Fountain pens of our youth keep memories inked

DOES the fountain pen trump the typewriter, in terms of correspondence?

Hard to tell, not least because it’s so rare to get either in the age of the email.

But having praised Mrs Cove for sending me a typewritten letter via the Old White Bear, I must now take my hat off to Mrs Joan Lumsden.

This self-confessed “old fashioned lass who still gets out her fountain pen” has written to me from down the Aire Valley, in West Yorkshire.

Mrs Lumsden originally hails from the

Kingdom of Fife, once the heart of the Scottish coalfield.

“I remember as a toddler, the smell of the steam train bearing the coal away from the pit.

“My paternal grandfather was a fireman and we lived in a Coal Board house.” Her dad was a grocer in the Co-op – “the only similarity I have with the late Mrs T” – and her mum worked in a linen factory.

She tells me of her life with Bradford lad Stewart, who loved his flat cap and a pint of beer, but whom she sadly lost two years ago.

I still have two fountain pens, Joan. They don’t get much use, but they’re both in working order.

One is an expensive Montblanc, which belonged to my dear friend, the late

John Rawlings. The other, a Cross, was a parting gift from the editor of the New Statesman magazine after writing a Westminster gossip column for five years.

I dipped my pen in vitriol then, nowadays it’s black ink.

“I do so enjoy ‘Keep calm... we can beat this.’ Keep sharing the limelight too, as I can tell you do. Cherish every moment”, concludes Joan.

I do my best, old-fashioned lass, and thank you for sharing your memories.