Susan Hill’s diary: The joy of fountain pens, the frustration of GP appointments

I bet you remember your first fountain pen. Mine was a Conway Stewart with marbled barrel, I had it for starting Big School and I used to polish it. That trusty pen lasted until A-levels finally broke its back and after that I slipped down the primrose ballpoint path to slovenly writing. I never used a typewriter — too noisy, so I hand-wrote my books until the almost-silent laptop seduced me down another slithery slope. But I still hand-write when I need to take my time — books can be divided, like Americans, into fast ones and slow ones. Recently, a friend told me he had gone back to a fountain pen and was finding it a joy when writing up his notes — he is not a novelist but an engineer, and appreciates good tools. I tried his pen and it felt like grasping the hand of a friend I hadn’t met for years.