CHILDHOOD PENS

I always got new pens at Christmas. It was like a new dawn of writing implements every December to see me through the coming year of scribblings.

Sometimes the pens were wrapped up in Christmas paper and sometimes they came as they were. Sometimes they were jammed into my Christmas stocking. However they arrived, I always welcomed them with open fingers. They were my best pens.

The pens themselves were essentially of four types:

Posh pens - these were usually silver metal ball-points, which had a neat pocket clip usually in the shape of an arrow. More often than not they came in a shiny blue or black box and were made by Parker. The favored present from Aunties and Uncles. Parker pens were reserved for writing special letters to important people like Santa Claus, Aunties and Uncles thanking them for the pen and very occasionally the Queen. Every now and then these pens were upgraded to the impossibly posh fountain pen. With their magazines of fiddlesome ink cartridges and even worse, a whole bottle of Steadtler ink, they remained pristine for years due to an extreme lack of use. No-one was posh enough to warrant being written to with what was in effect a quill.

Big multi-coloured pens - these were thick missile -shaped plastic pens stuffed with a rainbow of ink cartridges. To change colour you pressed one of the coloured spring-loaded catches which ran round the top of the pen like a spirits bar. The very stuff of a Sixties childhood, one of these pens and a Silverline drawing book could captivate children for days and nights on end. I can well imagine that somewhere along the line they changed the course of history.

Calligraphy pens - these were more arty than posh and usually given as prezzies by anyone in the family interested in art. I had several boxed sets during the Sixties and Seventies and using every beautiful nib available I practised my flourishes and swirls as vulnerably as Bede himself and nearly drowned in a lake of ink. I would be interested to know how many children who had sets like this went on to become 1. sign-writers 2. comic letterers 3. forgers.

Last but not least we have that most modern of pens [well, they were in the Sixties], Felt pens. These free-flowing rods of colour were a complete revelation and became the defining medium for armchair illustrators like me. Forget waxy crayons or dusty chalks, felt pens were the real deal and must have been invented by kids. They came in all shapes and sizes but my personal faves were huge sets of millions of colours. They came in tins as big as tables and were never far from my side. It is possible that felt pens made us who we are today.

What are your memories of childhood pens readers?