Pen and Ink.
Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2012 2:39 pm
Does anyone remember when we used to write with a dip pen; a wooden handle with a ferrule and a steel nib to dip in ink.
The last year that I remember using a dip pen at school was in 1958. In 1959 we were allowed to use a ballpoint " biro ". If our handwriting deteriorated , the teacher would threaten to make us go back to the dip pens until our writing conformed to the required " copperplate " long hand script.
This writing process of dip pens had hardly changed since the scribes of the Pharoahs wrote on papyrus sheets some 3.000 years BC.
Our school pen was just a plain wooden handled pen and nib. The ink was in a small ceramic cup set in a recess on the wooden desk top. Clever boys had an old chocolate box with a hole cut in the lid, and this made an unspillable container for their own private ink bottle bought from the shop. Really really cool boys had a fountain pen, but that was a very rare possession.
I had to be content with the school pen and school issue ink.
School issue ink was made from a dark blue powder mixed with water in a stone bottle and each boy's ration of ink was delivered to the desk-top ink well by a favoured student; the ink monitor. I coveted that role but was never chosen. I could only be relied upon to be an idiot.
An essential accompaniment to the writing tool was blotting paper, just unsized paper. This was used for mopping up drops of ink that fell onto your page if you weren't careful with the fully charged nib. Also the blotter was for drying the writing quickly, so you didn't get wet ink all over your hands while leaning on the paper to write.
I remember one day, I must have been out of blotting paper, I was a bit grubby from tearing around in the playground and in class I got ink on my hands, arms and face. As I was leaving the classroom at the end of the day, the teacher spotted me; glaring in disgust he said just two words " prize pig ".
Not only school children used dip pens.
I bought a dip pen from an art shop a few years ago and I saw that it had " Commonwealth Bank of Australia " engraved on the metal ferrule. Amazing ! A relic of the past still around for sale in the late 20th Century.
Dave Emo has told me how he used to draw commercial illustrations and cartoons for magazines and papers, all done with a dip pen, sable brush and India ink.
Only just before Christmas, I bought a dip pen from an art show. It has a beautifully turned handle made from Kauri and a gold plated nib which is flexible enough to do what our teachers required in the correct long hand at school; light upward strokes and firm downward strokes.
We couldn't possibly have imagined digital word processors and graphics tablets in those far off days.
The last year that I remember using a dip pen at school was in 1958. In 1959 we were allowed to use a ballpoint " biro ". If our handwriting deteriorated , the teacher would threaten to make us go back to the dip pens until our writing conformed to the required " copperplate " long hand script.
This writing process of dip pens had hardly changed since the scribes of the Pharoahs wrote on papyrus sheets some 3.000 years BC.
Our school pen was just a plain wooden handled pen and nib. The ink was in a small ceramic cup set in a recess on the wooden desk top. Clever boys had an old chocolate box with a hole cut in the lid, and this made an unspillable container for their own private ink bottle bought from the shop. Really really cool boys had a fountain pen, but that was a very rare possession.
I had to be content with the school pen and school issue ink.
School issue ink was made from a dark blue powder mixed with water in a stone bottle and each boy's ration of ink was delivered to the desk-top ink well by a favoured student; the ink monitor. I coveted that role but was never chosen. I could only be relied upon to be an idiot.
An essential accompaniment to the writing tool was blotting paper, just unsized paper. This was used for mopping up drops of ink that fell onto your page if you weren't careful with the fully charged nib. Also the blotter was for drying the writing quickly, so you didn't get wet ink all over your hands while leaning on the paper to write.
I remember one day, I must have been out of blotting paper, I was a bit grubby from tearing around in the playground and in class I got ink on my hands, arms and face. As I was leaving the classroom at the end of the day, the teacher spotted me; glaring in disgust he said just two words " prize pig ".
Not only school children used dip pens.
I bought a dip pen from an art shop a few years ago and I saw that it had " Commonwealth Bank of Australia " engraved on the metal ferrule. Amazing ! A relic of the past still around for sale in the late 20th Century.
Dave Emo has told me how he used to draw commercial illustrations and cartoons for magazines and papers, all done with a dip pen, sable brush and India ink.
Only just before Christmas, I bought a dip pen from an art show. It has a beautifully turned handle made from Kauri and a gold plated nib which is flexible enough to do what our teachers required in the correct long hand at school; light upward strokes and firm downward strokes.
We couldn't possibly have imagined digital word processors and graphics tablets in those far off days.