Spotted in an antiques shop this morning and had to take a photo. You can still buy Quink ink although this looks like a fairly old pack to me. It's an age thing I suppose. The older we are, the more memory triggers we acquire. I associate Quink with school, homework, fountain pens, dropped pens sticking into a wooden floor, blotting paper and inky fingers.
I'm not so sure about the inky fingers though. I did have inky fingers after using my fountain pen, but inky fingers were strongly associated with boyhood stories too. Richmal Crompton's William Brown always had inky fingers whenever he made any attempt to use a pen.
Strangely enough, swots didn't have inky fingers which ought to be the wrong way round. We'd expect swots to do lots of writing and homework, so all that pen work ought to have given them particularly inky fingers. Maybe swots had special fountain pens which didn't leak.
14 comments:
It's an age thing I suppose"
Well I remember it, so you must be right!
Inkwell and pen I remember, curved end of the nib fitted on. Wooden double desk.
I use a fountain pen, but the cartridge type. I remember the ink bottles from years ago, but don't think I ever used one. How did you fill the pen? Dip in the nib and squeeze it?
I still use a fountain pen with blue-black Quink to write 'proper' as you can't beat it for neat handwriting, although my arthritis does spoil the effect somewhat.
@ Bucko - I (vaguely) remember 2 methods: 1) some fountain pens had a lever which worked a sort of pump, and drew fresh ink into a chamber, and 2) others had a rubber bladder which you first squeezed, and then released with the nib immersed in ink. Don't regard this as gospel - old age does funny (and not so funny) things to your memory...
Ok, I thought some of you guys were older than me, but I remember my pen being a wooden shaft with a nib slid on the end. You filled it by dipping it in the inkwell, scraped the excess off on the side of the inkwell, then proceeded to splatter it all over your work. And being a "lefty" my little finger and side of my hand then erased everything I had previously written.
I am 66 btw. Maybe my school was just poor?
Microdave. The side lever on a pen just squeezed a strip of metal against a long rubber reservoir, and when released ink was sucked into the reservoir.
At primary school the advance to ink from pencil was a significant event but it was not to fountain pens. First it was a bare wooden rod, the length and diameter of a new pencil, with a clip at one end which held a replaceable blued steel nib. The nib was loaded by dipping into a small ceramic ink well which was a perfect fit in a circular recess at the far right corner (We were all meant to be right handed.If you wrote left handed the nib point would dig into the paper.) of the desk, at the end of a semi circular channel in which pencils rested to stop them rolling down the desk. Every four or five words the nib needed a fresh dip in the ink.
The ink came in a large stoneware flask, similar to a scrumpy jar as I discovered in later years. A trusted pupil was delegated to keep the inkwells full.
A pen with fitted a nib was a fearsome dart and nibs had a short life.
A half sucked boiled sweet was an effective sabotage for the inkwell. Dropped into the ink it took a day or two to dissolve resulting in sticky goo.
It was in secondary school that we graduated to a fountain pen. For most pupils this was a Platignum, which despite being cheap functioned very well. Made in Stevenage.
Funny how a post and comments bring it all back.
I can remember, and mentally picture, Elwyn's wooden 'dip in' ink pens, I don't remember using one even though I'm a bit older but I expect we did for me to remember them. I do remember that if our writing was judged suitably readable we were allowed to use a ball point pen - hideous school supplied blue plastic things with a rubberised bulbous fat section where you held it. By secondary school we had fountain pens, either lever/bladder filled or cartridge type and used ball points for 'rough' work and notes, but we supplied our own. There was a bottle of Quink around here recently, probably as old as the one in that AH's pic.
Chalk: we used chalk on slates and later pencils on paper. Why did everyone use HB pencils when B or 2B are so much better?
Later yet the wood-and-nib pens and then fountain pens. I have a vague memory of a birthday present that let me move from lever-action refilling to cartridge refilling. I think I moved over to biros for university lecture notes (not finally discarded until I retired) but I suspect I used my Parker cartridge pen in exams. It's long gone, having mysteriously developed a crack which took me back to the inky fingers stage.
I remember that my father used Swan pens.
Who can forget "They come as a boon and a blessing to men, the Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley pen"?
Yes, Quink. and primary school, learning to write (proper joined-up writing) with a steel nib in a wooden holder dipped into the inkwell set in the desk.
I still use a fountain pen for things like cards, letters etc., and always watered down the ink a little, as I never liked the dark blue, or black...
There's still a bottle of Quink upstairs but my Scheaffer takes cartridges! I have been known to syringe new stuff into an empty cartridge a few times too!
My first fountain pen was a Platignum, and it smudged ink everywhere too! But a favourite technical drawing pen I love to use is a Graphos, and you really can get some amazing effects with all those nibs! The Windsor and Newton Indian Ink is right here too...
I'm the same age as Elwyn, and vividly remember those very basic wooden pens. We were given them by the school to learn how to write with a nib and ink, and shortly after most pupils' parents bought them a proper fountain pen.
Those with some kind of ink-reservoir had wonderful potential for guerilla vandalism. A quick flick of the pen as you passed the target, or for a really spectacular corridor incident you could stamp on a full ink-cartridge and run off.
There's a bang up to date inky fingers syndrome - happened to me this week, trying to put right a fault in my partner's ink jet printer. I used to work in industrial inkjet and inky fingers (and also shirts) were a constant occupational hazard amongst the engineers and technicians.
Blimey that stirred up some memories. I remember the wooden pens with a steel nib which was dipped into the inkwell. Also various types of fountain pen such as the lever type which pressed on the ink bulb when lifted so more ink could be sucked up. Also one with a syringe type of ink reservoir where the ink was sucked up by the syringe. Cartridges came later as I remember the history of it.
I did hear that if an inkwell was filled with bread soaked in milk just before the summer holiday, there would be a lovely crop of fungus by the end of the holiday. Never tried it though.
Post a Comment