Not reverting to type

I heard today that the last British typewriter rolled off the production line in a factory in Wales last Friday. For me it was one of those nostalgic moments, that made me reflect on the passing of time, on getting older and on how gradually parts of my personal history are disappearing from the recognisable world of your children and their peers. 

When I was growing up my Mum and Dad would regale me with stories of ration books, rag and bone men and imperial currency and I would look at them with a slightly puzzled countenance. Inside I was wondering why they were recounting dewy eyed stories about these items from a bygone era. Items that had simply become extinct through the natural force of evolution and the survival of the fittest. Now it is my turn to experience the loss of things that I took for granted as a child and recognise the onward march in the name of progress.

Of course the typewriter is not the first thing to disappear from my youth. Along with an endless array of old confectionery bars - Aztec, Amazin Raisin, Texan and Nutty to name but a few - things like the weekly local delivery man with his fizzy pop van (fancy a Cresta anyone?) died out many years ago. I have also shown my children - who each looked at me with a slightly puzzled countenance(!) - how a record player worked, partly so that they got a better understanding of what all these black plastic discs in the garage were actually for. I also tried them on the simple Age Test that I saw on Facebook the other week... and neither had a clue what the link could be.

The typewriter was a fixture in our dining room in the early seventies. When much younger, my Mum had  worked in the typing pools of a few different organisations. She kept her hand in by doing endless typing of Scout/Guide newsletters, meeting minutes and Dad's college work. Initially we had a 'portable' like the one above... with a heavy metal chassis and a plywood covered box lid for when it was stored. When my Dad bought her a much lighter machine in heavy duty plastic, the old Imperial (made in Leicester) became mine. 

I loved having my own typewriter which I used for typing up every book and play that I started writing (very few were ever finished). When 'writing' plays I would make full use of the split ribbon by typing in both red and black to highlight the lines of different characters. Typing was a laboriously slow  - one fingered activity with corrections being made in a using a circular rubber like this...

I can even remember, making full use of three pieces of carbon paper to 'print' four copies of my document simultaneously!!

So here I am effectively sending out multiple copies of my latest piece of writing... and my typing technique has added the use of a couple more fingers and a thumb over the intervening years. The keyboard responds to a much lighter touch than my old Imperial 'portable, and correcting mistakes is considerably easier. But something has possibly been lost in the richness of the overall experience, and as I sit here reminiscing and bathed in nostalgia for a bygone era, I wonder how many other parts of my youth are now museum pieces for my children to gaze upon quizzically.