Over fifty years ago I saved up £6.30, or six guineas as it then was, for my very first proper fountain pen. It was the Parker 51, which some claim to have been the best pen ever made. I have always regarded it as the best pen I have ever owned and, frankly, I cannot remember how we parted ways.
Perhaps I was hard up and sold it, I just can’t recollect. Maybe I lost it, ditto. But last weekend I found the exact replica of my first Parker on a fountain-pen stall in the Portobello Road. It was like meeting an old beau from one’s youth and I snapped it up on the spot.
No sooner had I brought the prodigal pen home than I happened across Nifty the Notebook Blogger and his story of 83-year-old Mr. Gadd of Fontwell Magna in Dorset. While I have no reason to suppose Mr G. wrote his 21,000-page journal with a Parker 51 (although it would have undoubtedly have been up to the task), the story reminded me of the need to keep on writing. I made a new resolution on the spot.
Read the full story here
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