to the stationers - spent lots of time 'just looking'

:-)

Hi Wisechild... I bought some a couple of years back - I was trying my hand at caligraphy.
When I was at school it was the 'in' thing to have a bottle of Turquiose colour.
:-)

Yes, Andysmum, you reminded me of my 'Osmiroid' pen I had at school. It was a marble effect emerald green.

OH used to sign demands at work with a posh dark maroon fountain pen before he retired a few years ago.

I use one.

My first pen was a green marbled Conway Stewart dinky. My second and final fountain pen which I have here in front of me (but not been used for years) is a small Parker, almost as small as the C S Dinky I have had it since the late 50s I am sure.

I still use one occasionally.

My OH has kept a diary for past 53 yrs and always writes with a Fountain Pen.

Carol

remember my Dad made me a desk foir Christmas one year - it had inkwells with red ink in one and purple in the other - Quink ink

Had my first biro when my Dad came home from sea - he bought it in Galveston

I have a lovely gold Messenger fountain pen right in front of me as I type - won it in a national letter writing competition in the Good Housekeeping magaizine many moons ago

in school we used ink and unscrupulopus little boys used to dip the ends of plaits of the girl sitting in front of them into ink wells - what a mess :-D :-D :-D

OH was lefthanded and used to get left handed nibs from the "Everything left handed" shop in Beak Street in London

I use one still, mainly for cards and the odd letter - opting for the 'quicky' pens for shopping lists etc., but somehow my writing is better when using the fountain pen.
Perhaps its because we take our time a little more? Mistakes were hard to put right when using ink. How many of you tried, at school, by rubbing with your finger and ended up with little paper worms... leading to a gaping hole?
:-0

Hi Ann...
I'm lefthanded too! I don't know if there was a left-handed shop all those years ago but I compensated by sloping my pen somehow. I know my teachers were surprised that my writing leaned slightly to the right. :-)

My Dad took me to the Stationers to buy me my first pen, a green marbled Conway Stewart.

I was enchanted by the shop. No longer there, sadly.

It was a family run business. A man, his wife and his sister. They were all elderly [to me anyway].

It was an oak pannelled shop. With a huge glass counter, and an old fashioned till.

Behind the counter was drawers that each held its own delights. Only one of each item was on show, then the owners went to a drawer to serve you what you wanted. Paper was sold in single sheets, from a great chest in the corner of the shop, it was truly wonderful.

For years I went there for books, inks, paints, you name it, you could get it there.

And the patience of these three lovely people, even a two-penny rubber was wrapped lovelingly in tissue paper!

Thanks for this thread, I have not thought about this shop for a long, long time. But it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

<3

In primary school we gradually progressed from pencil to dip-in pen, but only when teachers thought we would be sufficiently careful.
Ink monitors were responsible for filling our inkwells and I think they may have helped to mix the ink from a powder. Towards the end of term this mixture always got a bit weaker and the ink paler, as it had to last until the holidays.
( I've seen a few too many PRs where the vicar was too thrifty too )

We wrote in a cursive style, with many loops and were never allowed to leave empty lines at the bottom of a page. They had to be filled with a row of letters to form a pattern
eg. mmmmm ...0r ...uuuuuuu...or...cccccc.....etc.

In secondary school we had handwriting lessons and were expected to write an Itallic style. I think we could buy special Itallic nibs for our pens. I had an Osmiroid for school, bottle green if I recall correctly.
I do think fountain pens help with better formed writing, but I haven't used one for ages.
Perhaps I'll restart.......

Gwyn

Yes I use one,,,,,and have several,you can still buy the bottled Parker Quink ink in various colours.much better than cartridge refills.---Mind the nibs are expensive to replace,but you can pick old pens up at antique fairs or often carboots,then you can use the nib as most old Parker nibs are 14 ct gold.

Letters and the written word have played such an important part in history – ours and the world’s – but what will we leave for historians of the future to work on by way of contemporaneous evidence from great events?

Those days spent combing the National Archives for words written by history-makers themselves will give way to the soulless thoughts of a text message; no need for white gloves or careful handling when it’s just a download from a website in cyberspace.

Of course, the Net makes it all the more accessible but is that really the point? Even now and in a more personal context, wouldn’t you prefer a hand-written note or letter to a mere text or email? Aren’t words from a pen more interesting that those typed with one finger - as I do here right now?